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Legend—and some evidence—has it that the camel was first domesticated in southern Arabia by the People of 'Ad. There, more than fifty "houses" (breeds) of camels were developed. The animals were cranky, had bad breath, and were certainly not beautiful in any conventional sense of the word. Yet their owners could gaze into a camel's great eyes and see both economic gain and a soulmate. In an age-old ditty of the desert, the beauty—and worth—of a woman is measured against the Banat Safar, a "house" of camels:

The fairness of beautiful girls

Is that of the Banat Safar.

Sa'id's daughter approaching a campfire

Is like a camel descending a difficult pass

[i.e.: its head, like the girl's, turns superciliously from

side to side]

Her fresh face is like a camel's flesh

Which the dew has not struck, nor the cold.3

With the domestication of the camel, the pace of the incense trade quickened. Caravans could cross the Rub' al-Khali in less than a month, and their frankincense was then carried either north to Mesopotamia or west to the Red Sea. There it was loaded on boats bound for Egypt, where it was greatly valued as early as 2800 B.C. As an offering worthy of "the great company of the gods," the Egyptian Book of the Dead considered incense far more than a ceremonial trapping: the incense itself was holy. At a funeral, the text instructed: "Thou shalt cast incense into the fire on behalf of Osiris" (rather than offer it to Osiris). Frankincense enhanced the afterlife journey of the deceased. In the words of the ritual Pyramid Text, "A stairway to the sky is set up for me that I may ascend on it to the sky, and I ascend on the smoke of the great censing."4

As they learned of the holiness accorded frankincense, the People of Ad may have ritualized its gathering. Pliny tells us that the individuals selected to harvest it were "called sacred, and ... not allowed, while pruning the trees or gathering the harvest, to receive any pollution, either by intercourse with women, or coming in contact with the dead; in this way the price of the commodity is increased owing to the scruples of religion."5

Though the religious (versus economic) ardor of the 'Ad may be a little suspect in this case, they almost certainly would have had a belief system drawing on both their Semitic heritage and practices in Mesopotamia observed in the course of their incense trade. When times were good, as they had been for as long as anyone could remember, the 'Ad probably took their gods for granted, paying them minimal heed.

Then, sometime around 2500 B.C., bad times came to the People of'Ad. The rains ceased to fall at Shisur. First one year, then another, then every year the monsoon rains failed to crest the Dhofar Mountains and water the land beyond. At Shisur the 'Ad would have, in all earnestness now, turned to a rudimentary temple. It may have been a sacred tent, a brush-walled enclosure, or perhaps just a low wall of uncut stones outlining a haram, a sacred space. In its precinct frankincense would have been placed in small burners—miniature fire altars—and offered to an uncut stone, a betyl, which was the dwelling place of Sada, the bringer of rain.

The slow-moving river near Shisur dried up, and any frankincense trees around Shisur died off. The god Sada failed the 'Ad. It was then that in large numbers the People of 'Ad withdrew to the south and settled in the highlands of the Dhofar Mountains. There frankincense still flourished, and there was water. Where three springs flowed from a low ridge, the Bronze Age mountain town of Hagif arose. Considerable effort went into its domed houses built of branches set in megalithic foundations. There was a sense of permanence here, new to southern Arabia. As one generation gave way to the next, new houses were built and older ones converted to impressive graves; Hagif became a rambling assembly of the dead and the living, sprawling three miles across the incense land.

In the desert beyond, all was not abandoned.