Ancient Perfumes and their therapeutic benefits

1 Feb 2023

Seshen - Essence of Blue Lotus

Have you ever wondered what perfume Cleopatra ordered the sails of her ship to be soaked in so that the luxurious aroma would drift across the water to seduce the great Roman general Mark Antony before her arrival in Rome? According to Egyptian hieroglyphs, the fragrance this enchanting Queen of Egypt favoured was the intoxicating sweet scent of the blue lotus (Nymphaea caerulea), a water lily also known as the “cannabis of Ancient Egypt.”

This beautiful flower originally grew along the river Nile and other parts of east Africa but it soon  spread to the Indian subcontinent and Thailand because of its beauty, perfume and hallucinogenic properties.

The blue lotus was integral to ancient Egyptian rites and rituals and has appeared in their legends since the beginning of time. Tutankhamun's tomb contained a gold-plated shrine decorated with a bas-relief of a pharaoh holding a huge blue lotus and two mandragoras in his left hand.

The first perfumers were Egyptian priests who used fragrance for their religious, embalming, & healing ceremonies. They would make scents by steeping wood, plants and flowers in oil or fat. A fresco found in Nebaum’s (XVIII Dynasty, 1370-1318 BC) tomb in Luxor illustrates a ritualistic funeral dance with two male dancers accompanied by three women, garlanded with petals of blue lotus.

The blue lotus holds an important place in Egyptian mythology and is regarded as a symbol of the Sun and a sign of rebirth. Ancient Egyptians believed that the world was originally covered by water and darkness. In time a beautiful, large blue lotus appeared in the water and as the petals slowly opened, light appeared thus ending the darkness that enveloped the earth. From the center of the blue lotus came the solar deities Atum and Ra.  The flower thus became a symbol of life.

The plant’s psychoactive and antispasmodic properties have been harnessed for medicinal and recreational uses since ancient times. In smaller doses, the blue lotus acts as an aphrodisiac and also helps to relax and calm the nervous system.

Classical authors have written many instructions on how to prepare scents. Dioscorides, a Greek physician, botanist and pharmacologist, wrote that the Egyptians created delicate floral scents by steeping aromatics several times. For a batch of lily or blue lotus perfume, 1000 flowers would be first steeped in spiced balanos oil (pressed from the seeds of Balanites aegyptiaca) for 24 hours. After that the oil would be skimmed and strained then another 1000 flowers would be steeped in that oil. The more times this process was repeated, the stronger the scent would be.

Recreation of an ancient Egyptian Blue Lotus perfume recipe

​Ingredients:
●      2 milliliters of frankincense (base note)
●      1 milliliter of blue lotus absolute (heart note)
●      1 milliliters of cinnamon (head note)
●      2 milliliters of sweet almond oil (carrier oil)
●      4 ounces of spiced rum

Method:
●      Mix all oils together in an opaque glass bottle. Start with frankincense, then blue lotus absolute, then cinnamon and finish with sweet almond oil. Let this mixture rest in the bottle for a week. Shake the bottle gently every day.
●      Add the spiced rum and ensure the cap is on tight.
●      Shake gently and place in a cool, dark place for at least three weeks. This helps the alcohol scent fade and the scents of the oils intensify.

​The popularity of the exotic and magical blue lotus spread from Egypt to other parts of the known world. In Greece it was incorporated into the prevailing Greco-Roman-Egyptian religion of Isis and Serapis. In Buddhism, it represents the perfection of wisdom. Amongst the Hindus, the blue lotus symbolizes youthfulness, eternity, divinity, fertility, and purity

Tutankhamun's Perfume 
For early Egyptians, life was a celebration and looking and smelling good was an integral part of their culture. Bathing, shaving their heads to prevent lice, decorating their eyes with kohl and using perfumes and natural oils were a part of their daily life. Cleanliness and fragrant surroundings were so important that perfumed unguents (soft greasy ointments) and incense were used not only to freshen the air in temples but also offered to gods. Aromatic oils and fats were also used to protect skin from the harsh sun, dust and insect bites. In fact, fragrance was so important that the Egyptians even had a god named Nefertum, born of the aromatic blue lotus, dedicated to perfume and oil makers.

