Incense Route

7 Key excerpts on "Incense Route"

• 

  eBook - ePub

  Spices, Scents and Silk

  Catalysts of World Trade

  • James F Hancock(Author)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • CAB International

    (Publisher)

  Fig. 5.2 ). All these cities were centred where important valleys entered the plain.

  Fig. 5.2. Incense Routes through ancient Arabia. (Redrawn from Singer, C. (2006) The incense kingdoms of Yemen: an outline history of the South Arabian incense trade. In: Peacock, D.P.S. and Williams, D.F. (eds) Food for the Gods: New Light on the Ancient Incense Trade. EBSCO Publishing, Ipswich, Massachusetts, Figure 2.6.)

  The frankincense after harvest was first transported by camels to Shabwa (Shabwah today), where Pliny tells us:

  a single gate is left open for its admission. To deviate from the high road while conveying it, the laws have made a capital offence. At this place the priests take by measure, and not by weight, a tenth part in honour of their god, whom they call Sabis; indeed, it is not allowable to dispose of it before this has been done: out of this tenth the public expenses are defrayed, for the divinity generously entertains all those strangers who have made a certain number of days’ journey in coming thither.

  (Bostock and Riley, 1855 –57, 12.32)

  When the taxes had been paid, the merchants purchased their supplies for the northern journey. In the beginning, the merchants were not from Shabwa, but from the Kingdom of Ma’in. These traders were well known all across the civilized world and were responsible for the shipment of incense to Syria, Egypt and Assyria, and then Greece and Rome. Settlements of Minaean traders from the Mediterranean were also established at key points along the Incense Route, as well as in Egypt.

  The caravan routes were lined by a series of way stations along the way, each collecting its own taxes (Singer, 2006 ). As Pliny further relates, ‘all along the route, there is at one place water to pay for, at another fodder, lodging at the stations, and various taxes and imposts besides’ (Bostock and Riley, 1855

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Rome's Eastern Trade

  International Commerce and Imperial Policy 31 BC - AD 305

  • Gary K. Young, Gary K Young(Authors)
  • 2003(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  3 THE ARABIAN INCENSE TRADE

  Like the sea trade into Egypt, the overland trade in aromatics which reached Arabia already had a long history by the time of the Roman entry into the affairs of the East in the first century BC. The Arabian perfumes of frankincense and myrrh had long been prized among the peoples of the Near East, and were an important part of both Near Eastern and Mediterranean religious practices. Accordingly, a strong market already existed for these commodities in the Mediterranean world, and the inhabitants both of the incense-producing regions and of those regions on the trade routes were able to exploit this market to their advantage.

  Many of the trade routes between southern Arabia and the Mediterranean crossed the Nabataean kingdom. By the time of the Romans’ appearance in the East, the Nabataeans were heavily involved in this trade and had attained considerable wealth and power.1 In this chapter, we shall examine the sources of the incense and the routes by which it was carried into and throughout the kingdom. From this, and from the other evidence of the trade which can be assembled, we shall attempt to determine what effect the trade had upon the societies of Nabataean and Roman Arabia, and upon political developments in those spheres.

  The trade routes of the Nabataean kingdom

  The Nabataeans, who may have originated in the Arabian peninsula,2 occupied the area south and east of the Dead Sea by the fourth century BC. By the first century BC they had expanded to become a wealthy and powerful kingdom by their control and exploitation of caravan routes through their territory. In the first literary reference to the Nabataeans, Diodorus Siculus refers to their wealth and its source:

  Although there are not a few of the Arab tribes using the desert as pasture, these greatly exceed the others in wealth, being not much more than ten thousand in number. For not a few of them are accustomed to bring down to the sea frankincense, myrrh and the most valuable of the aromatics which they receive from those who carry them from Arabia called Eudaimon.3

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Rome and the Distant East

  Trade Routes to the ancient lands of Arabia, India and China

  • Raoul McLaughlin(Author)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Continuum

    (Publisher)

