Tag: perfume
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Some Notes on Fleece
The snowy fleece, and wind the twisted wool.The goddess softly shook her silken vest, That shed perfumes, and whispering thus address’d: Homer, The Illiad Linear B sign 145 LANA, a version of which is shown below, is the generally accepted ideogram for wool. Lana is Latin for “wool” and in Greek lenos, wolle in German,…
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Notes from the Albany, NY Institute of History and Art
Today, I visited the Albany Institute of History and Art to visit the famed mummy of Ankhefenmut. Adjoining the sarcophagus exhibit was a very tastefully-done exhibit of potteries and vessels from Ancient Egypt, with some excellent context around beer and wine. Below are some items of interest regarding materials and vessel shapes. Beer in ancient…
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Chemically decoding the ancient blue lotus
The blue lotus water lily is the heraldic symbol of the Upper Nile of Egypt. This ancient and mystic flower, Nymphaea caerulea, appears throughout the culture and religion of ancient Egypt. The blue water lily grows well along the Nile River and may have been farmed and harvested for thousands of years (Viljoen, Cherise; Notten,…
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Mesopotamian Maceration
“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…