History of perfume...

yipun78

Perfume is thousands of years old - the word "perfume" comes from the Latin per fume "through smoke". One of the oldest uses of perfumes comes form the burning of incense and aromatic herbs used in religious services, often the aromatic gums, frankincense and myrrh, gathered from trees. The Egyptians were the first to incorporate perfume into their culture followed by the ancient Chinese, Hindus, Israelites, Carthaginians, Arabs, Greeks, and Romans. The earliest use of perfume bottles is Egyptian and dates to around 1000 BC. The Egyptians invented glass and perfume bottles were one of the first common uses for glass.

yipun78

Perfumery in Western Europe around the 13th century
Background details
The use of native aromatic herbs and flowers to sweeten the air had been known for a very long time. The Romans had introduced many species of aromatic plants to the fringes of the Empire where they were still cultivated. It was common for people to wear a garland of flowers, to hang fragrant plants indoors and the add aromatic plants to sweet-smelling rushes when they were spread on a floor (this last probably started as a Norman custom).

In the making of perfumed preparations, plants were usually used as dried flowers, dried leaves, dried and crushed roots, or extracts in water (by maceration or digestion), oils or fats (and later alcohol). An association between pleasant smells and good health was very widespread so there was considerable overlap between perfumery and healing.

From the 9th century, there was great trade between Byzantium and Venice bringing perfumes into Europe. There was much trade within Arabia, bringing perfumes from Baghdad to Muslim Spain. Arabian perfume arts were very highly developed; having learnt much from the Persians, they used ingredients from China, India and Africa, producing perfumes on a large scale. They had been using distillation since before the 9th century. Al-Hawi, a book by Rhazes, who lived in the late 9th or early 10th century, contained a chapter on cosmetics. It was translated into Latin in France in the late 12th century.

Musk and floral perfumes were brought to northwest Europe in the 11th and 12th centuries from Arabia, through trade with the Islamic world and with the returning Crusaders. Those who traded for these were most often also involved in trade for spices and dyestuffs. There are records of the Pepperers Guild of London which go back to 1179; their activities include trade in spices, perfume ingredients and dyes. There are records from the reign of Edward I to show that spices and other aromatic exotic materials were traded in England.

Use of alcohol in perfumery was known in northwest Europe in the 12th century but was not widespread until later. A variant of distilled alcohol, rather than alcohol mixed with water, was known in France in the 13th century, prepared by using quicklime in the mix to remove much of the water. Alcohol-based perfume was well known in parts of mainland Europe and came into use in England in the 14th century.

A common technique was to extract essential oil into fat and use it like that or then to remove the esential oil from the fat with alcohol. Another was to heat the plant material in water. Beeswax was used as a base instead of fats and oils sometimes. Pot Pourri was originally made and used wet; it started as the residue of the perfume-making process.

Plants likely to have been available for collection or cultivation
Scented Agrimony perennial herb; dried flowers and leaves
Angelica biennial herb; reputed to be effective against evil spirits and infectious disease; fragrant oil extracted from the seeds and root for use in perfumery; seed and root used dry in pot pourri
Apple   
Avens dried rhizomes and leaves
Birch essential oil from leaf buds
Blackcurrant essential oil from flower buds
Broom flowers used
Calamint several species used dried or as essential oil
Camomile used as a herbal medicine, for strewing, as dried flowers or oil extracted from flowers
Clover dried flowers used
Cyperus (Sedge roots) rhizomes yield a violet-like fragrance; used dried and powdered
Elder flower used as oil extracted from flowers, or dried flowers
Fennel essential oil from seeds; also has culinary and medical uses; reputed to ward off evil spirits and witches
Fern (Common Male Fern) oil extracted from rhizomes had medical and perfumes uses
Feverfew perennial plant; extract from flowers and leaves used in medicine and, less frequently, in perfume
Hawthorn flowers used
Hyssop extracted oil or dried leaves
Lavender extracts and dried flowers and leaves
Lemon balm oil from leaves and dried leaves
Lily of the Valley flowers
Melilot dried flowers and leaves
Milfoil (Yarrow) dried flowers; diabolical associations
Mint medical, culinary, strewing and perfume use
Oak moss (lichen) powdered, used as a fixative
Orris (Iris rhizome) dried iris rhizomes; fixative with violet fragrance
Rose extracts from petals and fresh or dried petals
Rosemary strewing herb; dried leaves
Rue oil from leaves; medical and perfume use; reputed to guard against witches
Sage dried leaves
Tansy strewing herb; dried leaves
Violet oil from flowers

