Galilei’s mutter, archeoprimatology, and the ´blue´ monkeys of Thera: a comment on Pruetz and Greenlaw (2021)

Urbani, Bernardo; Youlatos, Dionisios; Binnberg, Julia

doi:10.1007/s10329-021-00944-4

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Papageorgiou & Birtacha, 2008; Phillips, 2008a, 2008b; Greenlaw, 2011; Pareja, 2015, 2017; Urbani & Youlatos, 2020a,b, 2022) has reported the existence of any Bronze Age frescoes depicting primates from mainland Greece, where the Mycenaean civilization flourished at that time. This is also the case of other works, such as Cline's (1991, 1995) study on the presence of Egyptian primatomorphic objects on Mycenaean sites, Wolfson's (2018) iconographical analysis on ‘monkeys and simianesque creatures’ from ancient Greece, and Urbani's (2021) recent comprehensive assessment on global archaeoprimatological patterns. Thus, there is a widespread assumption that monkeys were not depicted in Mycenaean frescoes, and, consequently, that the significance of this animal in Mycenaean culture was negligible (Lang, 1969: 104; Immerwahr, 1990: 108, 162, 165; Kontorli-Papadopoulou, 1996: 123; Crowley, 2021: 202).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 53%

“…These artefacts were imported from workshops under the rule of Amenhotep II (Cline, 1991). During the same period in New Kingdom Egypt, baboons were commonly represented in art (Pio, 2018; Dominy et al, 2020; Urbani & Youlatos, 2022): for instance, the tomb of Rekhmire (TT100), who was the vizier to Amenhotep II, includes a fresco that depicts baboons along with Puntians, Nubians, and other Bronze Age Aegean peoples paying tribute (see discussion in Binnberg et al, 2021; Urbani et al, 2021; Urbani & Youlatos, 2022). Moreover, a recent study confirmed the presence of Hamadryas baboon ( Papio hamadryas ) mummies in Egyptian tombs (KV50, KV51, and KV52) related to the reign of Amenhotep II (Dominy et al, 2020).…”

Section: The Tailed Partial Body Of Tiryns: Interpretationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Primate on a Fresco from the Mycenaean Acropolis of Tiryns

Youlatos

Urbani

Binnberg³

2023

Eur. j. archaeol

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The earliest Bronze Age Mediterranean primate representations on frescoes are found at the Aegean sites of Knossos (Crete) and Akrotiri (Thera). By contrast, monkeys have so far been missing from Mycenaean frescoes in mainland Greece. A fresco fragment of a cultic scene from Tiryns changes this; it depicts a bipedal partial lower body, with a hanging tail. This image, previously interpreted as a human wearing an animal hide, had already been suggested to represent a monkey. A re-examination of this miniature fresco identified various features that seem to confirm the representation of a monkey, most probably of a baboon-like primate. Assuming that the fresco from Tiryns is part of a cult scene, similar to those from Akrotiri, this adds a further image to a small corpus of Aegean depictions connecting monkeys with important female figures or deities. Furthermore, the Tiryns fresco fragment indicates that primates were not entirely absent from local Mycenaean iconography.

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