Ottoman camel skeleton found near Vienna

[Duncan Head]

1683 is somewhat outside our era, but this is too fascinating to pass up:

A complete camel skeleton dug up from a 17th-century Austrian cellar shows tell-tale signs that it was a valuable riding animal in the Ottoman army. It was probably left behind or traded in the town of Tulln following the Ottoman siege of nearby Vienna in 1683.  DNA analysis shows that the beast - the first intact camel skeleton found in central Europe - was a Bactrian-dromedary hybrid, popular in the army. It also has bone defects that suggest it wore a harness and was ridden.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-32145248

Original article at http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0121235

I remember Bulliet's The Camel and the Wheel talking about Bactrian-dromedary hybrids being used as transport camels in the Parthian era, but I don't recall seeing any mention of them in the Ottoman period before now.

[Swampster]

I remember Bulliet's The Camel and the Wheel talking about Bactrian-dromedary hybrids being used as transport camels in the Parthian era, but I don't recall seeing any mention of them in the Ottoman period before now.

See Tapper https://www.soas.ac.uk/camelconference2011/file74604.pdf

Apart from the hybrids, he also says that the range of Bactrians used to be far to the west, including Anatolia* and Mesopotamia but that this range decreased with the introduction of dromedaries by Arabs.

*I think the Bactrians now in Western Turkey are relatively recent (re)introductions, often bred further east and imported for wrestling.

[Duncan Head]

That looks interesting - thanks.

[Andreas Johansson]

Very interesting yes. Thanks both