The Sultanate of Oman has one of the oldest civilizations in the Arabian peninsular having notable periods of greatness in the Ancient World and in medieval times. The Dhofar region, in Southern Oman, is centered around the town of Salalah, and is where the frankincense story began...

Dhofar is a great and noble and fine city.

Much white incense is produced here and I will tell you how it grows.

Marco Polo - 1285The focal point of Dhofar's history was the frankincense trade which flourished for centuries. Frankincense trees (which grow in Dhofar and parts of Africa) originated in Ethiopia all those many years ago and were of great economic importance to such figures as the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon. The Queen of Sheba reigned over the Hadramut Kingdom which included Dhofar. Recent evidence also shows that frankincense was exported to China during the Ming Dynasty!

The frankincense trade peaked at the time of the Roman Empire, in the first century BC. The Emperor Nero burned it by the ton at religious ceremonies and frankincense was also found in Tutankhamun's tomb. This frankincense trade lasted for some fifteen hundred years and declined partly through the drop in demand for religious use and the fall of the Roman Empire and partly because of the ridiculous taxes levied along the strictly controlled trade route.
There is something mystical about this non-descript tree to suggest that it is the source of a substance which, for at least five millennia, was one of the most prized substances in the civilized world, valued as highly as gold and the gift of kings.

Frankincense was very far from being just a lovely fragrance; its extraordinary symbolic value confined to its healing powers, which ranged from treatment of psychological conditions such as depression and claustrophobia to physical ones such as eczema and abscesses. A large quantity of frankincense is grown in what is now the Dhofar region of Oman centered around the town of Salalah as mentioned above. The Roman historian Pliny described it as "brilliant white and gathered at dawn in drops or tears in the shape of pearls".
These 'pearls', these small pieces of resin were so prized that Alexander the Great planned to invade Arabia in order to control the trade in incense at its point of origin, a plan thwarted only by his death.

This frankincense was used in staggering quantities - according to ancient documents, the annual consumption of incense in the temple of Baal at Babylon was 2Ω tons. Some 2,000 years ago, Dhofar was reported to export 3,000 tons of the incense every year!

Frankincense is indeed a wonderful fragrance, and it is easy to understand why the great cultures of the Near East and Mediterranean valued it so highly - even the Chinese sent porcelain to Arabia to trade for it as mentioned above.

The ancient world believed that the smoke of incense carried their prayers to heaven. No matter what religion observance was celebrated, incense had to be burned.

Frankincense had practical function as well. It was used to embalm corpses. When the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun was opened in 1922, one of the sealed flasks released a perceptible whiff of the incense, after 3,300 years! It was noted that the embalmers of old did not fall prey to the diseases from which their clients had died. Much later, during the time of the Black Death in England, from 1603 to 1666, it was also remarked that perfumers of the period were immune to plague, since they were constantly surrounded by essential oils.

Not only was frankincense used in medical prescriptions in the Arab world for countless generations, but Arabic doctors made sure that their clothes were strongly scented when they went visiting patients. This was to strengthen their own immune systems as well as to lift the spirits of their sick patients.
With its flesh preserving properties noted, the cosmetic implications are considerable. Frankincense was taken up by Egyptian women for rejuvenating face masks. Egyptian inscriptions dated 2,800 B.C. document expeditions to the land of Punt, from which Egypt was importing large quantities of incense. This is the area of Arabia and Africa at the extreme south of the Red Sea, comprising of today's Oman, Yemen and Somalia, the only places where frankincense and myrrh grow naturally.

Meanwhile the demand for frankincense was increasing, not only for religious and medical purposes, but as a major ingredient in perfumery. From pre-recorded history the perfumes of Arabia were regarded as the best. Arab perfumers had perfected sophisticated techniques of distillation, blending and fixing; their secret methods and formulae handed down from father to son. What's more, their land provided so many essential ingredients.

Frankincense is a gum resin which seeps from the frankincense tree. The very best frankincense comes from trees in the Nejd area of southern Oman, to the north of the hills of Dhofar.

