Perfumery Ledger Entry: Single-Vessel Preparation of Cardamom and Jasmine Compound

Status: Preserved
Author: Tamos, Servant in Matters of Scent to Cleopatra Philopator

Provenance: A ledger entry within the House’s imagined archive, set in the perfumery chambers of Alexandria during the reign of Cleopatra VII.

Transmission Note

Two records accompany this preparation.

The memorandum holds the instruction.
The ledger records the vessel
and the hand into which it passed.

Neither is to be read
as the whole of the matter.

Fragment — Koine Greek

ἓν ἀγγεῖον ἐσφραγίσθη·
δεύτερον οὐκ ἐποιήθη.

One vessel was sealed.
A second was not made.

One vessel entered. No second issued.

Continuation

One vessel of fired clay.

Its inner surface smoothed.
Its outer face unmarked.

I entered it apart
from the vessels intended for common use.

The preparation bore the names
of cardamom and jasmine.

Its measure is not given here.

When the work was complete,
I closed the vessel with beeswax.

Nothing was divided from it.

No smaller portion
was put aside.

Until its departure,
the seal remained as I had left it.

The vessel did not pass
into the common store.

It remained under my keeping
until I carried it from the chamber.

The Hand That Received It

I delivered it myself.

The woman spoke in Greek
and gave her name
as Aelia of Nea Paphos.

That is the name entered here.

No further account of her
belongs to this leaf.

The vessel was unopened
when it passed from my hand.

I record its condition
at the moment of giving.

What followed
is not entered in this ledger.

The Remaining Entry

No second preparation was made.

The materials had not been exhausted.

They remained within the chamber,
among those used in other work.

But this entry
was not to be repeated
without instruction.

The reason is held
in the companion memorandum.

Here, only the passage is recorded:

one vessel prepared,
one vessel sealed,
one vessel delivered.

Closing Record

Nothing remained
to be returned to store.

The vessel had passed
into another hand.

Its entry remained
under mine.

✧

References

Theophrastus, Concerning Odours, §§14–20 and §§37–41.
On the oils that carry fragrance, the behaviour of aromatic mixtures, and the vessels used to preserve them. Read the work (opens in a new tab).

Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Book XIII, §19.
On the keeping of perfumes, their containers, and their protection from sunlight. Read the work (opens in a new tab).

Companion record within the House archive:
Perfumery Memorandum Concerning a Reserved Composition Under Royal Instruction. Read the companion manuscript (opens in a new tab).

The external works provide historical context for perfumery and preservation. They do not attest to the particular preparation or delivery imagined in this House manuscript.