13C BURSERACEtE. 



Dayr el Bahri in Upper Egypt, paintings illustrating the traffic carried 

 on between Egypt and a distant country called Punt or Fount as early 

 as the 17th century B.C. In these paintings there are representations 

 not only of bags of olibanum, but also of olibanum trees planted in 

 tubs or boxes, being conveyed by ship from Arabia to Egypt. Inscrip- 

 tions on the same building, deciphered by Professor D., describe with 

 the utmost admiration the shipments of precious woods, heaps of 

 incense, verdant incense trees,^ ivory, gold, stimmi (sulphide of anti- 

 mony), silver, apes, besides other productions not yet identified. The 

 country Pount was first thought to be southern Arabia, but is now 

 considered to comprehend the Somali coast, together with a portion of 

 the opposite Arabian coast. Punt possibly refers to " Opone," an old 

 name for Hafoon, a place south of Cape Gardafui. 



A detailed account of frankincense is given by Theophrastus^ (B.C. 

 370-285) who relates that the commodity is produced in the country of 

 the Sab9e9.ns, one of the most active trading nations of antiquity, occupy- 

 ing the southern shores of Arabia. It appears from Diodorus that the 

 Sabseans sold their frankincense to the Arabs, through whose hands it 

 passed to the Phoenicians who disseminated the use of it in the temples 

 throughout their possessions, as well as among the nations with whom 

 they traded. The route of the caravans from south-eastern Arabia to 

 Gaza in Palestine, has recently (1866) been pointed out by Professor 

 Sprenger. Plutarch relates that when Alexander the Great captured 

 Gaza, 500 talents of olibanum and 100 talents of myrrh were taken, 

 and sent thence to Macedonia. 



The libanotophorous region of the old Sabseans is in fact the very 

 country visited by Carter in 1844 and 1846, and lying as he states on 

 the south coast of Arabia between long. 52° 47' and 52° 23' east.^ It 

 was also known to the ancients, at least to Strabo and Arrian, that 

 the opposite African coast likewise produced olibanum,* as it is now 

 doing almost exclusively ; and the latter states that the drug is shipped 

 partly to Egypt and partly to Barbaricon at the mouth of the Indus. 



As exemplifying the great esteem in which frankincense was held 

 by the ancients, the memorable gifts presented by the Magi to the 

 infant Saviour will occur to every mind. A few other instances may 

 be mentioned: Herodotus^ relates that the Arabians paid to Darius, 

 king of Persia, an annvial tribute of 1000 talents of frankincense. 



A remarkable Greek inscription, brought to light in modern times® 

 on the ruins of the temple of Apollo at Miletus, records the gifts made 

 to the shrine by Seleucus II., king of Syria (B.C. 246-227), and his 

 brother Antiochus Hierax, king of Cilicia, which included in addition 



Egyptian Queetifrom the nth century before of this god Amon, the lord of the terrestrial 



our era, and ancient Egyptian military thrones. Never has anything similar been 



parade, represented on a monument of the seen since the foundation of the world." 



same age .... after a copy taken from the ^ Hist. Plant, lib. iv. c. 7. — See also 



terrace of the temple of D6r-el-Baheri, trans- Sprenger, I.e. 219. 



lated from the German by AnnaDiimichen, ^ See also Sprenger, Die alte Geographie 



Leipzig, 1868.— See also Mariette-Bey, Arabiens. Bern, 1875. 296, 302, also 244. 



Deir-d-Bahari, Leipzig, 1877, PI. 6, 7, 8. * "Thus transfretanum," Sprenger, 299. 



^ In one of the inscriptions they are re- 'E^wlinson's Herodotus, ii. (1858) 488. 



ferred to in terms which Professor D. has ^Sprenger, I. c. 300, alludes to olibanum 



thus rendered : — " Thirty-one verdant in- being exported to Babylonia and Persia, 



cense-trees brought among the precious "^ Chishull, AntiquUates Asiatica, Lond. 



things from the land of Punt for the maj est J' 1758. 65-72. 



