Discussions in Egyptology 54, 2002 ISSN 0268-3083 Lise Manniche with Wemer Forman (Photographer), Sacred Luxuries. Fragrance, Aromatherapy & Cosmetics in Ancient Egypt, New York: Cornell University Press, 1999. 160 pages. ISBN 0-8014-3720-2. Hardcover $27.96. Close investigation links perfume and cosmetics to other developments in the Pharaonic world - social, religious, recreational, economic, medical, foreign, horticultural, and technological. As perfume and cosmetics are only written about rarely, we are fortunate that Lise Manniche has written this book. One of the greatest difficulties encountered when studying perfume and cosmetics is the correct identification of the ingredients used in the ancient Egyptian texts. Tisheps is a good example. On the walls of the Edfu temple laboratory, this Egyptian word is described as a fragrant liquid used to anoint the golden Hathor. Frustratingly thereafter, the many other expert translations and the following examples all to be found in the book's Endnotes, will start to flummox us. Chassinat identifies it as ‘storax, presumably the solid resin from Styrax officinialis. Kurth believes that it is ‘carob’; while Aufrére argues for it to be ‘liquidambar’, which would be the liquid balsam from Liquidambar orientalis - the ‘Levant storax’. Paszthory suggests that varieties of ab resins come from Styrax officinialis identified as the nenib tree, which can be seen on one of the Edfu reliefs. Manniche is convinced that tisheps is cinnamon. On Rekhmire's tomb wall, unfortunately not amongst the book's illustrations, it is shown as a dry, stacked ingredient! However unless an archaeological vessel labelled tisheps is found and its contents scientifically analysed, | have reservations about translating generic hieroglyphs into a modem botanical context. Non-conformity with ancient practice must also be considered. For example, in a recently excavated Lower Egyptian tomb. cache of sealed labelled amphorae, preliminary laboratory reports suggest that the wine jars had jJummy contents. Science can say one thing, but who is to say that throughout the Dynastic period, when economic recession or thieving foreign traders or local embalmers did not do some justified substitution? Beliefs were such that magic and gods had the power to tum water into wine, hence those later ideas in burial inclusions of shabti dolls capable of transformation into afterlife servants. Manniche is aware of the obvious pitfalls, but does lapse in a number of recipes by including frankincense and myrrh without question, for example the Nine Sacred Temple unguents on page 108. As these words are not yet secure, Egyptologists need to be aware of the original Egyptian words for their own frame of reference. In her Vocabulary List, Manniche lists134 frankincense as both senetjer and antiu, while myrrh is khery. In her opinion, “there can be no doubt that frankincense and myrrh found their way to ancient Egypt" although no scientific evidence remains to substantiate this. Lucas identified a sample he found in Tutankhamun's tomb as frankincense, but unfortunately bumt it Since Manniche's book was published, Serpico & White have shown that senetjer is resin from the pistachio tree. (Antiquity 74, 2000). The identification of antiu remains open to Serpico's contention that is the Palestinian tree, Commiphora gileadensis. | would be pleased to see further investigation of this idea as the tree still grows at latitude 22°N, inland from the Red Sea on the Egypt/Sudan border. Some thoughtful references to the cultivation of Commiphora gileadensis in Medieval Cairo are in Nibbi (1981) i i (See chapter ‘Incense and Myrrh’). Neither frankincense nor myrrh, a secretly blended oleo-resin colloquially called ‘Balsam of Matariyah’, is elaborated further by Milwright (Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 14:1 [2001] 3-23). He comments that until 1615 when the only remaining tree was lost in a high Nile flood, the ceremonial application of this rare luxury commodity used especially to anoint kings, had continued from the ancient period. As to the regional availability of oleo-gum-resinous plants, further light might be thrown on the thomy issue in the twelfth Dynasty fairy story, "The Shipwrecked Sailor’, which is set on the phantom 'Island of the Ka’. In a section of dialogue, mainly banter about trade products, the fearsome dragon known as 'The Prince of Punt’ accepts that Egypt has its own supply of "pistachio resin". However he can provide even larger lumps of this senetier, as well as other exotica including tisheps! His insistence to the shipwrecked sailor, is that antiu (? C .gileadensis) belongs exclusively to his location. The container-potted trees that Hatshepsut brought from Punt, which are illustrated at Deir e!-Bahari are reported as antiu in Naville (1895), Temple of Deir el Bahari, Part Ill, see text and reliefs of the Southern Wall, pp 11-17, and PI. LXIX). Sacred Luxuries is well-researched, crisp and glossy. While the lay reader will enjoy skipping through it as a "coffee table" book, the expert should realise that there's a lot more to it, and that the references contain all that is needed, pressed down and running over! The beautiful photographs by Wemer Forman are themed for the most part to the book's topics, although some simply call up an exotic background of the perfume spoons, jars and other luxury-trade objects involved. More informative are the splendid coloured facsimiles of Dioscorides's botany recopied from eleventh century Arabic and now in the University of Leiden's library archives.Manniche's book is like a compilation of individual lectures with titles stich as ‘Ingredients’, 'Scent in the Temple’, ‘Recipes for Luxury’, 'Scent for Love and Rebirth’, ‘Fragrant Remedies’, ‘The Art of Cosmetics’. The chapter on 'Kyphi and Tiryac’ follows the evolution of these legendary perfumed paste substances both used as incense and medical remedy. Tiriac (theriaka in Greek), the famous antidote to poison, cannot be sourced earlier than Galen, a physician active during the reign of Nero. Manniche links the two Ppanaceas and reminds us that Kyphi's pedigree comes down from the Pyramid age. In the Pyramid texts, Kyphi was always a verb Kap, to bum incense, although on Page 55 she misquotes the Cannibal Hymn's Kapet as anoun. By the time of the New Kingdom Ebers papyrus, it had become ‘one, with a list of ingredients and many uses and continued as one through Edfu's Ptolemaic recipes to the better documented Greek era. When Manniche discusses that ubiquitous party accessory the perfume cone, she speculates that the guests didn't "manoeuvre around with such a lump of scented fat' on their heads", but had their wig-perfume constantly renewed by servants when its strength waned. The Egyptians’ love of word play indicated a sexual meaning to pouring scent, particularly with the word for ‘scent’, sti, written with the same hieroglyphs as ‘engender’. But whether real or virtual, Lise Manniche's work is the heady-scented tip of the perfume cone. ROSALIND PARK ‘Perfume cones are in the eye of the beholder and what we think we see can be argued — for example as a granular substance as suggested by Nibbi (p.62 ibia), or the more commonly assumed waxy medium that melts away as nights of passion and banqueting hot up. Manniche refers to Bruyére's suggestion (1924) that unguent cones are akin to halo symbolism. My personal opinion is that these differently scented cones do not really exist! It is important to note that cones balancing atop of revellers’ heads are drawn above and outside the Canon of Proportion grid dimensions. Artists had to invent a new convention to get the message of ideas across. How to explain perfume? An intangible and ignitable substance, which usually produces sweet vapours, beautiful sensations to mask the putrid smell of death, and give back the gift of divinely made smells to the gods, who exist in an ether band beyond the realm of the corrupt body. They do not belong to the body, but permeate the atmosphere thus giving the sublimal message that the idea that the wearer of the perfume cone is" heavenly scented up". 135