(None of these coins are mine, it's just a draft for a paper) The one-humped camel was domesticated in Arabia in the Neolithic period and reached Egypt and the Middle East after 1500 BC. Waste not, want not, everything has its use in a camel: meat, milk, leather, even bones. Camels were mostly used for long distance transportation. At war, they were first ridden by bowmen c. 800 BC, until the invention of the shadda (North Arabian saddle) in Hellenistic times allowed spearmen to ride them too. Their military use was limited to the one-humped species: the two-humped species, from central Asia, does not seem to have been ridden in combat. The oldest coins representing camels are Philistian from Gaza and possibly Edom, all extremely rare. On two coins (probably of Gaza, 5th-4th c. BC) there is a bearded and crowned god's head on obverse, a walking dromedary on reverse, with a camel-rider on the largest coin, a drachm or quarter-shekel. Greek coins represent gods, not scenes of everyday life : this camel rider has to be a god, and if the camel is represented alone, it must be an allusion to the deity associated with it. On a small obol attributed to Arados (but possibly Philistian too), a camel and a galley on reverse must be read as a divine couple : the galley of Astarte and the camel of X... The few camels seen on Hellenistic coinage are those on bronze coins of Natounia (today in Iraqi Kurdistan) in the 2nd-1st c. BC. The obverse represents a head of Shamash radiate, the reverse a camel, sometimes with a camel-rider raising hand. It has been interpreted as the North Arabian god Arsu. On Roman coins the first camel is a small symbol on denarii of L. Roscius Fabatus, 64 BC. These denarii were minted with a great variety of symbols in obv. and rev. left field: the tiny camel is just one symbol among many others. In 58 BC M. Aemilius Scaurus minted for the Senate denarii representing the Arab Nabataean king Aretas III offering his friendship and alliance to Rome (he was recognized by the Senate as rex amicus et socius Populi Romani: a new client-king. He is figured kneeling by his camel, extending branch, which is the symbol of peace. This representation became conventional and, soon after, other client-kings will be featured on coins in the same attitude: king Bocchus of Mauretania on denarii of Faustus Cornelius Sulla in 56 BC, a named "Bacchius Judaeus" with the same camel as Aretas III on denarii of Aulus Plautius in 55 BC. This Jewish "Bacchius", unknown to history, has been interpreted as Dionysios of Tripoli, a pirate (possibly Jewish), or Aristobulus, but both were defeated enemies and in 55 BC Aristobulus was in prison: he should have been represented handcuffed like Jugurtha, not as a Friend and Ally of Rome. This Bacchius is more probably Antipater the Idumaean, a pro-Roman leader of Judaea who was never bestowed by the Senate the title of Rex (hence the camel: Idumaeans were Arabs, like the Nabataeans). Were camels so typical of Arabia? Probably yes. In the Nabataean kingdom under Obodas II in 28/27 BC the Petra mint issued extremely rare (only 2 known) silver drachms featuring on the obverse the joined busts of king Obodas II and queen Hagaru I, and on the reverse a standing camel with the usual Nabataean legend (name of king, minting year). As a rule, Nabataean coins represent deities or religious symbols, thus this camel must fall in the same category and must be a direct allusion to some Arabian camel-riding god. There was a Nabataean and/or Northern Arab deity specifically associated with a camel or a naqat, a she-camel. Later assimilated to Allah the Unique, this god was still known by the Quran which tells the story of Allah's she-camel, taking place in Hegra. Provincial bronzes of Cyrenaica, under the governor L. Lollius (37/34 BC) and later under Tiberius are always described as representing camels (or dromedaries). But on most dies the animal's profile is not of a camel, I would rather see a giraffe, called by the Romans camelopardalis, the camel-leopard. The first giraffe seen in Rome was brought from Alexandria by Julius Caesar in 46 BC, others followed and Cyrenaica was one of the North African places from which sub-Saharan animals could be embarked and shipped to Rome. These Lollius and Tiberius Cyrenaican coins are probably the only ancient ones representing a giraffe... In Roman minds camels were a stereotype of Arabia. When Trajan annexed the Nabataean Kingdom in AD 106 he celebrated it by the emission of a full set of coins : aurei, denarii, sestertii, dupondii and asses, minted from 111 to 114. The first emissions had no specific legend, later he added "Arabia