Recently there has been some uproar concerning camels and
the Bible and JK covered it at his nice blog Varnam. According to the
report by Dr. Erez Ben-Yosef and Dr. Lidar Sapir-Hen of Tel Aviv University's
Department of Archaeology mentioned in Varnam, - The origin of the domesticated camel is
probably the Arabian Peninsula, which borders the Aravah Valley and would have
been a logical entry point for domesticated camels into the southern Levant.
The arrival of domesticated camels promoted trade between Israel and exotic
locations unreachable before, according to the researchers; the camels can
travel over much longer distances than the donkeys and mules that preceded
them. By the seventh century BCE, trade routes like the Incense Road stretched
all the way from Africa through Israel to India. Camels opened Israel up to the
world beyond the vast deserts, researchers say, profoundly altering its
economic and social history.
NY Times counters - There
are too many camels in the Bible, out of time and out of place. Camels probably
had little or no role in the lives of such early Jewish patriarchs as Abraham,
Jacob and Joseph, who lived in the first half of the second millennium B.C.,
and yet stories about them mention these domesticated pack animals more than 20
times. Genesis 24, for example, tells of Abraham’s servant going by camel on a
mission to find a wife for Isaac. These anachronisms are telling evidence that
the Bible was written or edited long after the events it narrates and is not
always reliable as verifiable history.
But this article is not going to be anything to do with such
theological and mythological accounts however historic or authentic they may
be. Look at our own Keralolpathi or Kerala Mahatmyam, all written with specific
purposes, nevertheless offering only tidbits of historical value. So this note will
hover around how important the animal was to further trade with India, the very
aspect the TAU article has concluded with.
Another important discussion these days is about the battery
used for hybrid and electric cars. They say rightly - If only it could be made
more reliable and higher capacity, these vehicles could then become popular and
run long distances, reducing our dependence on fossil fuel! Well it was the
same many millennia ago when the horse and the donkey were the vehicles for
transport. They too just could not be used for long distance travel without
regular supplication and refueling. Interesting, right? That was about the
juncture when a super-efficient camel and its saddle design saved the day and
stated long distance trade. Let us see how.
One could start here looking at prehistoric animals like the
Protylopus (40 million years ago) which roamed the North Americas and which
perhaps in the centuries which followed, crossed the Beringia land bridge to
move to the Eastern hemisphere. The ones which remained in the Americas perhaps
fell prey to carnivorous animals and the ones which crossed over to the Asian
regions failed to fare better, at least initially. But evolution helps in such
matters and their ability to store large amounts of fluids allowed them to
migrate to inhospitable arid deserts where they multiplied and thrived, by
being far away from the carnivorous lions and other beings which preferred to
live near the wetter areas. As time went by, they found an ally which would
help this slow moving animal to survive, that being the human.
The human being evolved to become a complex creature, for
not only did it want to survive, multiply and do well, it also wanted to
congregate and make its life better by eating a variety of things, wearing
brighter and cooler or warmer clothes, learn all kinds of social and survival
skills and so on. Man was also very inquisitive and selfish in all its
endeavors. In those early forays, especially in the Middle Eastern regions, the
silent companion which aided and abetted the human was the camel, as the
conduit for long distance land trade by becoming the ship of the desert as it
came to be known. Today it is connected sarcastically with the Arab Bedouin,
but it was very prevalent in the Western parts of India and many other places
too.
While the first types were the double humped long haired Bactrian
camels of Asia, the Middle Eastern evolution figured the modern single humped
Dromedary camel. More knowledgeable people opine that this evolution was to
reduce surface area and thus reduce evaporation of moisture - by increasing the
body temperature to reduce perspiration. Anyway the docile and hardy dromedary
(dromados – Greek for running) animal became a friend of the Arab and Asian
nomad, to join goats, donkeys, sheep, dogs, chicken, cattle and so on in his
stable as well as becoming an animal producing food and milk for some others.
It is said that at the outset they were milk producers rather than objects of
transport in Arabia, but eventually they took over from the donkey by about
1500 BC. As Bernstein explains, a single driver herding six animals transported
about two tons of cargo for about 30-60 miles per day, drinking once in three
days, and this gradually increased as saddle technology improved. The Asian
camel became domesticated even earlier, perhaps by 2500BC, but soon its
territory was overtaken by the hardy dromedary cousin and soon the hybrid
variety, supremely capable of trekking long distances and took over the silk
road trade route thriving in the region between Morocco and India, and up all
the way to Western China. In fact its survivability was high and it could even
survive on brackish water.
And this brought about what we know as the caravanserai or
rest stations roughly every 100 miles over the 4,000 mile long Silk Road,
during the hey days of the land trade route. As wiki explains - Most typically a caravanseai was a building
with a square or rectangular walled exterior, with a single portal wide enough
to permit large or heavily laden beasts such as camels to enter. The courtyard
was almost always open to the sky, and the inside walls of the enclosure were
outfitted with a number of identical stalls, bays, niches, or chambers to
accommodate merchants and their servants, animals, and merchandise.
