Frankincense and myrrh
Frankincense and myrrh are fragrant tree resins from southern Arabia and the Horn of Africa. For thousands of years they were burned to honour gods, used to treat the sick and preserve the dead, and carried across deserts and seas in one of the ancient world's richest trades. They sit where botany, geography, religion, medicine and economics meet.
The trees and their land
The two resins come from a small and unusual corner of the world. According to James F. Hancock, frankincense comes from Boswellia sacra, which grows in the hills, plains and valleys of Dhofar in southern Oman and Hadramawt in eastern Yemen. The best myrrh comes from Commiphora myrrha, found in southern Oman and Yemen and also in Ethiopia and Somalia.[1]
The frankincense tree is short and squat, rarely more than about 4.5 metres (15 feet) tall, with papery, peeling bark from white to reddish and several trunks rising from a disc-like base. The myrrh tree is smaller, about 2.7 metres (9 feet), with a single trunk, greyish-white bark and knotted, thorny branches. When the bark is slashed, both trees ooze resin that hardens into lumps called "tears".[1]
Both trees need limestone soil that never becomes waterlogged. Hancock explains that the Khareef monsoon, which blows in from East Africa from late May to September, brings a fine mist rather than heavy rain, giving the trees what he calls the "perfect moisture pattern". Climate, rock and plant together explain why the resins came from so few places.[1]
Harvest and the "sacred" families
The region was first settled between about 6000 and 4000 BCE by Neolithic farmers from the Levant. Once their harvests were dependable, a merchant class grew up and began to trade the resins.[1] The resins were gathered by small family groups from wild trees in the wadis. Pliny the Elder, as summarised by Hancock, describes the harvest around the rising of the Dog Star in the hottest days of summer: a cut was made where the bark was fullest of sap, a foam ran out and thickened, and it was caught on mats of palm leaves; what stuck to the tree was scraped off with an iron tool. Hancock notes that the method is "essentially unchanged today".[2]
Rights to the trees were hereditary and almost sacred. Pliny wrote that no more than 3,000 families held the hereditary right to trade frankincense, and that they were therefore called "sacred". Here religion, property and commerce were bound together.[2]
Why people used them
Nobody knows why people first used the resins. Hancock reports the speculation of Watt and Sellar that early people may have noticed three things: the smell made them drowsy when twigs were thrown on camp fires, insects trapped in resin were preserved, and the resin seemed to help grazed hands heal.[3] Later uses followed all three lines: worship, preservation and medicine. Hancock also points to a practical reason for their popularity: they masked the strong smells of ancient life.[3]
In worship
The resins were mostly burned as incense, at the shrines of great gods and also at banquets, funerals, sporting games and weddings. Their scent was thought to please God and to keep away evil spirits that might send disease or famine. In New Kingdom Egypt, priests walked backwards in procession swinging long-handled, falcon-topped censers, and incense was burned on temple altars at night so that the sun god Re would cross the sky again the next morning. Balls of incense were found in the tomb of Tutankhamun.[4]
The resins were also paid as tribute to gods and kings. Herodotus reported that a yearly tribute of 1,000 talents of frankincense (about 45,000 kg) went to Babylon for the altar of the Temple of Bel. According to Plutarch, when Alexander the Great took Gaza he sent a shipload of frankincense and myrrh to his old tutor Leonidas, who had once told him to use incense sparingly; Alexander's letter told him to "stop dealing parsimoniously with the gods".[5] In the Gospel of Matthew the magi bring gold, frankincense and myrrh to the infant Jesus.[5]
Medicine and embalming
The resins were among the ancient world's most widely used medicines. Assyrian cuneiform texts prescribe myrrh for ailments of the eyes, ears, mouth and nose, in mouthwashes and poultices, and burned in a censer at the head of a patient's bed. Greek and Roman medical writers used frankincense to stop bleeding, clean and heal wounds, and treat chest pains and bladder stones. The wine mixed with myrrh offered to Jesus before the crucifixion (Mark 15:23) was, Hancock suggests, probably a painkiller.[4]
Egyptian embalmers used both resins. After the organs were removed, the body cavity was packed with myrrh, the head anointed with frankincense, and the body rubbed with myrrh, juniper and cinnamon while priests chanted. Greeks and Romans burned large amounts of incense on funeral pyres. Pliny claimed that a whole year's supply of Rome's incense was burned at the funeral of Poppaea, wife of the emperor Nero.[4]
Perfume and the city
The resins also scented bodies and buildings. Egyptian tomb paintings show banquet guests wearing cones of scented fat on their heads, and Queen Hatshepsut's inscriptions say she perfumed her legs with myrrh. Theophrastus thought myrrh-oil perfumes lasted especially well.[4] In Greek and Roman towns incense burners at the base of statues filled the streets with smoke, and great braziers at Roman amphitheatres covered the smell of blood. Herodotus, as quoted by Hancock, said that Arabia "exhales an odor marvelously sweet".[4]
Trade
A few small kingdoms in what is now Yemen grew "fabulously wealthy", in Hancock's words, by selling the resins to Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Levant and the Mediterranean. At the height of demand in the 2nd century CE, Greece and Rome imported more than 3,000 tons of frankincense a year, and Hancock argues that the scents dominated world trade for about 4,000 years.[3] The resins travelled by camel along the Incense Route and later by sea up the Red Sea; Rome's wish to control the source led to Aelius Gallus's expedition to Arabia.[6]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Hancock, James F. (2021). "Early History of Scents, Spices and Silk". Spices, Scents and Silk: Catalysts of World Trade. CABI. section "Smoke of the Gods in Antiquity: Natural history of frankincense and myrrh". ISBN 9781789249774.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Hancock, James F. (2021). "Early History of Scents, Spices and Silk". Spices, Scents and Silk: Catalysts of World Trade. CABI. section "Smoke of the Gods in Antiquity: Ancient culture of frankincense and myrrh". ISBN 9781789249774.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Hancock, James F. (2021). "Early History of Scents, Spices and Silk". Spices, Scents and Silk: Catalysts of World Trade. CABI. section "Smoke of the Gods in Antiquity". ISBN 9781789249774.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 Hancock, James F. (2021). "Exotic Luxuries in Antiquity". Spices, Scents and Silk: Catalysts of World Trade. CABI. section "Use of Frankincense and Myrrh in Antiquity". ISBN 9781789249774.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Hancock, James F. (2021). "Exotic Luxuries in Antiquity". Spices, Scents and Silk: Catalysts of World Trade. CABI. section "Use of Frankincense and Myrrh in Antiquity: Tributes of scent". ISBN 9781789249774.
- ↑ Hancock, James F. (2021). "Land of Punt and the Incense Routes". Spices, Scents and Silk: Catalysts of World Trade. CABI. section "Maritime Incense Trade". ISBN 9781789249774.