Molded Camel in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, December 2022

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

Date: 12th–early 13th century

Geography: Attributed to probably Iran or Iraq

Medium: Stonepaste; molded in sections, glazed in turquoise

Dimensions: H. 7 11/16 in. (19.5 cm)
W. 5 9/16 in. (14.1 cm)
D. 2 9/16 in. (6.5 cm)
Wt. 21.7 oz. (615.3 g)

Classification: Ceramics

Credit Line: Fletcher Fund, 1964

Accession Number: 64.59

Camel-rearing traditions may explain their frequent appearance in twelfth-century arts and their praise in mystical poetry. It has been suggested that Turkmen tribes bred hybrids of one- and two-humped camels and their southward migration and foundation of the Great Seljuq state was prompted, beyond an unstable political situation, by a climate change unfavorable to this occupation.