Incenses

Benzoic acid had been known for several hundred years by the time of Mitscher lich s experiment Many trees exude resinous materials called balsams when cuts are made m their bark Some of these balsams are very fragrant which once made them highly prized articles of commerce especially when the trees that produced them could be found only m exotic faraway lands Gum benzoin is a balsam obtained from a tree that grows m Java and Sumatra Benzoin is a word derived from the Erench equivalent benjoin which in turn comes from the Arabic luban jawi meaning incense from Java Benzoic acid is itself odorless but can easily be isolated from gum benzoin... 

A sesquiterpene has been isolated from the oil of the leaves and twigs f the Californian incense cedar tree, Lv.rocedrus decurrens, which has been named librocedrene. It has the following characters —... 

Raucherung,/. fumigation smoking (of meat) incense burning. 

Weihnachten, f.pl. Christmas. Weihnachtswurzel, /. black hellebore. Weihrauch, m. incense specif., frankincense, ohbanum. -harz, n. incense resin specif., frankincense. 

A sniff and a sip produced a taste like a trail of incense, and that could be a worldly new direction in drinking. 

On Wednesday night, designer fragrances perfumed the air like incense. Packed to its imported worm-eaten raw-wood rafters, Spice Market reminded me of the banquet scene in The Temple of Doom, when Willie Scott, Indy s blond nightclub singer sidekick, declines a platter of insects by saying, No thanks, I had bugs for lunch. ... 

The country now about us is more open, and to the east, through the mist, burns the sun. We ride west, and I may not yield to my desire to turn aside and seek the light. I long for it, even as lovers souls are drawn to the moon though clouds shadow it. And thus, too, are pilgrims souls drawn through incense smoke to the... 

These are sounds I have had in my ears all my life, words I have always known, and he almost knows too. They roll from the black-clotted page to his eye, over his tongue, spoken to the air, hanging there like incense. 

The resins are substances derived mostly from vegetable sources some have been used as binders in the preparation of paints and varnishes, others as incense burned in ritual ceremonies, and a few, such as amber, have been used on their own, as semiprecious stones. It should be noted, however, that since the midtwentieth century the term resin has acquired a new meaning that of a synthetic pliable "plastic" material that can be shaped, mostly when hot. Synthetic resins are used mainly for packaging and for making textile fibers and automobile parts. In the discussion that follows the term resin is used to refer only to resins of natural origin (Serpico and White 2000a Parry 1918). 

Resins such as myrrh, frankincense, and labdanum achieved prominence early in antiquity for their fragrant smell and were used for making perfumes and medicines as well as for burning as incense during religious services and ritual ceremonies (Morris 1984). Some well-known incense resins are listed in Table 76. 

Groom, N. (1981), Frankincense and Myrrh A Study of the Arabian Incense Trade, Logman, London. 

Pine resin, namely rosin or colophony, is one of the most widespread diterpenoid resins and has been used for waterproofing, for treating wood and paper, as varnish, as incense and as an ingredient in scented ointments. The main compounds present in fresh Pinaceae resins... 

Frankincense, also known as olibanum, is obtained from trees belonging to the genus Boswellia (Burseraceae family). It is one of the best-known ancient plant resins. The ancient Egyptians were the first to use it as incense in embalming practices and in the preparation of medicines, cosmetics and perfumes, and today it is still used therapeutically. It contains pentacyclic triterpenoids belonging to oleanane, ursane or lupane type molecules and in particular of a- and p-boswellic acids, and their O-acetates [104 111], 11 -Oxo-p-boswellic acid and its acetyl derivative, identified in several Boswellia species, are also diagnostic for frankincense [112]. 

P. Archier, C. Vieillescazes, Characterization of various geographical origin incense based on chemical criteria, Analusis, 28, 233 237 (2000). 

M. Serpico, R. White, The botanical identity and transport of incense during the Egyptian New Kingdom, Antiquity, 74, 884 897 (2000). 

In traditional incenses, olibanum is often mixed with other ingredients. The analysis of two traditional mixtures of the present day are reported Greek incense and a recreation of an ancient Egyptian recipe. 

The GC-MS chromatogram, obtained after SPME of the traditional incense from a monastery of Mount Athos, is presented in Figure 10.7a. The occurrence of octanol (18), octyl acetate (40), incensole (127), incensole acetate (129), incensole oxide (130) and incensole oxide acetate (131), allowed the identification of a B. papyrifera olibanum (Figure 10.7b) in a mixture with other substances, most probably Damask rose and jasmine. 

The archaeological sample (first to fourth century AD, sample 1286) was stocked in an amphora bearing the inscription incense in a warehouse (sector 6) at the Bir Ali site (Yemen). The authors objective was to confirm whether it really was frankincense [26]. 

Figure 10.24 Total ion current chromatograms obtained after headspace SPME for (a) the archaeological incense and (b) B. carteri olibanum. Peak labels correspond to compound identification given in Table 10.3. Peaks labelled by letters correspond to the following compounds a, pinocamphone b, borneol c, calamenene d, cadalene. Among other finger prints, the occurrence of dimer 2 (111), cembrene A (120) and isoincensole acetate (128) confirm that this sampleis olibanum and attributes its botanical source to B. carteri or B. sacra. Reproduced from S. Hamm, J. Bleton, J. Connan, A. Tchapla, Phytochemistry, 66, 1499 1514. Copyright 2005 Elsevier Limited...

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