MIDDLE MINOAN III - LATE MINOAN III, CIRCA 1600-1200 B.C.

The lentoid seal is engraved with two hands, one held flat and facing up and the other in a fist, facing down. To the side of the open hand is the profile crouching figure of a monkey with knees up, hand held up to its mouth, long curling tail behind. The monkey in Bronze Age Aegean art is well known from the frescos in the palaces of Knossos, Crete and Akrotiri, Thera, to small stamp seals with crouching monkeys cf. J. Boardman, Greek Gems and Finger Rings, London, 1970, p. 25, figs 24 and 27 and pl. 4. Monkeys appear on gylptic art from the Middle Bronze Age, usually in a crouching-sitting position. For a recent discussion on the different types of monkeys in Bronze Age Art cf. M.N. Pareja, "Monkey Business: New Evidence for Aegean-Indus Exchange", Ancient Near East Today, Vol.VIII, 2020. For a list and drawings of 17 seal engravings with monkeys, on their own, in pairs or with human figures, cf. B. Urbani and D. Youlatos, "Minoan Monkeys: Re-examining the Archaeoprimatological Evidence" In World Archaeoprimatology: Interconnections of Humans and Nonhuman Primates in the Past, Cambridge, 2022. pp. 225-280. For a Greek Bronze Age stamp seal in the form of a clenched human hand cf. J. Boardman, op. cit. pl. 13.