cool article on Ancient Camel carvings POST YOUR CAMELS https://www.bbc.com/news/world-midd...ewsletter]-2021September15-[top+news+stories] CAMEL Arabia Petraea, Bostra. Trajan. CE 98-117. AR drachm (18.57 mm, 2.92 g, 8 h). Struck A.D. 114-116. Obv: AYTOKP KAIC NEP TPAIANω APICTω CЄB ΓЄPM ΔAK, laureate, draped, and cuirassed bust right, seen from behind / Rev: ΔHMAPX EΞ UPAT ς, Arabia standing left holding branch and bundle of cinnamon sticks; at feet, camel left. Ref: SNG ANS 1158; SNG von Aulock 6408; Sydenham, Caesarea 205. VF. Ex Harlan J. Berk Ex Agora Roman Republic Aemilius Scaurus and Plautius Hypsaeus 58 BCE AR Denarius camel scorpion quadriga 4.1g 19mm Rome Craw 422-1b POST YOUR CAMELS
No coins here but i have observed that camels are not common on ancients until about 100 BC. I understand that they were not domesticated until pretty late in antiquity and at the start of the Roman Empire they were just beginning to be employed as domesticated animals. Were there any numismatic camels at the time of Alexander or before his reign?
I have just 2 camels. Both are Roman Republic issues. I think not. FWIW: The link below will display 6 coins of the same type which, provided the dates given in the descriptions are correct, may make this type a candidate for the oldest (late 2nd century BC) numismatic camel. But for sure it is the oldest numismatic camel with a rider. https://www.acsearch.info/search.ht...de=1&fr=1&it=1&es=1&ot=1¤cy=usd&order=0 And for those understandably wary of clicking links, here is a PARTIAL preview:
I have never seen any. Some Bactrian pieces after Alexander showed them, but nothing before Alex to my knowledge. Most coinage where Arabian camels would be present was imitating Athenian issues at the time, and Central Asia where Bactrian camels were did not have coinage until Alexander arrived, unless you count Persian siglos.
I just perused ACS for camels, and found one that I could be persuaded to make room for in my coin box. It's just a little camel, but I'd walk 100 miles for it!
Fascinating article, @Alegandron. I have only two ancient coins with camels, both of which have already been posted in this thread -- one of them showing a two-humped Bactrian camel not even found in the wild in the location (Arabia) where the coin was intended to circulate. Roman Republic, Aulus Plautius, AR Denarius, 55 BCE, Rome mint. Obv. Turreted head of Cybele right, A. PLAVTIVS before, AE[D CVR S C] behind [portion in brackets off flan] / Rev. “Bacchius the Jew” [ = Aristobulus II of Judaea?],* in attitude of supplication, kneeling beside saddled camel (dromedary - one hump) standing right, extending olive-branch with right hand and holding camel’s bridle with left hand, his cape flowing behind him; BACCHIVS in exergue, IVDAEVS on right. RSC I Plautia 13, Crawford 431/1, Sydenham 932, Sear RCV I 395 (ill.), Harlan, RRM II Ch. 18 at pp. 145-149, BMCRR 3916. 18x20 mm., 4.25 g. (Purchased from Harlan J. Berk, Ltd., 211th Buy or Bid Sale, May 2020, Lot 183.) SB Binder 8 RRC 431/1 (85, 88, 89, 92) * See Sear RCV I at p. 148: “Aulus Plautius strikes as curule aedile. The problematic interpretation of the reverse type appears to have been most successfully resolved by [Michael] Harlan in RRM [see Roman Republican Moneyers and Their Coins 63 BCE-49 BCE (2nd Revised Edition 2015), Ch. 18 at pp. 146-148] . . . who identifies the kneeling figure as Aristobulus [= Judah Aristobulus II of the Hasmonean Dynasty, d. ca. 49 BCE], the Jewish high priest, then held captive by Pompey in Rome.” Trajan AR Drachm, 115-Feb. 116 AD [before granting of Parthia title], Arabia Bostra (or Rome*) Mint. Obv. Laureate, draped and cuirassed bust of Trajan right, with paludamentum, seen from rear, AYTOKP KAIC NЄP TPAIANѠ APICTѠ CƐB ΓƐPM ΔAK [equivalent of IMP CAES NER TRAIANO OPTIMO AVG GERM DAC] / Rev. Bactrian (two-humped) camel, walking left, ΔHMAPX ЄΞ YΠATO ς [equivalent of TR P COS VI (sixth consulship)]. RPC [Roman Provincial Coinage] Vol. III 4076 (2015); RPC Online at https://rpc.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/coins/3/4076, SNG ANS VI 1158; Sydenham 205 [E. Sydenham, The Coinage of Caesarea in Cappadocia (1933)]. 19 mm., 3.10 g. Purchased from Kenneth W. Dorney. (Coin is double die match to Roma Numismatics Auction, May 21, 2013, Lot 767 [https://www.numisbids.com/n.php?p=lot&sid=474&lot=767]; image of that coin is reproduced as Plate 14, No. 7 in Woytek & Butcher article cited in note below.) * See Bernhard E. Woytek and Kevin Butcher, The Camel Drachms of Trajan in Context: Old Problems and a New Overstrike, The Numismatic Chronicle Vol. 175 (2015), pp. 117-136 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/43859784).
I have this Trajan drachm with a camel. The awful tag for this coin indicated it was a "gato," ie CAT. To be fair, that is a TINY camel.
The Bostra issue is one of my favorite coins. It intentionally, (I believe), shows a Bactrian camel to show the world it was an endpoint of the Silk Road. The Spice Road ran through Bostra, and evidently so did the SIlk Road, and then merchants merged products from both to go on to Rome. Fascinating issue, I own both face left and face right examples, and pick up others at times. I actually first bought it to go with my Silk Road collection.
I read somewhere that when the Persians conquered Egypt (before Alexander's time) they used camels. Also, keep in mind that the camel evolved in North America before spreading to other parts of the world...
Sorry to wallow in the obvious --otherwise impicitly drawing on what several people have already said-- but where early depictions on coins are concerned, you have to combine the chronology with the operant geography. Good candidates would otherwise be issues of Alexander, or the Hasmoneans, or the Phoenicians, especially in Tyre. Except that Alexander's are notoriously uniform, in an obvious attempt to perpetuate the same motifs across a vast and conspicuously culturally diverse empire. And the Maccabees weren't that keen on representative images generally, and mainly issued coins in small modules. And the Phoenicians, in the same neighborhood, got their primary economic and cultural raison d'etre from maritime trade, rather the overland kind. Their coins, from, what, the 4th c. BCE, if not earlier, have fun representations of ships ...but not a camel in sight. ...Are there ancient coins from, for instance, central or southern Asia that have camels on them? That would be fun....
There are quite a few Central Asian coins with camels, all after Alexander though. I know of 3 different Sogdian issues and a Greco-Bactrian one just off the top of my head. All Bactrian camels of course.
