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Status Items Output None Questions None Claims None Highlights Done See section below
Highlights
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Writing in the mid-fifth century, Herodotus of Halicarnassus remarks that every year the Babylonians burnt 800 talents of incense for their supreme god Marduk.note[Herodotus, Histories 1.183.] He also reports that when the Persians occupied the isle of Delos in 490 BC, they sacrificed no less than 300 talents to Delian Apollo in a single day.note[Herodotus, Histories 6.97.] The Roman author Pliny the Elder quotes connoisseurs who believed that Emperor Nero burnt more frankincense at the funeral of his wife Poppaea than Arabia produced in a year.note[Pliny, Natural History 12.83.] During Decius’ persecution of the Christians, hundreds of thousands of Romans burnt incense to the Emperor. In short, frankincense was used on a massive scale.
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Herodotus knew only stories about flying snakes who guarded the product
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resinous dried sap of a small tree that is known to botanists as Boswellia Sacra
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After the formalities in the temple of Shabwa, the merchants proceeded on different roads, which led to Mesopotamia, Syria, and Egypt, and from there to all over the ancient world. The itineraries were fixed and Pliny mentions that it was a criminal offense to take a different route.note[Pliny, Natural History 12.63.] The caravans first moved to Timna and Marib, the capitals of Qataban and Saba. Turning to the northwest to their next stop, the well-watered oasis of Najran, the merchants exchanged the urban world of Yemen for the nomadic land of the Arabs. For several weeks, the merchants moved to the northwest. Unfortunately, we cannot reconstruct the route to Yathrib (modern Medina). It has been assumed that Mecca was one of the road stations, but this would have been a detour. On the other hand, there was an important sanctuary and a connection to the port of Jeddah. Besides, a detour better fits the distance mentioned by Pliny, who states that between Shabwa and Gaza, the merchants passed sixty-five stations and covered 2437.5 Roman miles or 3609 kilometers.note[Pliny, Natural History 12.65.] Damaged relief of a dromedary and a merchant from Petra Whatever their precise route, the merchants arrived in Yathrib, from where they continued to Dedan and Hegra (Al-Khuraybah and Mada’in Saleh in the Al-‘Ula oasis). There, they found themselves in the land of the Nabataeans, whose capital Petra, 500 kilometers to the north, was the next stop. The last section of the Incense Route brought them to port like Aqaba, Caesarea, or Gaza. All along the road, the merchants keep paying: for fodder, water, lodging, or tolls. Before they reach our shore, their expenses mount up to 688 denarii per dromedary. And now, they have to pay our tax officials.note[Pliny, Natural History 12.65.] High prices were the logical consequence: the best frankincense cost twenty-four sesterces a pound, which would have been about a week’s wage for a skilled laborer. Pliny complains that the Romans spend, “according to the lowest estimates”, no less than a hundred million sesterces on oriental luxury.note[Pliny, Natural History 12.84.] It must be noted that from Hegra, there was also a branch to the northeast: via Tayma and Duma, a traveler would reach northern Babylonia.
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In Late Antiquity, the frankincense trade collapsed, because the Christians – who increasingly dominated Roman society – considered incense-burning idolatrous. The fall in demand resulted in the demise of the sea route.
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in the third quarter of the sixth century, a Himyarite ruler named Abraha marched on Mecca. An elephant was part of his army and, as a result, the southern part of the Incense Route came to be known as the “Elephant Road”. Clearly, the ancient trade road was still in use.
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The northern part of the route was used by merchants like Muhammad, who was born in the “year of the Elephant” and is mentioned as traveling all the way up north to Bosra near Damascus. According to Islamic legend, a Christian monk identified the merchant from Mecca as a messenger of God.note[Ibn Ishaq, Life of the Prophet 119-120.] Although the story itself is imaginary, it presupposes that the caravan road had not fallen in disuse, even when incense was no longer as popular as it used to be.
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Tombstone of an Arab merchant. In the lower level, he is riding through the desert; in the upper level, he returns home with a bag full of precious things.
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For centuries, merchants had been traveling from Oman to Yemen, and from there to Heroonpolis and Alexandria, to Petra and Gaza, to Syria or Mesopotamia. There had been all kinds of interaction: commercial collaboration of course, but the roads of Arabia had also been used by armies, pilgrims, migrating clans, shepherds with their flocks, or people just visiting relatives.