Myrrh

myrrh an aromatic resin with many uses in religion and medicine. Its source, the tree Commiphora myrrha, grows in southern Arabia and the nearby Somali coast. Trees of the same genus, all of them native to SW Asia and NE Africa, produce bisabol (opopanax) and gum guggul (bdellium), which are sometimes lumped with myrrh and sometimes treated as distinct.

Myrrh was known to the ancient Babylonians and Egyptians as an exotic import, and was almost certainly one of the goals of Queen Hatshepsut’s expedition to Punt, c.1500 bc. The Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II (883–859 bc) planted myrrh in his botanical garden at Calah. The Greek botanical author Theophrastus describes the harvesting of myrrh in his History of Plants (c.310 bc), reporting the observations of explorers sent out by Alexander the Great. In classical times myrrh was familiar at feasts, weddings, and funerals. With frankincense and gold it was one of the three gifts to the newborn Jesus; alongside aloes it was used in preparing his body for burial.