Image-Caravan to India

Painting and Sketches/Jesus (St Issa) taking the final caravan to India

Jesus taking a caravan to India
(click for larger image)

"Departed from Jerusalem, and with the merchants set out towards Sind."
Text excerpt from The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ

Caravans very rarely traveled the entire distance of an export product's final destination. Most commonly the caravan traveled a route which was only a fraction of the overall trip. It would leave the good at the end of the route which would typically be a merchant center in or near a settlement. It would pick up a load for the return trip. At the merchant center another caravan would take the goods and continue to another merchant center. In this manner, a person with little or no money, but of reasonable good health, could find work among the caravans and conceivably feed the animals all the way across the Orient. Depicted is one such hand-off where Issa (Jesus) is saying farewell to a camel caravan and is now traveling with an elephant train( notice the "camels" need some work-- evidence of a preliminary sketch where the idea is more important than technical accuracy. Before the final painting more research corrects inaccuracies).