ABSTRACT
Of all domesticated species that humans used to carry their belongings, provisions, and commodities throughout the millennia, the camel is perhaps the most famous – at least when it comes to caravan transport across barren desert regions in the Old World. However, the one-humped camel, or dromedary, was not always available in the ancient world. And when it was, from some point of time in the first millennium BC onwards, it did not completely replace its long-time predecessor, the humble donkey, which in some situations still had its advantages over the camel. In ancient Egypt, for most of the pharaonic period, this indefatigable working animal was the principal beast of burden and contributed much to the rise and longevity of one of humankind’s earliest advanced civilizations and its road network to neighboring countries. By combining archaeological, zoological, and ethnographical evidence, this chapter compares the performance qualities and, eventually, the economic efficiency of both pack animal species, and elucidates the respective logistics of ancient desert caravan transport in northeastern Africa.
