camel of the day 14-12-2019
Today’s camel holds the distinction of being the most ancient camel we’ve met thus far. The civilization where he was made may well have been the first to domesticate Bactrians as draught animals, and includes the area once called Bactria that they are now named after.
The achievements of this Oxus civilization (now prosaically but complicately known as the Bactria-Margiani Archeological complex) were astonishing, as you can imagine from the detail on this rather faded specimen from at least 1500 BCE.
Tomorrow we’ll see another specimen of camel art from that civilization, also now housed in an American Museum – a fact I may well have a few things to say about.