The Epic of Gilgamesh, for apes

here's a page from Wilfried Hou Je Bek's translation of parts of the ancient Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh into the pictograms used by ape researchers. (he had to invent new symbols for the characters Gilgamesh & Enkidu.)

obviously not abstract, being a translation of a story originally in words. but if you took the subtitles & IS & HAPPY away, very few humans could read it, therefore bringing it back towards abstraction.

this work might sound like a completely crazy idea, but Wilfried explains himself in a few free-to-download e-books: http://www.socialfiction.org/primatepoetics.html