Monkey Represented on an Egyptian Tomb
This representation is most likely of a vervet monkey. Many primates still inhabit the Nile river valley that were also there when the ancient Egyptians were around, but the vervet monkey is not one of them. Wild vervets now live significantly more south than the Egyptians regularly traveled.
Though many species of monkey were extant in ancient Egypt (and most were kept as pets at some point), only a few were considered "holy", or representative of their more important gods. The vervet monkey, while kept as a pet by both the working class and they royalty, was not generally venerated in the same way as, say, baboons were.
General Introduction to the Natural History of Mammiferous Animals, with a Particular View of the Physical History of Man, and the More Closely Allied Genera of Quadrumana, or Monkeys. W. C. Linnaeus Martin, 1841.