  Small dhow-like vessels sailed from the Yemen north through the Red Sea or Persian Gulf, carrying aromatics destined for the large urban markets of the Mediterranian and Mesopotamia. At the same time, caravans of camels trudged north through the great desert expanse of inner Arabia to converge on these same regions. These trade routes were channelled through the great commercial hub of Petra and desert peoples like the Nabateans grew rich by facilitating this traffi c. THE DISTANT PAST The ancient evidence for incense trade stretches far back into the distant past and references to the use these aromatics in religious ceremonies are mentioned in the Egyptian Book of the Dead and early biblical texts. 2 By about 600 BC , Greek society was familiar with these substances and the female poet Sappho mentions both frankincense and myrrh in her works. In around 500 BC the classical philosopher ROME AND THE DISTANT EAST 62 and mathematician Pythagoras recommended that Greek worshippers burn frankincense as a more attractive alternative to animal sacrifice. 3 The widespread appeal of these substances is suggested by Herodotus, who writes that wealthy Babylonians fumigated themselves with incense before making love and Scythian women used frankincense in an aromatic paste applied to their skin as a beauty treatment. 4 Herodotus indicates that Gaza, on the Mediterranean coast of ancient Palestine, was a major centre for this early incense traffi c. Every year the Arabs at Gaza offered 1,000 Babylonian talents of frankincense as tribute to the Persian king Darius. 5 By the fifth century BC , large quantities of incense were being consumed in the Persian Empire and vast heaps of frankincense burned at Babylon on the golden altar in the temple of Bel. 6 Gaza still dominated this commerce in 332 BC when Alexander the Great captured the city and sent his old tutor Leonidas 500 talents of frankincense and 100 talents of myrrh.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  The Roman Empire and the Indian Ocean

  The Ancient World Economy & the Kingdoms of Africa, Arabia & India

  • Raoul McLaughlin(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Pen & Sword Military

    (Publisher)

  CHAPTER THREE

  Incense: A Unique Product

  In the ancient world many regions had unique natural products that were valuable commodities in distant markets. Traders, traffickers and consumers were all prepared to pay large sums to obtain these goods. Foremost among these unique products was the incense formed from fragrant, hardened resin of certain trees that grew in hot, arid climates. Most incense trees were subject to particular environmental conditions and could only be grown in certain regions. Incense was a renewable crop and since it was a sap, it was rarely diminished by ‘poor’ yields caused by seasonal fluctuations in annual weather patterns.

  Incense became a necessity for religious observance in places far from its place of origin, so transport systems were created to deliver this valuable crop to consumer markets. The demand for incense was large-scale and the markets to be supplied covered the entire ancient world from Western Europe to the cities of Han China. Incense stocks were so valuable that even a moderate amount was usually purchased using silver or gold. In the first century AD, Pliny the Elder records that the best frankincense was valued in Roman markets at 10 silver denarii per pound, while a similar weight of the finest resin-oil myrrh (stacte ) could sell for up of 50 denarii (200 sesterces).1 To give context to this figure, 200 sesterces represents about fifty day’s pay for a skilled labourer in the first century AD.2

  Incense production therefore had an important impact on world resources and increased the prosperity of the regimes engaged in this trade. Nations that controlled the incense trade had a continuous source of revenue that offered them an important and dependable long-term advantage in world commerce. Myrrh and frankincense in particular were renewable crops that brought great wealth into territories near the Gulf of Aden. By contrast, civilisations like Rome and Parthia had no equivalent product that could meet the cost of their incense imports and therefore had to rely on finite bullion reserves to pay for their consumerism.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Food for the Gods

  New Light on the Ancient Incense Trade

  • D. P. S. Peacock, A. C. S. Peacock, David Williams, A. C. S. Peacock, David Williams(Authors)
  • 2006(Publication Date)
  • Oxbow Books

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 2: The Incense Kingdoms of Yemen:

  An Outline History of the South Arabian Incense Trade

  Caroline Singer

  The overland trade in aromatics between South Arabia–that is, principally, the kingdoms of pre-Islamic Yemen–and the civilizations of Mesopotamia, Assyria, the Levant, the Mediterranean and Egypt, began in earnest at the start of the 1st millennium BC, and had an incalculable effect on the economic, cultural and linguistic life of the Middle East. However, even a cursory search among the sacred literature of ancient Egypt and Sumeria, Old Testament texts or the cuneiform records of Mesopotamia, reveals the importance of incense for religious and royal ceremonies long before the frankincense merchants started to arrive with their camel-trains from southern Arabia, in c. 10th to 8th century BC. The very early use of incense in Egypt, Greece, Mesopotamia and the Fertile Crescent, at least from the third millennium onwards, relied on sources much closer to home. The ‘incense’mentioned so often in the Pentateuch1

