  The photoproduction of eta-mesons from 2H and 4He has been studied for
energies close to the production thresholds. The experiments were carried out
with the tagged photon beam of the Mainz MAMI accelerator. The eta-mesons were
detected via their two photon decays with the electromagnetic calorimeter TAPS.
Total cross sections, angular and momentum distributions of the eta-mesons have
been determined for both reactions. The total cross sections in the threshold
region show a large enhancement over the predictions of a participant -
spectator model, indicating significant final state interaction effects. The
results are compared to recent model calculations taking into account
nucleon-nucleon and nucleon-eta final state interaction effects on different
levels of sophistication.