Ingredients possibly available by trading
Aloewood Introduced into Europe by Arabs in 8th century and spread rapidly. Aromatic heartwood from an evergreen tree obtained by the Arabs from China, Assam, Malaysia which produces a fragrant oil when disea sed.
Important ingredient of pomanders (as oil) and pot pourri (dried)
Alpine rose Oil obtained from the roots
Ambergris Sperm whale excretion ('though this origin was unknown for a very long time) found on the Indian Ocean coast
Used since early Arabian times (6th century)
Ammoniacum Juice from a North African plant. Used as incense.
Anise Cultivated through Europe and in England during Middle Ages; medical and culinary use; dried seeds and oil extracted from them used in perfumery.
Apricot kernels oil extract frequently used in early Arabian perfumes.
Basil culinary and oerume use; essential oil and dried leaves
Ben Oil from seeds of the Moringa tree native to North India frequently used as a base in early Arabian perfumes
Bitter almond essential oil from the fruit used as a base
Camphor crystals formed from oil extracted from wood; very frequently used in early Arabian perfumes
Caraway oil extracted from fruit and leaves; culinary and perfume use
Cassia culinary use of dried buds; oil used in perfume; dried bark used. N.B. there is some confusion in old texts between cassia, cinnamon and other unidentified fragrant barks
Cedar wood dried twigs and roots used in incense; oil extract used in perfume
Cinnamon dried bark used as perfumed beads and in pomanders; oil from leaves used in perfume and unguents. N.B. there is some confusion in old texts between cassia, cinnamon and other unidentified fragrant barks
Civet glandular secretion from civet cat from Africa, used in very small quantities; became popular in Arabia in the 10th century
Clary sage fragrant oil and dried leaves ; also used for eye problems
Cumin oil from dried seeds; also had medical and culinary uses
Dill oil extracted from plant; culinary, medical and perfume use; reputed to be good against witchcraft
Frankincense gum resin extruded from wood of certain trees; often used in incense
Gum arabic gum extruded by Acacia trees; dried and used in incense; used in early Arabian perfumes
Jasmine leaves, flowers and oils; commonly used in early Arabian perfumes
Labdanum resin secreted by Cistus (Rock Rose) species. According to reports, popularly collected by combing it from the beards of goats; used in early Arabian perfumes and in European pomanders
Lovage dried leaves and roots
Marjoram oil from seeds and leaves and dried leaves; medical, culinary and perfumes uses
Mignonette (Reseda) essential oil from flowers
Musk glandular secretion from musk deer; very frequently used in early Arabian perfumes
Myrrh (includes Opoponax) gum resin from trees; used in perfumes and incense
Myrtle oil or dried flowers and leaves; used as berries and fresh leaves in early Arabian perfumes
Rosewater (also Attar of Roses) made by a distillation process from rose petals in water. Attar (essential oil) obtained by redistillation of rosewater. Very popular in Arabia
Saffron dried stigmas of crocus and oil from these; culinary and perfume use; very important in Arabian perfumery
Sandalwood oil from the heartwood of a tree; fragrance and fixative
Savory dried leaves and flowers; culinary and perfume uses
Storax (resin) resin from bark used in incense and pomanders
Sweet orange essential oil from the fruit peel; peel also used dried
Terebinth oil and gum resin; used in pomanders
Thyme oil from leaves; leaves used in incense
Valerian oil, leaves and roots; medical, culinary and perfume use

References
The Perfume Handbook
Nigel Groom
Chapman & Hall; London SE1 8HN; 1992. ISBN 0 412 46320 2
Includes an A-Z of perfume plus recipes

History of Perfume
Frances Kennett
George G Harrap & Co; London WC1V 7AX; 1975. ISBN 0 245 52135 6

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sephia_liza

Prehistory



It has been repeated often that the history of perfumery is as old as the history of the humanity. We find literary or archaeological witnesses in the oldest civilizations, in the most remote cultures, that they tell to us about the aromas, the ointments and the perfumes. From the Mesopotamian cultures to nowadays, the men and in particular the women have had an inclination or weakness, not to say a necessity, to perfume themselves and to embellish themselves. But the first question is when and how was the first perfume born? When and where had the custom to perfume begun?

The scents, like the colours or the noises, already they existed in the nature at the moment at which the man appears on the Earth. The brackish scent of the sea or the one of the Earth wet after raining and so many others. But there is a little while in which the man discovers a new aroma, different from all those to which was customary and he could dominate, because the power to obtain it and to originate it was in his hands. When was this moment? And which was this perfume?

I like to think that everything was originated back in prehistory, a day in which one of those primitive men, who got dressed in animal skins, hunted with axes or stone arrows and they almost spoke and they understood with monosyllables, they ignited a bonfire to warm up themselves or to move away the fierce animals that could watch to them and they ignited, by pure chance, branches or resins of a tree that gave off a pleasant scent, an unpublished scent, that never before they had felt.