Caravanserais provided water for human and animal consumption, washing, and
ritual ablutions. Sometimes they had elaborate baths.
The main item that traveled westward was of course silk,
while the easterly route had incenses (frankincense and myrrh) from these arid
areas. The objects of trade changed with time and demand as well as
development. Palestine for example produced the prized opobalsam (Myrrh, balm
of Gilead – a sap or oleo resin). That was of course the biggest material of
trade for the people of Arabia and much prized by the people in the west as
well as the east. As a small load was enough to provide a decent profit, it was
easily transportable by the royal road to Rome and also down by the side to the
Red Sea to Aden where it went on ships to India.
So now you know how caravans, convoys or camel trains traversed
these ancient trade routes not as early as 3500 years ago, but somewhere
between 3000-3500 years. As this trade developed,
The Trans Saharan trade became an important one at the turn
of the anno domini or somewhat earlier. The general contention shared by Ilse
Kohler and Paula Wapnish is that the 12-15th century BC is when the
camel got domesticated. However considering Mason’s theory that it evolved in
Arabia around 3,000BC, the period in between needs further analysis. It is also
clear that there were three broad classifications of the dromedary, the beast
of burden or the baggager, the riding camel and the milking camel. It is also
clear that those North African Muslim traders usually set out with their camels
well laden, in a fat and vigorous condition; and brought them back in a bad
state, that they commonly sold them at a low rate to be later fattened by the
Arabs of the Desert (Consider the analogy with second hand cars!).
But let us get back to trade. Everything you see today in
day to day life and take for granted originated step by step, due to a desire
for change, be it food, clothing or life partners. Let us take a look how. It
was as you can see, the desire for exchange of goods and traditions that led to
development of currencies and currency rates. The difference between such rates
resulted in profit and this resulted in the concept of risk, where a trader
decided whether it was worth travelling 4000 miles with a load of expensive
trading goods from one end of the world to the other, braving robbers who
developed the concept of theft, weather and natural calamities (forecasting and
cartography, travelogues). Managers managed the caravans, the procurement and
disbursement of goods and policing came about for the protection of the caravan
routes. Armies and armed personnel were the prerogative of the king and so the
power of the king evolved with the size of the army or quantity of armaments.
The concept of luxury evolved. Agriculture and production of raw material primarily
for trade and not just for own consumption evolved and became a business,
creating the producer and the trader. And as trade volumes and portability
improved, agreements between diverse rulers created alliances to share the
spoils and concentrate power.
In previous articles, we went over a number of subjects set
around the ocean trade, especially the Red Sea and Indian Ocean trade. This
will also look at another kind of ocean trade, the sand ocean trade where the
transport was across the vast Sahara desert (3 million square miles of it),
then the Gobi desert and finally the central Asian Mongol desert. Fittingly the
ship was the camel, when the organized trade started around the 2nd
century AD. It had the Han china on one end, Parthian Persia in the middle -
the westerly connections to the Romans and the Egyptians. The establishment of
the Silk Road made the travel organized and the movement of gold, silk and
spices smooth. As time passed, it became a vehicle for the passage of yet
another commodity – that being religion. I call it a commodity because it was
regulated in its spread and consumption.
The trade groups which were formed were a result of
religious and family associations, just like the Islamic merchant sea
associations or the smaller land trade associations around the south of India.
During those periods it also became a war animal, and the N Arabian
saddle invented around 500BC helped. Even though it was slow compared to a horse,
it was dependable, a specialized breed of riding dromedary could maintain a
speed of 8-10mph for up to 18 hours. During the winter, the camel can travel
fifty days without being watered, while in the hot summer it can traverse
roughly five days without water. A thirsty camel can drink up to eighty liters
of water in one session, and at the rate of twenty liters in one minute.
Alistair Boddy-Evans in his article Trade across Sahara
mentions - The sands of the Sahara Desert
could've been a major obstacle to trade between Africa, Europe, and the East,
but it was more like a sandy sea with ports of trade on either side. In the
south were cities such as Timbuktu and Gao; in the north, cities such as
Ghadames (in present-day Libya). From there goods traveled onto Europe, Arabia,
India, and China. Muslim traders from North Africa shipped goods across the
Sahara using large camel caravans -- on average around a thousand camels,
although there's a record which mentions caravans travelling between Egypt and
Sudan that had 12,000 camels. They brought in mainly luxury goods such as
textiles, silks, beads, ceramics, ornamental weapons, and utensils. These were
traded for gold, ivory, woods such as ebony, and agricultural products such as
kola nuts (which act as a stimulant as they contain caffeine). They also
brought their religion, Islam, which spread along the trade routes. Until the discovery of the Americas, Mali
was the principal producer of gold. African ivory was also sought after (over
Indian) because it's softer.
