Figurine in the Form of a Camel Carrying a Palanquin and Two Riders

Two Representations of a Camel: Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, London (POT 857) and Metropolitan Museum of Art (64.59)

In the arts of twelfth- and early thirteenth-century Iran and nearby regions, depictions of the camel are largely associated with transport and travel. One- and two-humped camels are shown carrying burdens on their backs, sometimes fanciful ones, such as the jar for flowers, (Nasser D. Khalili Collection POT 857), and sometimes more realistic ones, such as the palanquin and seated figures in the MMA figurine.[1] In all such representations, the first of which occurred relatively early in Islamic art,[2] details of the animals’ saddle-cloths and trappings are always included.

During the Seljuq period one-humped dromedaries, most likely Arabian in origin, and two-humped Bactrian camels, from Central Asia, had for centuries been the primary beast of burden used in caravans, including those that traversed Asia through the extensive network of so-called silk roads, transporting merchandise as far east as China. Camels also carried the belongings, portable furniture, and tents of the nomadic and the itinerant. To bear people across distances, the animals were straddled and ridden like horses, although elite passengers or women of a certain rank were hidden away in closed litters mounted on the camels’ backs, much like the turquoise MMA figurine.[3]

The centrality of the dromedary in the Arab culture and economy—they also provided meat and milk—was reflected in the development of a vast related vocabulary, as well as a poetic topos in praise of the "ship of the desert" (safinat al-barr), the appreciation of which far outlived the pre-Islamic period, when the device first emerged. Both traditions, together with the animals, followed the Arabs’ migration north- and eastward.[4] In Central Asia, one-humped and two-humped camels counted among the livestock depended on by the Turkish population, whose main wealth, however, came from horses, sheep, and bovines, and who seem mostly not to have eaten their meat—a custom that possibly changed after they encountered Arab culture and converted to Islam.[5] Surprisingly, camels seldom appear in the otherwise rich Turkish animal mythology and art, although their role in ancient shamanistic beliefs may be suggested in the name of the Qarakhanid prince Bughra ("Camel-stallion") Khan and his Muslim successors.[6]

While there is little information on when one-humped dromedaries arrived in Iran and Central Asia (where two-humped camels were the norm), from at least as early as the ninth century herders started to interbreed the two species. The hybrid animals were stronger and therefore more suitable for caravan transport and riding. They also fetched a higher price at market, considering the years-long gestation required to birth and rear a single animal. It has been suggested that the Turkmen tribes that settled in Khurasan and eventually founded the Great Seljuq state bred hybrids, and that their southward migration was prompted, beyond an unstable political situation, by this purported occupation.[7] According to this interpretation, at the beginning of the eleventh century, interbreeding had become unsustainable in the northern Karakum Desert, as one-humped camels—necessary to continue the breed—could not bear the winters there, which had become harsher as the result of a sudden climate change. Be that as it may, the early Turkmen settlers in Khurasan were indeed associated by their contemporaries with camel breeders, as demonstrated by the Ghaznavid Mas‘ud I’s reference to them as sarbanan (camel herders).[8]

This partial convergence of Arab and Turkish traditions may explain the frequent presence of camels in the arts of the twelfth century. Coeval poetry illustrates that the strong, resilient animal, well known for carrying heavy loads, held a special place for mystical poets, who, like Farid al-Din ‘Attar (d. 1220/21), portrayed the camel as an example of a modest life spent bearing one’s burdens ("Be in this valley like a camel and do not make mistakes. / Walk softly, eat thorns, and carry the burden correctly"), or as a paragon of obedience, intoxicated by the voice of the beloved caravan leader, whom it would follow anywhere.[9] Both are metaphors for mystic love by way of spending one’s life under God’s guidance and heeding the call of one’s Master without resistance. It is possible that these underlying meanings may have held some significance for the beholders of such camel-shaped objects.

Martina Rugiadi in [Canby, Beyazit, and Rugiadi 2016]

Footnotes:

1. For Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, London (POT 857), see Grube, Ernst J., et al. Cobalt and Lustre: The First Centuries of Islamic Pottery. The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, edited by Julian Raby, vol. 9. Oxford and New York, 1994, pp. 236–37, no. 267; Earthly Beauty, Heavenly Art: Art of Islam. Exh. cat., De Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam, 1999–2000. Catalogue by Mi[k]hail B. Piotrovsk[y], John Vrieze, and others. Amsterdam, 1999. Published in Dutch as Aardse schoonheid, hemelse kunst: Kunst van de Islam, p. 239, no. 220; Arts de l’Islam: Chefs-d’oeuvre de la collection Khalili. Exh. cat., Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, 2009–10. Catalogue by J. M. Rogers and others. Paris, 2009, p. 108, no. 129.

