All the Perfumes of Arabia

Abstract

Accessible online at: www.karger.com/journals/ibe I read in a recent newspaper report that a perfume shop has been recreated at Pompeii in the excavated ruins of an earlier perfume shop that had been forced to cease trading in AD 79 due to adverse conditions. This re-construction was now open to sell perfumes of the Roman age prepared from the plants originally used by the Pompeian perfumers. The identity of the plants had been discovered from semi-carbonised seeds found in the city and a garden in which to grow them had also been re-constructed. As to the mechanics of the perfume-making process, a fresco in the house of Vetii in the city showed the procedures, stage by stage, in graphic detail. The wheel for this item of history may have turned full circle but what more has happened on its journey? Perfume production is one of the ancient arts and the fragrance of perfume has been smelt throughout history. By the time of the destruction of Pompeii the story of perfume was well advanced. Hieroglyphs on the walls on ancient Egyptian tombs show that fragrance played a part in the lives of people as far back as the reign of King Menes, over 5 millennia ago. The ingredients of these early perfumes were rare and costly but in time incense, aromatics and perfumed oil became freely available and their use became widespread. Egyptians were fastidious in their personal habits and took elaborate baths, which were the forerunners of the luxurious bathing establishments of the Greeks and Romans. They soaked their skin in perfumed oils for the pleasure of it, and to help protect their bodies from the drying effects of the sun. Perfume was held in high esteem in Biblical times and there is frequent mention of fragrance in the Bible. In the New Testament, the three wise men carried gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the infant Jesus. Much earlier, Moses had been commanded by the Lord to ‘take unto thee sweet spices, stacte and onycha and galbanum ... with pure frankincense ... And thou shalt make it a perfume.’ Again in the forty-fifth psalm: ‘All your robes are fragrant with myrrh and aloes, and cassia; ...’. The function of perfume throughout most of history would seem to have been two-fold. On the one hand, it could mask unpleasant human odours, but also it could be chosen to accentuate the aphrodisiac features of such smells. In addition, it has a relationship with bathing not least in their connection to the sacred. Bathing, just as incense and perfume, makes humans more pleasing to the gods and is often incorporated into ritual. Perfume, either as an adjunct or an alternative to bathing, also makes people more pleasant to be near. As an example remember the Romans whose public baths are probably the best known from antiquity, with examples still extant today. For them bathing was universally accepted as a central event in daily life. In the Roman world it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that at the height of the empire, the baths embodied the ideal Roman way of urban life. Perfume was a part of the ritual and among their many rooms the baths might contain one, called the ‘unctuarium’, that had shelves with pots of unguents, jars of fragrant oils, and essence for the clients. Perfume reached its peak in England in Tudor times and all public places were scented during Queen Elizabeth’s rule, since she could not tolerate bad smells. She was also very particular about personal hygiene, and would have no-one or anything around her that smelt! It is said that she had a bath every few weeks, which by the standards of the day was very frequent. A major use of perfume has always been to combat body odour and to mask the smells of communal living and also death. Although the Roman love of communal baths persisted into the period commonly called the mid-