They, being surprised and disturbed, would run to call to the other components of the group or of the tribe so they could smell the smoke of that bonfire that gave off a so fragrant and scent aroma. Perhaps that the fact to find it so pleasant and that the smoke rose directly towards the sky, it made think to them about using it like offering to the divinities or to the supernatural forces that inhabited it and that from above they governed their fragile Earth destinies there.

The certain thing is that all the old civilizations used the perfume obtained by means of the smoke of the incense, myrrh, or of other resins and woods to offer it to their Gods and that, nowadays, still are many, the Eastern and western religions that in their liturgy use the penetrating scent of the incense or the small sticks of sandal and other aromatic woods.

sephia_liza

LThe first written news that have arrived to us on the use of perfumes we find them in the Mesopotamian civilizations, cultural cradle of the western civilization.

Among the small boards of clay that the Sumerians used to write and thanks to which we know today their culture and their customs, many prescriptions for the elaboration of ointments and perfumes have been found and others that make reference to products used in their compositions.

Archaeology is another important source for the knowledge of the past and therefore a great aid to know and to study perfumery in the old world. Thanks to it we know that the Sumerian queen Schubab who lived by 3,500 years B.C. used cosmetics, because in her tomb were a teaspoon and a small jar, worked with gold filigree, where painting for the lips was kept.

In Sumerian Literature, in their stories, hymns and epics, in special the one of Gilgamesh are many appointments that make reference to perfumery and to the cosmetic one.

sephia_liza

The Mesopotamian cultures influenced all the others of their time remarkably and also on the next ones they followed to them in the course of history. Among the first it is possible to emphasize the old Egypt that fomented one of the most important cosmetic and perfumery industries of the antiquity. In fact, the life of the Egyptian town was developed like an ellipse around two focus: one of them was their religious beliefs that, very rooted and structured, they gave sense to the life and to the death, they regulated their relations with the different divinities, the Pharaoh including, and they had an special prominence in the great festivals and celebrations that marked the private life of their inhabitants. Moreover, the second focus of this ellipse was their natural inclination to a calm existence to the bank of the Nile, the great river, spine of the country, source of life and wealth.

In aspects both mentioned, the religious one and the profane one, they emphasized the use of cosmetics and perfumes. The ones in charge of their elaboration were the priests who lived near the temples and they had their laboratories installed in some of their dependencies, where they elaborated ointments and the aromas that were used profusely in the religious ceremonies.

In a bas-relief of the Edfu temple, it is possible to see written in hieroglyphics many of the prescriptions that were used for the perfumes elaboration. Its use in the liturgy was essential. Every day in the morning a priest entered in the most recondite of the temple and after kneel down in front of the God statuette that was venerated there, he anointed to Him with fragrant ointment and he perfumed to Him with incense. The same ceremony was done with the Pharaoh when he went to the temple or when he participated in the solemn processions that were celebrated periodically from Karnac to Luxor and in which the Pharaoh, with the face shining for the make-up, he presided over with pomp and Majesty, accompanied by all the court and more than two hundred maids that with smoky censers in their hands, they perfumed all the route.

The alluded prohibition would not impede the elaboration of other perfumes for non liturgical uses and when the times of prosperity for the Jewish town arrived, many other aromas and ointments in the daily and social life were used.

In times of king Salomon, perfumery reached its greater apogee. When the queen of Saba, that came from the "country of perfumes", she went to visit Salomon she arrived with a great number of camels loaded with perfumes, gold and precious stones and the Bible adds: 損erfumes with as much abundance had never arrived at Jerusalem as when the queen of Saba brought them for Salomon

sephia_liza

Following the thread of the history of perfumery we arrive at one of the most important landmark, Greece.

In classic Greece all that represented beauty, aesthetic, harmony, proportion, and balance it had a divine origin and it was personified in divinities and mythological heroes. It is not strange, therefore, that they supposed that ointments and perfumes contributed to extol the beauty, a divine origin.

According to the Homeric tradition the Gods of the Olympus mount were responsible of teaching the use of perfumes to the men and to the women. In mythology, we find many stories in which goddesses, nymphs and other personages seem to be the creators of the aromas. And thus we see that the rose, that before it was white and without scent, it has its red colour and its penetrating aroma, since the day that Venus nailed a thorn of a rosebush and with her blood dyed it of red. The rose became so beautiful that Cupid, when seeing it, he kissed it and it took the aroma at this moment that it has now.

Another day that Venus bathed to the border of a lake, she was surprised by satyrs. Venus, fleeing, hid behind bushes of myrtle that covered her and the satyrs could not find her. She was so thankful to them that she gave the intense fragrance to the myrtles that they give off now. When Esmirna committed her great sin, she was turned into a tree as punishment, but she cried so bitterly that the goddesses lessen the punishment and they turned her into the tree of myrrh that cries aromatic resins.

