FrankincenseLegends abound regarding the history of the Arabian Peninsula, where the earliest confirmed signs of human settlement date back over five thousand years to the epoch when the Egyptians were first establishing their civilization along the banks of the River Nile. In comparison, without a mighty river like the Nile to water and enrich their soil, blessed with scant resources, confronted by a climate of extremes, and visited upon all too often by a succession of invading armies marching across their perimeter reaches (but rarely far inland from the surrounding seas) in search of conquest in the realms beyond, the native peoples of the Arabian Peninsula throughout history have faced myriad challenges in their everyday lives. And yet, for five millennia and more, they have survived, and thrived, and contributed mightily to the history of the world.
Vintage Latin Map of "Arabia Felix" -One of the Roman Terms for Arabia
Set at the crossroads of three continents—Africa, Asia, and Europe—Arabia was famous to writers from antiquity forward as the conduit through which much of the spice trade in Greek and Roman and medieval times flowed. For untold centuries, strings of camels burdened with pepper and ginger, cardamom and cinnamon from India’s Malabar Coast crossed Arabia’s caravan routes, bringing in their train wealth and splendor to cities along the way like Petra that fed and fed off the traders and assorted wayfarers as they passed. Other rare and exotic and expensive goods making their way across Arabia in those times included precious stones, and gold, and aromatics like frankincense and myrrh. Enduring myths and storied traditions emerged from this fabled land and its neighbors—accounts of the Queen of Sheba appearing at King Solomon’s court, of three wise men bearing gifts to honor the birth of a child in Bethlehem, of Sinbad the Sailor battling monsters and visiting magical places. Until the dawn of the sixteenth century, when the voyages of explorers like Vasco de Gama from Portugal and Christopher Columbus from Spain led to the opening of direct, all-sea trade routes to India, China, and the fabled “Spice Islands,” a large portion of the luxury items craved by the European world passed through the land and waters of Arabia. Nearly five hundred years passed before the discovery of a new source of wealth buried deep beneath its sands would enable the Arabian Peninsula—known to the modern world as Saudi Arabia—to fully recapture and ultimately surpass its former levels of wealth and prosperity.
Map of Historical Caravan Routesfor the Spice Trade in Arabia
For vast stretches, the land those caravans of yore crossed was arid, challenging terrain, mostly desert, with a seemingly endless ocean of sand dunes lying far to the south in a region known as “Rub’ al Khali”—“The Empty Quarter.” A crazy quilt admixture of local tribes populated the Peninsula—each with its own distinctive traditions and fierce loyalties. Over the centuries, those tribes struggled often amongst themselves for preeminence, their endemic conflicts in some people’s estimation a direct reflection of the harsh realities of a land that demanded strength and endurance and courage of anyone who wished to survive. Through countless generations, hardy Bedouin tribes found ways to survive in the harshest of regions imaginable, steeling themselves to the desert’s heat and cold and conditioning themselves to endure for one or two days at a time without water and sustenance. It took the rise of a great leader in the 20th century—Ibn Saud—to finally shape these disparate tribes into the unified, modern nation we know today as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Spices from a Saudi Market Today -A Valuable Trade Commodity Yesterday
Elements dating from the Arabia of yore live on today. In Saudi markets one can still find a bewildering array of exotic spices being offered—the same sort of spices once transported across the peninsula on ancient caravan routes. As the month of December approaches, tales will again be told of wise men bearing frankincense and myrrh. Frankincense from Arabia has been harvested and traded for better than 5,000 years. References abound to its use by Romans, Greeks and Egyptians of antiquity as incense and in perfumes and even to flavor wine.
The Trees from Which Frankincense is HarvestedThe history of myrrh is somewhat clouded. It is widely held that the myrrh popular in antiquity came from a different source than modern myrrh and possessed a superior, more enchanting odor. While frankincense was harvested from the bark of easily-recognizable frankincense trees, myrrh resin is a natural gum harvested from a variety of thorny tree species. Determining which species the ancients relied on remains an unsettled question. Articles on the history of Saudi Arabia are part of the AramcoExPats Speakers Bureau. More information can be found there.