The trees themselves are a mystery - low, twisted, and thorny with no pretensions to physical beauty. Lacking a central trunk, fat prickly branches spread out, carrying small crinkly leaves. But as soon as an area of silvery bark is pared off, using a knife called a Mingaf, drops of white resin ooze from the incision. These drops, known as luban, are left on the tree for two weeks to dry into semi-translucent globules of gum-resin. These are then collected by the tribesmen, who have previously marked the trees, in March, April and May, before the monsoon. Once collected at Dhofar, in the old days the frankincense had to be either carried overland by long and incredibly arduous journeys, or the initial part of the export procedure could be undertaken by sea. Control of the incense trade and its routes was such a coveted prize that in the first century B.C., King IIazz of Shabwa in the Hadramut, sent a group of colonists to establish a port close to the source of the incense.

They discovered the splendid Y-shaped creek of Khwar Rori in southern Oman, and there on the cliff above, they built the city of Samhuram, meaning "The Great Scheme". Indeed, judging from its ruins, it must once have been a great city, housing an obviously sophisticated. literate community.

More famous is the "lost" city of Ubar , which lay below the sands to the north of the frankincense producing area and which is now being excavated. For almost 5,000 years, Ubar was a flourishing trade center for frankincense. It was the nexus of routes bringing the incense 90 kilometers north of Dhofar, and thence in three directions across the vast Empty Quarter.
The Ubar route for transporting incense became popular in order to avoid the extortionate taxes demanded by the powerful Yemeni kingdom of Shabwa controlling that route. Successive kings there had decreed that all incense carrying caravans should travel by way of their capital, and anyone attempting to leave Shabwa without PAYING TAX, was executed, an effective deterrent against smuggling!

Pliny wrote how the caravans were expected to PAY TAXES at the gates of the city, to the temple, to the guards and to the porters, to the royal chamberlains and to the servants.

All along the 65 staging posts of the route they had to pay for accommodation, food, camel fodder, water, special protection money to local chieftains, as well as a gratuity to the Roman customs officials at Alexandria. These 'travel expenses' were slightly lower on other routes, but they all reflected the length and dangers of the journey. Small wonder that incense was valued as highly as gold. Originally the overland transport was accomplished by donkeys and mules, which needed frequent rest and watering, But from the 11th century B.C. they were substituted by large caravans of camels, which could plod along all day and part of the night without stopping, and didn't require fresh water every day. Soon the caravans grew in size and up to 2,000 to 3,000 camels in one caravan became a frequent sight! Then road posts with soldiers and places for lodging and food were needed, and thus the famous "caravanserais" grew up along the Incense Road.

The prosperity of these caravanserais grew, and eventually many of them became rich city-states. This wealth made it possible to construct sophisticated dams and irrigation systems, as at Marib in Yemen, for the agricultural industry serving growing populations.
The Incense Route became the main artery for booming trade and thus civilization over a huge area of Arabia. Since the ancient Omanis and Yemenis had mastered the monsoon winds and had a lengthy history of far-flung maritime trade, imports from India and China were transported along the same roads. Goods such as silk and spices were landed at ports along the coast of southern Arabia for the overland trek by camel caravan.

For centuries the Greeks and Romans believed that the kingdoms of southern Arabia produced the luxuries of the Orient; hence the Roman description of the region as Arabia Felix or "Fortunate Arabia", a myth the Arabs were keen to perpetuate.

The frankincense trade peaked around 2,000 years ago, after which its religious  use began to decline. But essential oils for perfumery and medicine were still very much in demand and by the 17th century the Arabs controlled almost all areas producing perfume ingredients, as well as the trade routes supplying them. Their merchant seamen sailed incredible distances in their dhows, returning with other ingredients for the perfume industry, such as sandalwood from India, aloes wood and musk from China and ambergris from Africa.

The history of frankincense has not ended. These days although anyone can afford to buy the best quality incense in a southern Arabian market, it is still a major ingredient in perfumery. It is also extensively used in contemporary aromatherapy, a treatment with a pedigree as long as that of frankincense itself. ( See literature inside the box.)  Recent research has revealed that the principle ingredients of gums like frankincense and myrrh are very similar in chemical structure to hormones, which could go a long way to explaining the enduring popularity of this most ancient of treasures.  Recent satellite photos show 'scars' in the earths' surface from the constant wear and tear  for thousands of years by the caravans along the Frankincense Trail.

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