Zayed National Museum to Launch First Temporary Exhibition on 7,000 Years of Camel History

Exhibition Overview

The centrepieces of the exhibition include the Baynunah camel remains, which lay undiscovered for more than 6,000 years before archaeologists excavated them. This December they will be shown to the public for the first time.

The museum described Tracks Through Time as the first temporary show at Zayed National Museum and said it is the first exhibition anywhere to explore more than 7,000 years of camel history.

Ancient Origins and Domestication

The camels of today descend from a wild ancestor that no longer exists. A 2016 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences recovered ancient DNA from wild dromedary bones up to 7,000 years old, including remains from UAE sites such as Al Sufouh, Tell Abraq and Al-Buhais. Researchers compared this DNA with genetic material from 1,083 camels alive today.

They found that wild dromedaries from the south‑east coast of Arabia were among the founders of the domestic camel’s gene pool. These animals are thought to have fed among coastal mangroves where salt was available. Within less than two millennia of the domestic form appearing, the wild camels disappeared.

The PNAS study places the taming of the dromedary in the late second millennium BCE, around 1100 to 800 BCE, based on shrinking bone size, the appearance of camel remains in settlements rather than isolated heaps, and figurines of clearly domesticated animals.

A 2025 study by researchers at UAE University, published in the journal Heritage, gives the earliest and widest range for domestication, saying it began between 1100 and 1800 BCE.

The museum’s description of its Saruq Al Hadid bones as “some of the earliest evidence in the world” fits within this scholarly debate.

The PNAS authors describe the dromedary as the animal that carried salt, incense and spices across Arabia, the Near East and North Africa. They note that caravans sometimes numbered thousands of animals and persisted into the 20th century. Trade between south‑west and south‑east Arabia, they write, was “almost certainly camel‑borne”.

Modern Role and Cultural Significance

What the camel is for has changed more in one lifetime than in a thousand years. Historically camels provided transport, milk, meat and hides, and were at times used to pay zakat.

According to a 2025 study by researchers at UAE University, the UAE’s camel population rose from 430,372 in 2015 to 569,527 in 2022, with almost 90 percent located in Abu Dhabi and about 85 percent female.

The sector produces more than 7,000 tonnes of pasteurised camel milk each year, selling it in the EU, China and the US. In February it secured approval for the first international standard for pasteurised camel milk.

Racing and beauty contests are part of how the camel earns its keep today, and the exhibition gives them prominence. Magee said that the exhibition traces the camel’s story up to “the prestige of Al Hejin camel racing and Mazayna beauty competitions”.

A 2025 study by researchers at UAE University found that these beauty contests now reward specific physical features, pushing breeders towards selective breeding and driving up prices for camels that meet the standards.

Exhibition Highlights

Magee said that the exhibition moves from wild camels in the UAE thousands of years ago, through domestication and the bonds between people and animals in daily life, to the prestige of Al Hejin racing and Mazayna beauty competitions.

Archival photographs and film footage accompany the objects, alongside oral testimonies from camel herders and community members and recordings of Taghrooda and Alheda’a, camel‑calling traditions inscribed on UNESCO’s list of intangible cultural heritage.

Other items on display include an 1840s children’s book on camel species and their uses, rock art from Fujairah dating back some 3,000 years, and camels featured on UAE postage stamps.

Outside the museum the camel remains a familiar sight on racetracks, in supermarket fridges and on stamps. Inside, visitors will encounter the animal as it existed before any of those modern uses.