Evidence from the Baboon Catacomb in North Saqqara for a West Mediterranean Monkey Trade Route to Ptolemaic Alexandria *

Abstract

The Baboon Catacomb at North Saqqara occupies two levels, the Upper Galleries (±400–200 BC) with 200 niches and the Lower Gallery (±200–30 BC) with 237 niches. More macaques and fewer baboons are buried in the Lower Gallery compared with the Upper Galleries. This suggests a partial shift in primate species mummified and appears to reflect a change in trading pattern from predominantly Nile and Red Sea traffic to the olive baboons' (Papio hamadryas anubis) habitat in Sudan towards Mediterranean traffic to the barbary macaques' (Macaca sylvanus) habitat in Northwest Africa. Six demotic obituaries discovered in the Lower Gallery report that in the period around ±175 BC monkeys were imported through Alexandria. Phoenicians appear to have presented the Egyptians with increased numbers of macaques transported from the West Mediterranean to Alexandria following the defeat of Hannibal in 202 BC by the Romans. This monkey trade apparently stopped with the destruction of Carthage in 146 BC.