So the real link up was when the Trans Saharan network
linked up with the silk route, mainly due to the Akan gold mining efforts. And
that brings us to Timbuktu. Strange that this place in Africa got connected to English
usage as a place in the middle of nowhere! It was someplace in those days, an
important place, perhaps not today. Its
long history as a trading outpost that linked west Africa with Berber, Arab,
and Jewish traders throughout north Africa, and thereby indirectly with traders
from Europe, has given it a fabled status, and in the West it was for long a
metaphor for exotic, distant lands: "from here to Timbuktu." It
was also a place where rock salt was mined. Gold, sought from the western and
central Sudan, was the main commodity of the trans-Saharan trade. The traffic
in gold was spurred by the demand for and supply of coinage.
 |
| Gold Road |
According to the Heilbrun timeline, From the seventh to
the eleventh century, trans-Saharan trade linked the Mediterranean economies
that demanded gold—and could supply salt—to the sub-Saharan economies, where
gold was abundant. Increased demand for gold in the North Islamic states, which
sought the raw metal for minting, prompted scholarly attention to Mali and
Ghana, the latter referred to as the "Land of Gold." By the end of the twelfth century, however,
Ghana had lost its domination of the western Sudan gold trade. (Check Timothy
Insoll’s work for details). But it was the Portuguese discovery of new
sailing routes and trade routes that started the demise of the trans-saharan
trade and decrease dthe importance of African ports and trading locations. The
battle of Tondibi in 1591 destroyed much of the western locales like Timbuktu
and Gao.
Nevertheless, the incense route where Arabian frankincense
and Myrrh which were in high demand, were transported by camels from Hadhramaut
to Mediterranean ports like Ghaza together with shipments from India, was the
most lucrative of all trades. Frankincense and myrrh, highly prized in
antiquity as fragrances, could only be obtained from trees growing in southern
Arabia, Ethiopia, and Somalia. The incense land trade from South Arabia to the
Mediterranean flourished between roughly the 7th century BCE to the 2nd century
CE and involved transport of Indian goods northwards and Arabian goods southwards
to Arabian ports. As Nabataea states - At
its height, the Incense Route moved over 3000 tons of incense each year.
Thousands of camels and camel drivers were used. The profits were high, but so
were the risks from thieves, sandstorms, and other threats. The Incense
Route ran along the western edge of Arabia’s central desert about 100 miles
inland from the Red Sea coast; Pliny the Elder stated that the journey
consisted of sixty-five stages divided by halts for the camels.
For those who are curious, Frankincense the balsamic resin is
Benzoin or the Sambrani we use in Pujas and Myrrh is used even today in
Ayurvedic medicines (a.k.a polam).
And so friends, that was a bit about Camels, without whom we
would not developed. The Trans Saharan road will take over the desert camel
routes, the Silk Road is still there and the sea routes have developed though
fraught with piracy. But the Camel can still be seen and is used in Northwest
India and Arabia, and various other places, though taken over by the four wheeler
when it comes to land trade…
Incidentally there is a tradition (Food Culture in the Near
East, Middle East, and North Africa - By Peter Heine) that Prophet Muhammad
said – who does not eat from my camels is not my people, signifying a religious
connotation to eating camel meat unlike the Jews where both camel milk and meat
are taboo! The reasoning behind this is perhaps evident in the tale narrated in
Nabatean history site about the theft of the Jewish camels by the Arabs.
But there is also this
Sufi saying, 'Trust in God, but tie your
camel first.' You can see that in the days when religion evolved, the motto
sounded right and pragmatic and it does even today, except that some people have
forgotten it and still continue to forget it.
References
A splendid exchange – William J
Bernstein
The Camel and the Wheel Richard
W. Bulliet
Nabataean history http://nabataea.net/camel.html
Cross Cultural trade in world history
– Philip D Curtin
World History: Journeys from
Past to Present - Candice Goucher, Linda Walton
Pics
Wikiimages
4 comments:
I think your blog is excellent!!!
i love the facts about trade in the ancient times and the role played by camels....Best of Luck
thanks Tharun..
glad you enjoyed it. pls keep reading the other articles in the archives too
Amazing compliation and paper on camel.Thank you.
The Camel in a Desert has earned a name for itself and the title Ship of the Desert, is so apt and this pare highlights the Camel often forgotten.
In India also in Rajasthan &Gujarat we have a lot of this and is a workhorse.
It is so good you have brought out so many facets -I am recommendoing the blog/paper to friends. Best wishes TR (Retd Mariner Capt) Chennai
Thanks Raj,
Nice hearing from you and keep reading..
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