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Incense Route

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The Incense Route was the network of caravan trails and sea lanes that carried frankincense and myrrh from southern Arabia and the Horn of Africa to Egypt, the Levant and the Mediterranean. It is a place where religion, geography and economics meet: the goods were wanted mainly for temples and rituals, the trees grew in only a small corner of the world, and the gods themselves took a share of the cargo on the way.[1]

Why incense had to travel

The trees that yield frankincense and myrrh grow naturally only in southern Arabia and the Horn of Africa. The agricultural scientist James F. Hancock explains that demand from Egyptian temples drove the pharaohs to send expeditions to a land they called Punt, probably somewhere in that region.[2] After the reign of Rameses III such voyages became rare, and Phoenician sailors took over much of the Red Sea trade. The Bible's account of Solomon's expedition to Ophir, which brought back gold, ivory and probably incense, belongs to this period, though nobody knows where Ophir was.[3] Egyptian rulers also tried to shorten the journey with a canal from the Nile to the Red Sea, begun by Necho II around 600 BCE, revived by Darius the Great and probably finished by Ptolemy II, though it kept silting up.[4]

The incense kingdoms

According to Hancock, the land route of about 4,800 km (3,000 miles) was controlled by four kingdoms in what is now Yemen: Hadhramaut, Saba (Sheba), Qataban and Ma'in, the region the Romans called "Arabia Felix". Only two of them actually grew the trees. Saba was the first to dominate, and its queen is remembered in the Bible (1 Kings 10) and the Qur'an (sura 27) for her visit to Solomon. Much later the Himyarites controlled the trade for around 500 years.[1] The wealth of Saba rested partly on farming as well as trade, made possible by the great Ma'rib Dam.[5]

Camels and caravans

The trade depended on the dromedary camel, which Hancock dates as domesticated for transport in Arabia around 2000 BCE. A camel can lose 30–40 per cent of its body weight in water and store around 35 kg of fat, and a loaded animal walked about 2.5 miles an hour.[6] By 500 BCE caravans of more than 200 camels were travelling.[7]

There was effectively only one workable trail. It ran from Shabwa through Timna, Ma'rib and Najran, and then split. One branch went north-east to Gerrha on the Persian Gulf. The other went north through Yathrib (later Medina, which also lay on the pilgrims' way to Mecca), Dedan, Petra and finally Gaza, where the overland route ended. From there much of the incense went to Alexandria to be prepared for sale. The journey from Timna to Gaza was about 1,500 miles and took around 65 days; the sea voyage from Gaza to Rome's port at Puteoli was about as long again.[7]

The god's tithe

The Roman writer Pliny the Elder, as quoted by Hancock, gives a vivid picture of how sacred and commercial life were tangled together. At Shabwa "a single gate is left open for its admission", and leaving the high road with incense was punished by death. Priests took a tenth of the incense in honour of their god Sabis. That tithe paid for public expenses, and in return the god was said to "entertain" travellers for a set number of days.[7] Seen this way, the route was a chain of hospitality as well as taxation. Travellers paid at way-stations for water, fodder and lodging, and the Qatabanians cut narrow single-file passes lined with shrines and tax collectors.[7]

Petra and the Nabataeans

The last stretch was run by the Nabataeans, nomads who became middlemen. They were independent from the fourth to the first century BCE, then became a client kingdom of Rome, and were annexed in 106 CE as the province of Arabia Petraea. Their city of Petra, founded around 150 BCE according to Hancock's sources, processed frankincense and myrrh into medicines and cosmetics. It was also a religious landscape, with shrines, tomb complexes, the narrow Siq gorge, the columned facade known as the Khasneh and a high place of sacrifice. Petra was later also a terminus of the Silk Road.[8]

Profits and security

Hancock reports that the best frankincense sold in Rome for 5–6 denarii a pound, roughly a skilled worker's weekly wage, with myrrh fetching about twice as much. A camel load of around 500 lb could bring a profit of 1,500–2,000 denarii, even after Rome took a quarter of the value as import duty.[9] The goods were valuable enough that, according to Pliny, workers in the Alexandrian workshops had their aprons sealed and were searched before they left.[10]

By sea and by force

By the 1st century CE the Nabataeans were moving much of the incense by sea, loading it at island ports near today's Yemen and shipping it up the Red Sea to Aila (modern Aqaba) and Leuke Kome, where Rome later took a 25 per cent customs tax.[11] Rome's attempt to seize the source of the trade ended in the failed Aelius Gallus's expedition to Arabia, after which the kingdom of Himyar became almost the only supplier.[12] For the trees, harvest and uses of the goods themselves, see Frankincense and myrrh.

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Hancock, James F. (2021). "Land of Punt and the Incense Routes". Spices, Scents and Silk: Catalysts of World Trade. CABI. section "Rise of the Incense Kingdoms". ISBN 9781789249774.
  2. ↑ Hancock, James F. (2021). "Land of Punt and the Incense Routes". Spices, Scents and Silk: Catalysts of World Trade. CABI. section "Setting the Stage". ISBN 9781789249774.
  3. ↑ Hancock, James F. (2021). "Land of Punt and the Incense Routes". Spices, Scents and Silk: Catalysts of World Trade. CABI. section "Red Sea Trade after Rameses III". ISBN 9781789249774.
  4. ↑ Hancock, James F. (2021). "Land of Punt and the Incense Routes". Spices, Scents and Silk: Catalysts of World Trade. CABI. section "Canal of the Pharaohs". ISBN 9781789249774.
  5. ↑ Hancock, James F. (2021). "Land of Punt and the Incense Routes". Spices, Scents and Silk: Catalysts of World Trade. CABI. section "Ma'rib Dam". ISBN 9781789249774.
  6. ↑ Hancock, James F. (2021). "Land of Punt and the Incense Routes". Spices, Scents and Silk: Catalysts of World Trade. CABI. section "Domestication of the Camel". ISBN 9781789249774.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 Hancock, James F. (2021). "Land of Punt and the Incense Routes". Spices, Scents and Silk: Catalysts of World Trade. CABI. section "Caravan Routes". ISBN 9781789249774.
  8. ↑ Hancock, James F. (2021). "Land of Punt and the Incense Routes". Spices, Scents and Silk: Catalysts of World Trade. CABI. section "Nabataeans". ISBN 9781789249774.
  9. ↑ Hancock, James F. (2021). "Land of Punt and the Incense Routes". Spices, Scents and Silk: Catalysts of World Trade. CABI. section "Profits". ISBN 9781789249774.
  10. ↑ Hancock, James F. (2021). "Land of Punt and the Incense Routes". Spices, Scents and Silk: Catalysts of World Trade. CABI. section "Alexandria". ISBN 9781789249774.
  11. ↑ 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.
  12. ↑ Hancock, James F. (2021). "Land of Punt and the Incense Routes". Spices, Scents and Silk: Catalysts of World Trade. CABI. section "Roman Invasion of the Incense Route". ISBN 9781789249774.
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