Visual representations of dromedaries in Greco-Roman antiquity and the middle ages: Imagining the other before orientalism

Abstract

The diorama Lion Attacking a Dromedary found in the Carnegie Museum of Natural History rightfully belongs to an Orientalist artistic tradition that crystallized many of the discriminatory misrepresentations of people of color that have plagued our society to this day. Camels and dromedaries, associated with the “Orient,” constituted an integral element of the exotic vision held and disseminated by Europeans. The motif of the camel and its dark-skinned rider, however, emerged many centuries prior to the context of colonial Europe and across media. This paper explores the surfacing and subsequent proliferation of the camel as a symbol of otherness and foreignness in Antiquity and the Middle Ages in relation to Christian and imperial ideologies. I argue that the material evidence points to a long-standing associative combination of the camel with people of color and/or of foreign origin and thus establishes a precedent worth our attention as we continue to wrestle with the racial and political ramifications of Lion Attacking a Dromedary.