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06/05/2008
Frankincense is one of the essential oils and was reintroduced to Europe by Frankish Crusaders. Occasionally known as olibanum, it was often used in early religious ceremonies.
The lost city of Ubar, sometimes identified with Irem in what is now the town of Shisr in Oman, is believed to have been a center of the frankincense trade. Ubar was rediscovered in the early 1990s and is now under archaeological excavation.
The Greek historian Herodotus was familiar with frankincense and knew it was harvested from trees in southern Arabia. He reports, however, that the gum was dangerous to harvest because of poisonous snakes that lived in the trees. He goes on to describe the method used by the Arabians to get around this problem, by burning of the gum of the styrax tree whose smoke would drive the snakes away.
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