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam

  • Patricia Crone(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Gorgias Press

    (Publisher)

  20 The archaeological evidence sets in about the sixth century B.C., as has been seen, and the trade becomes increasingly at-tested thereafter. 21 The trade may thus be said to be of a venerable age even if it is not as old as civilisation itself. How were the incense products transported? It is a plausible contention that the earliest trade was by land. But leaving aside the obvious point that maritime expeditions to Punt on the part of the ancient Egyptians do not testify to the existence of an overland route, as has in all serious-ness been argued, 22 the fact that the earliest trade was by land in no way changed the date to the sixth century B.C.; another ostracon, possibly Minaean, dating from the seventh or sixth century B.C. discovered); id., The Other Side of theJordan, pp. 128, 132 (sixth-century date accepted, though the script resembles that of inscriptions dated to the fourth century B.C.); W. F. Albright, The Chaldaean Inscription in Proto-Arabic Script, pp. 43 f. (Glueck's eighth-century date not queried, but the script possibly proto-Dedanite, under no circumstances Minaean); Miiller, Weibraucb, col. 745 (it is probably Sabaean). Cf. also P. Boneschi, Les monogrammes sud-arabes de la grande jarre de Tell El-Heleyfeb (Ezion-Geber) (where the jar still dates from the eighth or seventh century B.C.). > Cf. T . C. Mitchell, A South Arabian Tripod Offering Saucer Said T o Be from Ur, p. 113. ™> See the passages adduced by Miiller, Weihrauch, col. 708. The Biblical passages mentioning frankincense are listed by Moldenke and Mol-denke, Plants of the Bible, pp. 56 f.; it is common in the Prophets, from about 600 B.C. on-ward. In the fifth century B.C. it was used by the Jews of Elephantine (A. Cowley, ed. and tr., Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth Century B.C., nos. 30:25; 31:21; 33:11).

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  The Incense Bible

  Plant Scents That Transcend World Culture, Medicine, and Spirituality

  • Dennis J Mckenna, Kerry Hughes(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  In Roman times incense was burned before the statues of gods during procession, and were left either in doorways along the procession route or carried by hand. Incense was even a part of the Circensian games, which included a procession of dancers and musicians followed by people carrying gold and silver censers with various religious and civil signs inscribed on them, followed by people carrying the images of gods. In the procession for the goddess Isis, a large number of people carried candles and torches, while priests carried lanterns and an altar. At the head of the procession were women who wore garlands of flowers, and people who strewed herbs, balm, and other fragrant substances (Atchley, 1909).

  In earlier Roman times, it was not customary to burn the dead but to bury them. However, before the burial the body was washed and anointed. Later it became customary for the bodies of the dead to be cremated, and in some instances large quantities of incense and other spices were brought to the cremations. There is one story of a cremation in which large statues of frankincense and cinnamon were created of the departed and then burned on the pyre (Atchley, 1909).

  Arabian Secrets

  The ancient trade routes of frankincense and myrrh were traveled by camel and kept secret from outsiders. The exact location of where frankincense and myrrh trees grew was surrounded by so much myth and secrecy that the outside world had no access to these trees. In the ancient land of Sheba—what is today Yemen and Oman—is the place where frankincense and myrrh trees originated. They grew only in the hot, stony, and lime-enriched desert belt that was protected from wind by the mountains. This was also native territory for other incense plants—such as balsam and cinnamon—all of which made the inhabitants of the Arabian region very wealthy. The beginning of the 2,200 mile trade route through the desert began in the town of Ma’rib, at the eastern corner of the foothills of Yemen. An oasis was located in the middle of the town, and large walls surrounded and protected it.

  The Love of the Prophet

  According to the prophet of Islam, Mohammed, he loved three things the most in this world: women, pleasant fragrances, and prayer. The most loved of the fragrances by Mohammed was musk. Musk comes from the scent gland of a deer, and when it is concentrated it smells of urine and ammonia, but when it is highly diluted it becomes an earthy and sensuous fragrance (Fischer-Rizzi, 1996). Yemeni women still use incense to perfume their clothing with musk, aloeswood, sandalwood, clove, and rose. Muslim women use an incense mixture called bakhur, which is made by the family to scent their burkas and chadors . The incense has a rose water and sugar base, and consists usually of the aforementioned incenses, as well as ground up conch shells called duffer

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book