The camel and the incense road
A domesticated dromedary opens the Arabian desert to trade.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 500 years
- Known to
- ± 200 years
- Era
- Iron Age, Holocene
The dromedary is domesticated in southern Arabia and comes into widespread use as a pack animal around 1000 BCE. It can carry 200 kilograms for days without water across terrain no cart or donkey can cross. That opens the overland incense route carrying frankincense and myrrh from Yemen to the Mediterranean, enriching the South Arabian kingdoms and putting the interior of Arabia on the map for the first time.