The use of oils and perfumes continued down the centuries and perfume jars containing resins and oils have been found in tombs of the Late Period. The Greek poet Homer stated that Egypt was a fertile land rich in herbs; his fellow countryman Herodotus, visiting Egypt in c.450 B.C., also commented on the use of perfumes and spices when he wrote that the myrrh and cinnamon used in mummification at that time were obtained from Arabia, where it was apparently guarded by mythical creatures. A century or so later another Greek writer, Theophrastus, stated in his work Concerning odors that Egyptian perfumes were undoubtedly the best in the world, relating that one Greek perfume merchants had Egyptian perfume in his shop for eight years….and it was still in good condition, in fact better than fresh perfume!.

In the 4th century B.C., the Greek Ptolemaic dynasty established their new capital at Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast. By this time many perfume ingredients, including frankincense, myrrh, cinnamon, galbanum and cardamom were being imported from as far away as India and Alexandria soon became the greatest trading center of the ancient world. The Ptolemies also continued pharaonic traditions in their lavish use of perfumes. The great temples they built to honor their adopted gods at Edfu and Dendera included perfume laboratories where the ritual perfumes and ever-increasing varieties of incense were produces, and in the perfume factories of Alexandria materials imported from Palestine, Syria, Yemen, Asia Minor and India were comb imbed with native products to produce oils and perfumes which were then exported, mainly to Rome.

Cleopatra VII, the last of the Ptolemies, was reputed to have used a different perfume for every part of her body - her perfumed hand cream alone was said to cost the exorbitant sum of 400 denarii. However, since she owned the huge and valuable estates which produced the perfumes in the first place she could easily afford such luxuries and obviously used them to great effect: Shakespeare, writing 1600 years later, recalls how the perfumed breeze announced the arrival of her cedar wood ship with its lily-scented sails. So adept was Cleopatra in the dramatic use of perfumes that she was credited with writing a Book of Beautification in 50 B.C. and was regularly quoted by Roman authors as late as the seventh century A.D.

In fact, Rome was the main market for the highly lucrative Egyptian perfume industry, even with the taxes and duty levied on imports of frankincense. Perfume dealers had to pay taxes of 60 drachmae a month or the equivalent in spices, but so lucrative was the trade that perfume merchants were still rumored to make a hundredfold profit. In his book Natural History, the Roman Pliny the Elder echoed the comments of earlier Greek writers when he stated that Egypt was the country best suited to perfume production, while his contemporary Discords gave detailed recipes for perfumes in his Herbal. Roman poets such as Ovid also wrote on the subject of perfumes, and the female poet Lais composed a risqué work designed for a special class of woman! Although unaware of the religious and mystical overtones of many of the Pharaonic fragrances, Lais did at least understand the Egyptians’ appreciation for the sensual uses of perfumes, and it was only with the sanctimonious attitude to the body demonstrated by the early Christians that the Egyptian art of perfumery was finally lost. Pagan habits of indulgence and luxury were forbidden and abstinence was made a virtue: the faint wisp of incense permitted in church was soon the only memory of the billowing clouds once offered daily at every shrine in Egypt.



Excerpted from Oils and Perfumes of Ancient Egypt by Joann Fletcher