Perfumer’s Log: Tamos on Foreign Resins

Status: Recorded
Author: Tamos, Royal Perfumer
Location: Eastern trade routes, en route to Alexandria of Arachosia

Provenance: A perfumer’s log within the House’s imagined archive, set during Cleopatra VII’s eastern expedition in the first century BCE. Attributed to Tamos, recording aromatic materials acquired along the route.

House Fragment — Koine Greek

οὐ πᾶς λίβανος
ὁμοίως καίεται.

ou pas libanos
homoiōs kaietai.

Not all frankincense
burns alike.

Not all resins burn alike.

Observation

The resins brought from the southern Arabian coast burned more slowly than the preparations I knew in Alexandria.

Their smoke gathered
before it rose.

I record the difference in these portions.
I cannot yet give its cause.

Frankincense

The smoke was dense and white.

Its first scent was sharp.
A softer sweetness followed.

It remained in cloth.

The name was familiar.
The manner of its burning was not.

Myrrh

The myrrh obtained from inland burned darker.

Bitter at first,
then warmer.

In oil, it thickened the composition
more than I had expected.

The measure is not entered here.

Only the departure
from what I knew.

Cedar

The cedar gathered along the eastern route burned steadily, with a dry scent.

Beside the other materials,
it remained perceptible
without overtaking them.

It belonged in these notes
though it was wood, not resin.

Working Note

Joining the materials changed more than their scent.

Some smoke rose quickly.
Some remained low.

What lingered in cloth
did not linger in the same manner on skin.

I knew the preparations of my own chamber through repeated use. These materials had not yet given me that familiarity.

Their foreign origin
was not itself an explanation.

On Their Keeping

Among the resins received from Arabian merchants were portions wrapped in cloth and others sealed with oils.

Their scent had already met
something besides the air.

I could not separate, by smell alone, what belonged to the material from what its keeping had added.

Storage is not neutral.

It becomes part
of what reaches the perfumer.

Closing Note

The name of a resin
does not complete its account.

Nor does the name
of the land from which it came.

I must record what it does,

and leave unwritten
what I have not yet learned.

---

✧

References

Anonymous, Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, §§24, 27 and 32, translated by Wilfred H. Schoff, 1912.
A first-century CE account of myrrh traded at Muza and frankincense gathered, stored and shipped through southern Arabian ports. Read the work (opens in a new tab).

Theophrastus, Concerning Odours, §§37–41.
On variation in aromatic materials, the effects of season and collection, and the conditions under which perfumes retain or lose their character. Read the work (opens in a new tab).

The external works provide context for aromatic trade, material variation and preservation. They do not attest to Tamos’s journey, the particular samples described, or their recorded behaviour within this imagined House log.