Earliest Mentions of Camel in Ancient Mesopotamia: When did camel begin to play a role in Mesopotamian history?
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| Year of publication | 2024 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | The earliest explicit mention of the adoption of domesticated camels in Mesopotamia comes from the turn of the Middle Assyrian and Neo-Assyrian periods and it was found on the Broken Obelisk. This adoption helped to stabilize transport across the arid regions of Mesopotamia, thereby allowing existence of compact empire in the Near East to some extent. Despite the record of the Broken Obelisk we find several earlier Mesopotamian evidences of camel existence even from the middle of 3th millennium BC. There will be discussed probability of camel usage, eventual expansion and importance of their breeding in those days. Special attention will be paid to Urra=hubullu and other glossaries containing camel mentions in animal lists. It will be described literal meaning of sumerograms used in glossaries relating to dromedary and two-humped camel. Another discussed source will be an Old Babylonian pastoral poem about goddess Inanna and god Dumuzi from Nippur in which the concept of camel milk is presumably used as a symbol of fertility. |
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