adquisita" on exergue. The type is reminiscent of the old denarii of Scaurus: Arabia is represented as a woman wearing the typical triangular peplos of the defeated barbarians (the Jewish and Germanic captives wore the same one on Titus and Domitian sestertii), holding branch and torch which are the attributes of Pax, the Peace, a little camel at her feet to symbolize Arabia. In the same time the Rome mint issued "tridrachms" (or rather light tetradrachms) with the same Arabia type, but Greek legends, for circulation in Arabia. From 111 to 114 the Antioch mint issued on a massive scale debased silver drachms again with the same type, some being overstruck on Nabataean silver coins, also for circulation in Arabia. In 115 Antioch ceased to mint Arabia-drachms and Rome started minting for Arabia a new type of drachms with a two-humped camel walking. This species had never been figured on Greek or Roman coins, but was sometimes represented on Parthian or Indo-Scythian bronzes. In the early 2nd c. AD two-humped camels were a common type on Kushan bronze coins of Wima Takhto (Soter Megas) in Afghanistan, but a link with the Roman camel-drachms minted for Arabia is very unlikely. This new species of camel (new for Rome!) was more probably an animal seen at the games, or possibly an allusion to Trajan's Parthian campaign: the two-humped species existed in Mesopotamia and Iran, and some may have been seized by Roman troops. Arabia's little one-humped camel will show up again on Roman sestertii in the Hadrianic travel series, with the legend Restitutori Arabiae. Hadrian is depicted raising the same Arabia-Pax that figured on Trajanic coins, a little camel at her feet. Her kneeling posture is reminiscent of Aretas III on the old Scaurus denarii, but the camel has shrinked... These sestertii are the last imperial Roman coins representing a camel. In Arabia, now a Roman province, a few city-coins will still represented camels or the camel-riding god. In Bostra, provincial capital, small bronze issues of Antoninus Pius and Commodus (plus a pseudo-autonomous coin minted under Commodus) represent a one-humped camel. It must be the same as the one on the Obodas II drachms, perhaps the she-camel later to be mentioned in the Quran. A worship place still exists in Bosra, the oldest mosque in town called "mabrak an-naqat" mosque: the place "where the she-camel kneeled down". A local tradition says it was in this place that kneeled down the she-camel carrying to Syria the first copy of the Quran. The Quran being the only visible form of Allah, this tradition may be an islamisation of the traditional Arab camel riding god... The latest representation of this god, probably Arsu (assimilated to the Arabian Ares), occurs on bronze city-coins of Canatha in the far North of the province, under Elagabalus. The reverse represent a camel-rider raising hand, like on the old coins of Natounia 300 years before and, who knows? like on the old Philistian drachms 600 years before... These Elagabalus provincial coins were attributed to Bostra but a recently auctioned well-preserved example has a clear legend : Obv.: AVT KAICAP ANTWNIN, laureate bust of Elagabalus r. Rev.: [OCO] KANWUHNWN ỊOΛ̣Ọ : θεὸ(ς) Κανωθηνῶν ỊOΛ̣Ọ, "The God of the Kanothenians (sic) (...)", camel-rider raising r. hand on camel walking r. The very last representation of a camel on Roman Empire coinage is a fully harnessed camel on silver tetradrachms of Uranius Antoninus, minted in Emesa (Homs, Syria) in 253/4 AD. This reverse type is puzzling. Types and legends (Greek or Latin) on Uranius Antoninus coinage are always imitated from older 3rd C. imperial coins. But which older coin with a saddled camel do these tetradrachms imitate?...
Fantastic writeup, I didn't know there was that many camel backs. This is my only camel. M. Aemilius Scaurus & P. Plautius Hypsaeus (58 B.C.) AR Denarius O: M. SCAVR. / AED. CVR., above king Aretas kneeling beside a camel right, EX., on left, S.C., on right, REX. ARETAS., in exergue. R: P. HVPSAE. / AED. CVR., above Jupiter in quadriga left, CAPTV., on right, but C. HVPSAE. COS. PREIVER., in exergue, scorpion below horses. 3.47g 19mm Rome Mint RCV #379 Aemilia 8
Wonderful article and coins! I only have one camel on a coin of Trajan. Were it not for this coin I'd be over a hump as far as camels are concerned. Trajan, tridrachm, Bosra, 112-114 AD. 11.11 grams
A PLAUTIUS ROMAN REPUBLIC; GENS PLANCIA AR Fouree Denarius OBVERSE: Turreted hd of Cybele right, A PLAVTIVS before, AED CVR SC behind REVERSE: supplicant offerng palm-branch, camel behind; IVDAEVS before, BACCHIVS below Rome 55 BC 18mm, 3.2g Cr431/1, Syd 932, Hendin 741, Plautia 13
