MILK, MEAT AND HEAVY LOADS: DIACHRONIC CHANGES IN CAMEL PETROGLYPH DEPICTIONS FROM THE NEGEV DESERT (original) (raw)
Related papers
Documenta Archaeobiologiae 16, 2023
This article deals with recent inscriptional, manuscript, and pictorial evidence for camels in the Southern Levant, the Arabian Peninsula, and Mesopotamia. The Aramaic ostraca from Idumea provide a unique insight into the role of these animals during the rule of the Achaemenid empire. Also examined are a Syriac text from the 6th century CE that allegedly mentions a wild dromedary, the pictorial representations of camel hybrids from Hatra in Iraq (2nd century CE), and two petroglyphs from Jordan each depicting a male Bactrian camel and a female dromedary from the Hellenistic or Roman period.
An Investigation into Early Desert Pastoralism: Excavations at the Camel Site, Negev
2011
Negev focuses on two primary purposes, one theoretical/methodological and the second substantive. Briefly stated, the book comprises a case study of excavations at an early (ca. 2800 B.C.) pastoral site in the Negev, providing detailed analyses and a synthetic overview of a seasonal encampment from this early period in the evolution of desert pastoral societies. It thus both demonstrates the feasibility of an archaeology of early mobile pastoralism and grapples with the basic anthropological and methodological issues surrounding the subject. Substantively, both the architectural and material culture assemblages uncovered constitute the first detailed analysis of this early desert culture and include materials previously unreported for the region and period. Historically, the Camel Site is placed in a larger perspective of the beginnings of multiresource nomadism in relation to the rise of complex societies.
Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies, 2020
Rock art is undoubtedly one of the most impressive testimonies left by the ancient inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula over the course of several millennia. While the study of this rich heritage is still in its early stages, the present paper draws attention to the existence of a remarkable and almost unknown artistic phenomenon attested in the western part of the Peninsula, which consists of large-sized representations of camels (Camelus dromedarius), arguably the most ‘characteristic’ animal species of Arabia. Life-size, and sometimes larger-than-life, carvings of camels have been reported across a large area that stretches from the Najrān area in southern Saudi Arabia northwards to Petra, in southern Jordan. Although it is possible that the carvings share a common cultural substratum, these different figures clearly do not form a homogeneous group. At least six different regional rock art traditions can be identified. The present paper provides a first characterization of their stylistic features, chronological setting, and the technical skills involved, and also considers the epigraphic inscriptions which occasionally accompany large-sized camel engravings. In addition, we explore the cultural and environmental background of the communities and individuals that created them and examine this monumental rock art theme over the longue durée.
It was recently suggested that the introduction of the camel to the southern Levant occurred in the early Iron Age (late 2nd–early 1st millennia BCE). Our study of faunal remains from Iron Age sites at Timna, together with previous studies of Late Bronze and Iron Age sites at Timna and Wadi Faynan, enable us to pinpoint this event more precisely. The new evidence indicates that the first significant appearance of camels in the Aravah Valley was not earlier than the last third of the 10th century BCE. This date accords with data from the Negev and the settled lands further to the north when the low chronology is applied to the early Iron IIA.
The Domestication of Camel in the Literary, Archaeological and Petroglyph Records
2017
The domestication of camels happened at the start of the III millennium BC in their natural habitats, for the dromedary in SE-Arabia, for the Bactrian camel in SW-Central Asia. Three steps of camel domestication and use are distinguished: for harvesting its body products, as transport animal (drafted, loaded, and ridden), as military animal. With the start of the I millennium BC the introduction of new saddle types and of hybridization techniques promoted, in all the arid expanses of Afro-Eurasia, the growing superiority of the loaded camel over wheels and draft transports, and of camelry over cavalry.
This paper is a study of the function and frequency of vessel types found at pastoral habitation sites in the Negev Highlands during the Early Bronze Age. Using inter-assemblage comparisons, the pottery from the habitation sites of mobile pastoralists in the Negev Highlands and in central and southern Sinai are examined vis-a-vis the ceramic assemblages found at Tel Arad in the northern Negev and Sheikh Muhsen in southern Sinai. The ceramic assemblages described below are tested using hypotheses drawn from Juli (1978) and Cribb (1991:76). The frequency and type of pottery present at the sites used in this study provide additional information on the exchange relationships between Tel Arad and the inhabitants of the Negev Highlands and southern Sinai.