Camels are mentioned in the book of Genesis being used as transportation and as pack animals during the time of Abraham, Isaac, and Laban. This has long been dismissed as an anachronism and a literary embellishment of a later writer. However, archaeological evidence suggests that people had begun to use camels for transportation by at least 2000 BC, around the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age.
For example, a cylinder seal of carved hematite and measuring 2.8 cm tall by 1.3 cm in diameter, found in Syria and dated to about 1800 – 1650 BC, shows two people riding on the humps of a Bactrian camel. This strongly indicates that riding camels was already known in northern Mesopotamia and in the region that includes modern Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon.
Other artifacts include: • a Sumerian text from Nippur written in about 1900 BC mentioning camel milk, • a tablet from Ugarit dated to about 1900 BC that includes the camel in a list of domesticated animals, • a 15th-century BC ration list from Alalakh that lists camel food among the required rations. In addition, two Egyptian petroglyphs — one from the Old Kingdom at Aswan, and one from the Middle Kingdom at Wadi Nasib — show camels being used as pack animals.
Conclusion
The Biblical references to the domestication of camels in the book of Genesis are entirely consistent with the archaeological finds concerning camels during this period.
