“I anoint myself everyday with oil, burn perfumes and use cosmetics that make me worthier of worshipping thee.”

Nebechudnezzar II, in supplication to Marduk, David Pybus and Charles Sell, The Chemistry of Fragrances, The Royal Society of Chemistry, 1999

Very early in Mesopotamia some aromatics were harvested from within the region while others were imported from not only the West but other areas around the world.^1,2,3,4,5 Mention of concentrating and fixing certain aromas by maceration or infusion. The use of cold maceration made it possible to manufacture perfumed oil since at least the end of the third millennium. Perfume preparation involving heat has been manufactured since at least the 18^th century B.C.E. at the palace of Mari, written in cuneiform 𒈠𒌷𒆠 (ma-ri^ki), Syria. Aromatics such as cypress, cedar, myrtle and others were not limited to perfumes as the boundaries between perfume, flavored drink, and medicine were blurred back then.^1,6

Many Middle-Assyrian recipes for the preparation of perfumes were translated and expounded upon by Erich Ebeling in the early to mid-1900s in his Parfümrezepte und kultische Texte aus Assur “Perfume Recipes and Cult Texts of Assur” and numerous papers in the Orientalia NOVA series which deserve a separate post. The texts describe a process combining both maceration and hot extraction often using oils, such as sesame and olive, and sometimes even wine.^6,7 With each cycle lasting up to 4 to 5 days some of these perfumes can take up to 3 months of preparation, whereas, less elaborate techniques in Mari only take approximately 10 to 15 days.^1,8 Although the preparation time may seem excessive, these perfumes were often made in palaces in temples for use by  kings, queens, the priestly and elite classes, and to appease the gods and goddesses. Even today many perfumes can take up to around a month or more to make and up to a year or more to age.⁹

In a set of documents study by Denis Soubeyran in ARMT XXIII which shows that certain tree-scented oils are prepared before arrival to the perfumer’s dispensary to which aromatic elements are added. Given the lengthy time of preparing oils, offsetting the production of base ingredients elsewhere would make it much easier to produce the final products on premise. Other preparations include stripping bark from wood, collecting and refining resins, and powderising ingredients.¹⁰

The cuneiform diqârâtim (diqârum oil) poses an issue as it is a reference to a container and not an essence, though it certainly comes from the technique used. The diqârum pot is usually heated by fire which infers hot maceration.^8,10,11,12 Given that both cold and hot maceration are available and that essential oils evaporate at different temperatures,¹³ it is reasonable to assume that these methods separately or in tandem to achieve different results.  Francis Joannès surmises that many of the ingredients and the equipment used are the same; and that it is hightly probable the techniques used at the time of Mari and that of the Middle-Assyrian period are identical. Furthermore, these techniques can be traced back several centuries.

A better picture of what a diqâru(m) cooking pot might look like is in Cynthia Shafer-Elliott’s article “The Daily Stew? Everyday Meals in Ancient Israel“.

References:
¹ Francis Joannès, Les parfums en Mėsopotamie, Parfums Dans l’Antique, Dossier d’Archeologie nº 337 / Janvier – février 2010.
²  M. Wayne Alexander and William Violet, Trade and Traders of Mesopotamia, Proceedings of ASBBS, 2012
³ Elizabeth Rosemary Ellison, A Study of Diet in Mesopotamia (c. 3000 – 600 BC) And Associated Agricultural Techniques And Methods of Food Preparation, Thesis submitted to the University of London in the Faculty of Arts for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, 1978.
⁴ John Aruz, Sarah B. Graff, and Yelena Rakic, Cultures in Contact From Mesopotamia to the Mediterranean in the Second Millennium B.C., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2013.
⁵ Heather Whipps, How Ancient Trade Changed the World. Live Science, Last Updated May 31, 2022, (https://www.livescience.com/4823-ancient-trade-changed-world.html).
⁶ Charles Franklin Myer Jr., The Use of Aromatics in Ancient Mesopotamia, A Dissertation in Oriental Studies, University of Pennsylvania, 1975.
⁷ Erich Ebeling, Parfümrezepte und kultische Texte aus Assur, Pontificium Institutum Biblicum, Roma, 1950.
⁸ Translation by Eduardo A. Escobar, KAR 140, KAR 220 and KAR 222, ORACC Corpus, (http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/glass/corpus).
⁹ Alpha Aromatics, “A Master Perfumers’ Industry Guide”, (https://www.alphaaromatics.com/blog/how-perfume-is-made-the-perfumers-industry-guide/), Alpha Aromatics, 2017.
¹⁰ Francis Joannès, La Culture Matérielle À Mari(V): Les Parfums, MARI Annales of Interdisciplinary Research 7 ERC, Paris, 1993.
¹¹ Jean Bottéro, Everyday life in ancient Mesopotamia, Edinburgh University Press, 2001.
¹² Melissa Barker, ‘Prepare The Water and Add The Fat?’ A re-interpretation of the Yale culinary tablet YOS 11 25, Master of Arts thesis, Department of Biblical and Ancient Studies, University of South Africa, 2021.
¹³ Rasheed Salim, Salim-Eisa Method for Modification of Evaporation Test (British Pharmacopeia) by Sudanese Essential Oils, Journal of Applied Biotechnology & Bioengineering, 2017.
Note: KAR “Keilschrifttexte aus Assur religiösen Inhalts” (Religious Cuneiform Texts from Assur).