Furniture element with a monkey ca. 18th century B.C. Old Assyrian Trading Colony This fragment belongs to a group of carved ivories, mostly furniture elements, probably found at the site of a palace at Acemhöyük in central Anatolia. Like most of the ivories from Acemhöyük, this object depicts imagery borrowed and transformed from Egyptian sources. A curved leg for a small piece of furniture is decorated with a seated monkey carved nearly in the round. The monkeys posture is compact, with bent knees pulled up to the chest and hands on the head. Its mouth is slightly open, showing a row of teeth. Monkeys were beloved by the ancient Egyptians, and their representations in Egyptian art show them both as mischievous pets, and as symbols of fecundity and magical sexual powers in the afterlife when depicted on scarabs and amulets.. Furniture element with a monkey 323575