Perfumes and essential oils played a key role in the mummifying and burial process. Pharaohs, priests and the wealthy were embalmed and entombed with fragrances for the afterlife. Given this history, it came as no surprise when among the luxurious items found in the young pharaoh Tutankhamun tomb was a jar containing a perfumed unguent, still radiantly fragrant after many centuries. It was observed at the time that the aroma emanating was similar to a mixture of coconut and valerian, a herb used for sleep disorders.

Since distillation only became popular in the 10th century AD, ancient Egyptians perfumes were texturally different from the liquids we know as perfume today. They came in the form of ointments and oils as fats and natural oils were used to steep aromatic ingredients in.

‘Tutankhamun's Perfume’ was chemically analysed in 1926 and was found to contain a ‘neutral animal fat ' and a resin or balsam. The main aromatic is believed to be spikenard, an amber-colored essential oil derived from Nardostachys jatamansi, a Himalayan plant belonging to the valerian family. It was very popular with wealthy ancient Egyptians including pharaohs as it had to be imported through sophisticated trade routes from Nepal, China and India.
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A historically correct re-creation of Tutankhamun's Perfume would involve using goose fat as the base but coconut oil can be used instead . The simplest recipe would be:

One quarter cup liquid goose fat or coconut oil
6 drops of essential oil of spikenard
6 drops of essential oil of frankincense

Kyphi
 
In the Pharaonic era, scent was released in the form of incense or prepared by steeping aromatics in natural oils or ox, sheep and fowl fat.  Kyphi or Kapet is an ancient Egyptian incense that is considered to be the first perfume to have been ever created. It was regularly used in religious and funerary rituals. There is no set recipe for kyphi, but the temple priests often used ingredients such as frankincense, myrrh, cinnamon, cassia, cardamom, wine, honey, dried fruits, and resins.

There are only only a handful of Kyphi recipes that have been found and they are:

Recipe for Kyphi by Rufus of Ephesus
Greek physicians interested in Egyptian pharmacology were interested in Kyphi’s reputation as a medicine. One such physician was Rufus of Ephesus who lived in the late 1st and early 2nd centuries AD.

Ingredients:
Base: 90 g raisins with skin and pips removed, ‘a little wine’. ‘Sufficient’ honey, 90g ‘burnt resin’, 45g ‘nails’ of bdellium, 45g camel grass, 33g sweet flag, 11g pure cyperus grass, 4g saffron, 11g spikenard, 2 ‘semis’ aspalathos, 15g cardamom, and 11g good cassia.    
Method:
Mash raisins with honey. Grind together bdellium, myrrh and wine until it has the consistency of runny honey. Add the raisin and honey mixture. Grind the remaining ingredients and add to the mixture. Shape into pellets for censing the gods.

Recipe for Kyphi by found in the Temple of Edfu

Ingredients:
273 g each of mastic, pine resin, sweet flag, aspalathos, camel grass, mint and cinnamon, 1.5 lb each of cyperus, juniper berries, pine kernels and peker, 2.5 lb wine, 3.3 lb raisins, 2.5 lb oasis wine, 3.3 lb honey, 1,213 g frankincense and 1,155 g myrrh.
Method:
Grind the mastic, pine resin, sweet flag, aspalathos, camel grass, mint and cinnamon in a mortar. Take the cyperus, juniper berries, pine kernels and peker and reduce them to a powder. Moisten all these dry ingredients with wine in a copper vessel. Half of this wine will be absorbed by the powder and the rest is to be discarded.
Leave overnight. Moisten the raisins with oasis wine. Mix everything in a vessel and leave for five days. Boil to reduce by one-fifth. Place honey and frankincense in a cauldron and reduce volume by one-fifth. Add honey and frankincense to the macerated wine. Leave overnight. Grind the myrrh and add to the kyphi.