For MMA 64.59, see Grube 1966, pp. 172–73, fig. 20; Ettinghausen 1970, p. 126, fig. 18; Grube 1965, p. 218, fig. 18; Jenkins et al. 1977, pl. 257. (References listed in website "References" section for this object). According to M. Shreve Simpson and Melanie Gibson (personal communication), an almost identical piece is in the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid.

2. For example, a late seventh- or eighthcentury glass bottle (1999.145) and ninth-century luster bowl with four camels (64.259) in the Metropolitan Museum. Camel depictions have a long history preceding Islamic art; for southern Arabian examples, see Crone, Patricia. “‘Barefoot and Naked’: What Did the Bedouin of the Arab Conquests Look Like?” Muqarnas 25 [Frontiers of Islamic Art and Architecture: Essays in Celebration of Oleg Grabar’s Eightieth Birthday, edited by Gülru Necipoglu and Julia Bailey] (2008), pp. 1–10.

3. For more examples, see al-Hariri’s Maqamat, dated A.H. 634/A.D. 1237, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris (MS Arabe 5847), fols. 94v, 95r; see also fols. 31r, 51r, 134r, 138r, 143r. The seated figures in MMA 64.59 have been described as holding a rod, though it is
visible on only one side of the camel’s head.

4. In the Qur’an camels are presented as an example of God’s creation: “Do they not look at the Camels, how they are made?” (Qur’an 88:17); see Pellat, Ch. “Ibil.” In EI2 1960–2009, vol. 3 (1971), pp. 665–68.

5. Roux, Jean-Paul. “Le chameau en Asie centrale: Son nom, son élevage, sa placedans la mythologie.” Central Asiatic Journal 5 (1959), pp. 45–48, 70–71; Bulliet, Richard W. Cotton, Climate, and Camels in Early Islamic Iran: A Moment in World History. New York, 2009, pp. 106–9. Turkish and Mongol terms for camels have variants to express species, sex, and age, but to a lesser extent than Arabic ones; see
Roux 1959, pp. 37–43.

6. Roux 1959 (reference in note 5 above), pp. 60–62. For depictions of camels in the art of the Eurasian steppes, see Adamova, Adel T. “The Iconography of A Camel Fight [translated by J. M. Rogers].” Muqarnas 21 [Essays in Honor of J. M. Rogers, edited by Doris Behrens-Abouseif and Anna Contadini] (2004), pp. 10–11. For camels in Mongolian history and folklore, see Lang, Maria-Katharina. “The Tears of the Camel: Reflections on Depictions and Descriptions of the Camel in Mongolian Culture.” In Knoll, Eva-Maria, and Pamela Burger, eds. Camels in Asia and North Africa: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Their Past and Present Significance. Denkschriften Österreichische
Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse, 451; Veröffentlichungen zur Sozialanthropologie 18. Vienna, 2012, pp. 87–93; and Chuluubaatar, Otgonbayar. “The Camel and Its Symbolism in the Daily Life of the Mongols with Particular Reference to Their Folk Songs.” In Knoll and Burger, eds. 2012 (see above), pp. 95–105.

7. Bulliet 2009 (reference in note 5 above), pp. 96–126.

8. Quoted by Bayhaqi: “One must remember what mischief and trouble were brought by . . . those Turkmens whom my father [Sultan Mahmud] allowed in and brought over the [Oxus] river and gave a place within Khorasan, where they lived as camel herders (sarbanan)”
(Bulliet 2009 [reference in note 5 above], p. 101).

9. Quoted from the Diwan of Farid al-Din ‘Attar. See also Schimmel, Annemarie. A Two-Colored Brocade: The Imagery of Persian Poetry. Chapel Hill and London, 1992, pp. 194, 401–2 nn. 16, 18, with translation of ‘Attar’s verses.

[ Royal-Athena Galleries, New York, until 1964; sold to MMA]

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Court and Cosmos: The Great Age of the Seljuqs," April 25–July 24, 2016, no. 140.

Grube, Ernst J. "The Art of Islamic Pottery." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin vol. 23, no. 6 (February 1965). pp. 218–19, ill. fig. 18 (b/w).

Grube, Ernst J. "Islamic Sculpture: Ceramic Figures." Oriental Art vol. 12 (1966). pp. 172–73, ill. fig. 20 (b/w).

Ettinghausen, Richard. "The Flowering of Seljuq Art." Metropolitan Museum Journal vol. 3 (1970). p. 126, ill. fig. 18 (b/w).

Jenkins-Madina, Marilyn, Suzanne G. Valenstein, and Julia Meech-Pekarik. "The Metropolitan Museum of Art." In Oriental Ceramics: The World's Great Collections. vol. 12. Tokyo: Kodansha International Ltd., 1977. no. 257, ill, pl. 257 (b/w).

Canby, Sheila R., Deniz Beyazit, and Martina Rugiadi. "The Great Age of the Seljuqs." In Court and Cosmos. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016. no. 140, pp. 225–26, ill. p. 226 (color).