Leaving aside the mythology, the origin and development of perfumery in Greece we find it in their neighbours of Crete and in their colonies, as well as in Syria and other Mediterranean towns. The perfumers of these countries installed their businesses in the Greek cities, and, in small stores or detachable shutdowns, in the agora or in the public markets, where they could sell the products that they manufactured.

The Greeks did not spend in learning much time, they imported oriental essences quickly and they became great teachers in the ointments and perfumes elaboration. Men and women used them in so abundance that Solon, one of the seven wise of Greece, prohibited the use of essences by law to limit the expenses that their imports caused.

These restrictive laws lasted for a short time. It was not possible to go against the will of the majority so in a moment the custom to perfume and to offer it to the Gods returned, after the habitual animal sacrifices, therefore the aromas of the incense and myrrh came back in the liturgical acts.

These fragrant resins were imported from Arabia and they turned out to be very expensive, to the point, that Herodoto explains, that he saw in certain occasion as Alexander Magno offered in his prayer great amount of incense in front of an altar, his Leonidas teacher reprimanded to him saying: "if you want to burn as much incense hope to conquer the land that produces it". Alexander did not respond, but later, when he conquered Arabia, he sent a shipment of 500 incense talents and 100 of myrrh to Leonidas.

But everybody did had not liking for the scents in Greece. Socrates did not like them and affirmed that the men had not to use perfumes, since once perfumed, a free man smelled the same scent than an slave. However Diogenes who was a neglected man, quite dirty, who lived within a barrel, he perfumed the feet and he justified it saying: "if I perfume my feet, the scent arrives at my nose, if I put it on my head only the birds can smell it".

The great contribution of the Greeks to perfumery was that they apply their art to the pottery that they used as receiving to keep the perfumes and until today they have still not been surpassed in beauty. The Greeks designed great amount of pottery of ceramics for all the uses, they created seven forms of flasks to keep perfumes and they decorated them with geometric motives, of fantastic animals or mythological scenes or daily scenes of black or red figures according to the time. But the most classical and extended form was the "lekythos", a slim and elegant glass and so disclosed, to the point that it was said in Greece that someone was poor of solemnity, "that he had nor lekythos".

period: VIth century B.C.


Ceramic of yellowish clay, with geometric design consisting of concentric circles with lines joining them at the neck. On the recipient we find two owls in black and red, as an allusion or symbol of Athens, with floral motives.


Anthropomorphic. Warrior's head with helmet. Two-tone ceramic.

period: IVth century B.C.


Black varnish and reddish decoration. Naked man stooping to pick up a snake. Reeds and geometric design. Aribalesque-; varnished in black with reddish decoration. Woman with votive tart; reeds, floral and geometric design.


Cylindrical body and very elongated neck, with one handle. Decoration on upper part of body of a woman with votive tart; on lower-part, leaves, painted white. Reddish decoration on black background.


Two vertical handles joining mouth and body of vase. Geometric pattern on neck with two figures: an ephebe with a mirror and a woman carrying vase and votive tart. Black background, decorated in red.

[ Last edited by  sephia_liza at 9-5-2007 02:33 PM ]

sephia_liza

Ceramic recipient has spherical belly and large neck with thick trim and circular handle. Bas-relief on central section, representing a satyr. Black varnish and ovolo.


-Aribalesque- decorated in red, yellow and white with ornamental borders. In the centre of the vase, a female head surrounded by flowers.

sephia_liza

The old Etruria, that corresponds with the present Italian Tuscany geographically, it developed a native culture, differentiated from their neighbours, and it was considered mysterious for its origin. Even nowadays, the historians have not agreed about its appearance in the history of the towns. Some of them affirm that it derives from the vilanovense protohistorical culture that was developed in the Adriatic shore, between the valleys of the Arno and the Tiber, and that it arises in the history of the cultures around 750 B.C.; whereas others, Herodoto the first, as far as he is concerned they come from Lydia from where they had arrived, fleeing from a wave of hunger in its country.

To this enigmatic fact of its origin, it should be added its language; that it has not been deciphered yet; the singularity of their beliefs based on the oracles and riddles; its original and unmistakable art, of Eastern influences, that it was marked later by the mark of the Hellenistic world; its social ordering and the Etruscan woman leading role in a liberal and epicurean society.

All these enigmas transferred to our objective to relate the evolution of the history of the perfume, they can be translated into the incognito of knowing if Lydian were responsible to bring the use of cosmetics and the aromas, or, they developed it in an own previous culture.

The lack of literary sources prevents the exact knowledge of which were the matters used in the elaboration of the aromas. It forces to us to resort to the aid of archaeology, to illustrate to us on the first used matters and the vessels that they used as containers for perfumes. In this last aspect, they emphasize Egyptian classical forms of alabastrons, the one of the Greek "lekythos