Recipe for Kyphi by Dioscorides
Dioscordies, a Greek physician who lived in the late 1st and early 2nd centuries, was interested in pharmacology and the medicinal properties of Egyptian kyphi. Below is a recipe he wrote. 
 
Ingredients:
0.137 lt of galingale and the same amount of juniper berries, 5,239.2g of big stoned raisins, 2,183 g of cleansed resin, 436.6 g each of sweet flag, aspalathos and lemon grass, 48 g of myrrh, 2.466 lt of old wine, and 873.2 g of honey.
Method:
Stone the raisins and chop them, and grind with wine and myrrh. Then grind and sieve the other ingredients and mix them with the aforementioned mixture. Let steep for one day. Then boil the honey until it thickens and mix thoroughly with the melted resin. Mix thoroughly with the other ingredients and store in an earthenware pot.

About a century after Dioscorides, another Greek physician, Claudius Galen (129-201 AD), in his work “On Antidotes”, provides a variation of Dioscorides’ recipe with only the proportions differing. 
​

Hatshepsut's Perfume
 
Looking and smelling good has been considered a status symbol from time immemorial. However, ancient Egyptians took this to an entirely different level: to them wearing a perfume that had a complex preparation process and used imported ingredients showed that the user had a godly origin. 
 
Egyptian Queen Hatshepsut (c. 1473–58 BCE) was an all powerful ruler and although she may have ruled with an iron fist she had a feminine side which loved smelling good. Since pharaohs were akin to god and only they could afford to use expensive perfumes, she was canny enough to use the power of expensive scents to not only satisfy her sense of smell and personal grooming, but also to instill awe and fear in her subjects. In order to fulfill these two needs, she sent expeditions around the region to bring back aromatic herbs like myrrh and frankincense to create incense for temples and fragrances for her to use on her person.
 
After Hatshepsut died 1400 years before Cleopatra, she was interred in the Valley of the Kings surrounded by incense and jars of perfume for the afterlife. One such alabaster jar was found near her mummy and has been referred to as Hatshepsut's Perfume ever since.  A team from the Bonn University Egyptian Museum in Germany analyzed the dried residue in the lining of the jar but are yet to determine the exact composition of the perfume.

A perfume bottle bearing the name of Queen Hatshepsut

Metopion
 
Metopion was the ancient Egyptian name for the plant from which galbanum, a resin, is derived. It was also the name of a highly prized perfumed ointment prepared using oil from bitter almonds and unripe olives and scented with sweet flag, cardamom, sweet rush, honey, wine, myrrh, seed of balsamum, galbanum and turpentine resin. The wine was used to soak the aromatics to make the fragrance richer. According to Dioscorides, the Greek physician, botanist and pharmacologist who wrote ‘De materia medica’ - an encyclopedia about herbal medicine, the best Metopion was the one that had stronger overtones of cardamom and myrrh than of galbanum

 
A Modern Day Metopian Recipe
​
In 1 oz. sweet wine add 1 tsp. peru balsam, 1 tsp. galbanum resin and put over heat and let simmer until reduced by half. In a non-aluminum pan melt 2 tsp. beeswax with 2.5 oz. sweet almond oil. Add the balsam wine mixture and 2 tablespoons of honey. Let all meld and liquify and let cook over low heat until well incorporated. Remove from heat, allow to cool a bit and add essential oils as follows by drop count:
10-cardamom, 8-bitter almond, 10-sweet flag, 12-myrrh. Incorporate and pour while still liquid into a container where it will thicken and solidify.

Madjet
 
Madjet was a fragrant unguent or oil used for religious rituals in ancient Egypt. It emitted a pleasant, intoxicating fragrance with strong midtones. 
 
The recipe for this unguent or oil was found written on walls of the Temple of Horus at Edfu built between 237 BCE and 57 BCE. The formula is generic - there is one for everyday usage and one for holidays. It was originally intended to put the body back together for the afterlife and to honour the divine by applying the unguent version on statues of gods to protect them from evil.
 
The base used for madjet was ox fat, which was stored in a covered stone pot for a year. After that it was perfumed with pine resin (amber), cinnamon, lemon grass, cyperus grass rhizomes, pine kernels, and wine-soaked myrrh, all ground and macerated in jojoba for a month and a day.

Madjet Unguent Ingredients from Edfu:
o   Adj - Ox Fat/Tallow – Rendered grass-fed beef fat – cosmetic grade tallow
o   Irp – Grape Wine
o   Sebeb - Aleppo pine resin
o   Tisheps - Cinnamon
o   Djalem - Aspalathos – Cassie
o   Wah – Cyperus rhizome – Tiger nut oil
o   Peresh – Juniper berry oil
o   Peret-sheny - Pine kernels (containing more oil than the resin - we use Maritime pine oil in our recipe)
o   Antiu – Myrrh resin
o   Nesti – alkanet red dy

Ancient Persia / Mesopotamia / Israel / Jordon Perfume Recipes

Tapputi - Belatekallim's Recipe
Chemistry, as we know it today, dates back around two hundred and fifty years but the methods used are a lot older than that. One of the oldest records of chemical techniques comes from an ancient Mesapotamian cuneiform tablet from the second millennium BCE about a woman named Tapputi-Belatekallim and the techniques she used to create perfumes and essential oils. This makes her history’s first known chemist.
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Mesopotamian tablet with inscription describing Tapputi-Belatekallim, c. 1200 BCE. Girl Museum, via Wikimedia Commons.
Detailed knowledge about Tapputi is sparse but what is known is that she was a Babylonian noblewoman who lived around 1200 BCE and made perfumes of exceptional quality. During her time, perfumes and other fragrant substances were held in high regard and were used for religious rituals and magic. Perfumes and essential oils were also used in cosmetics and as medicine.

Tapputi - Belatekallim's full name indicates that she was highly regarded as the term ‘Belatekallim’ means ‘female overseer of a palace’ and therefore according to historians she was most probably the head of perfumery in the royal court
At the time she was working, perfumes around the region were made by adding fragrances to  oils and fats, which meant that the salves thus created were dense and heavy and didn’t hold the scent for long. However, ancient Babylonians were more advanced in their perfume making techniques - they combined multiple scents with an alcohol solvent to make the final perfume. This meant that not only was the perfume lighter but also after applying the alcohol would evaporate leaving behind only the beautiful scent.
 
The tablet mentions that in the perfumes Tapputi made, she used flowers, oil, calamus, cyperus, myrrh and balsam. She then added alcohol, distilled and filtered the solution several times. This is also believed to be the oldest reference to a still.

Balm of Gilead
Native to the Red Sea region of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Egypt, and Kenya, commiphora gileadensis is also known as Balm of Gilead, Balsam of Gilead, Mecca Balsam, or Mecca Myrr. Most scholars agree that the Judean version of this shrub is the main ingredient of the legendary “Balm of Judea'' perfume. For over a 1000 years, a special consortium of farmers in the Jordan Valley and Ein Gedi, in the western Dead Sea basin cultivated this plant as a crop to create the variant that was best suited for the production of incense, perfume, and specific medicinal drugs. The resin that exudes from the Judean variant of the commiphora gileadensis came to be known as the true Balm of Gilead.

The scent of the Balm of Gilead was described as having a pleasant but powerful aroma very similar to lemon essence with woody tones of turpentine. In the old days, it was used as a first-aid salve to cure coughs and other respiratory ailments and to treat small knicks and cuts.
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So why was this balm so expensive and sought after by the wealthy? The harvest of this plant yielded an estimated 7 mL per tree per year whereas production of myrrh and frankincense trees yielded a few kilograms per tree per year.
Because of its beautiful scent and rarity, the Balm of Gilead was used to create expensive perfumes like the Balm of Judea and the Parthians’ Royal Perfume, the latter strictly reserved for the Parthian kings who ruled Persia in the second century BCE. The Bible has references to it being an ingredient of the incense given as offering in temples.

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