Table Of ContentThe Queen of Sheba’s Gift
Edinburgh Studies in Classical Islamic History and Culture
Series Editor: Carole Hillenbrand
A particular feature of medieval Islamic civilisation was its wide horizons. The Muslims
fell heir not only to the Graeco-Roman world of the Mediterranean, but also to that of the
ancient Near East, to the empires of Assyria, Babylon and the Persians; and beyond that, they
were in frequent contact with India and China to the east and with black Africa to the south.
This intellectual openness can be sensed in many interrelated fields of Muslim thought, and
it impacted powerfully on trade and on the networks that made it possible. Books in this
series reflect this openness and cover a wide range of topics, periods and geographical areas.
Titles in the series include:
Arabian Drugs in Early Medieval Defining Anthropomorphism
Mediterranean Medicine Livnat Holtzman
Zohar Amar and Efraim Lev Making Mongol History
Towards a History of Libraries in Yemen Stefan Kamola
Hassan Ansari and Sabine Schmidtke Lyrics of Life
The Abbasid Caliphate of Cairo, 1261–1517 Fatemeh Keshavarz
Mustafa Banister Art, Allegory and The Rise of Shiism In Iran,
The Medieval Western Maghrib 1487–1565
Amira K. Bennison Chad Kia
Christian Monastic Life in Early Islam The Administration of Justice in
Bradley Bowman Medieval Egypt
Keeping the Peace in Premodern Islam Yaacov Lev
Malika Dekkiche The Queen of Sheba’s Gift
Queens, Concubines and Eunuchs in Marcus Milwright
Medieval Islam Ruling from a Red Canopy
Taef El-Azhari Colin P. Mitchell
Islamic Political Thought in the Islam, Christianity and the Realms of
Mamluk Period the Miraculous
Mohamad El-Merheb Ian Richard Netton
The Kharijites in Early Islamic The Poetics of Spiritual Instruction
Historical Tradition Austin O’Malley
Hannah-Lena Hagemann Sacred Place and Sacred Time in the Medieval
Medieval Damascus Islamic Middle East
Konrad Hirschler Daniella Talmon-Heller
A Monument to Medieval Syrian Conquered Populations in Early Islam
Book Culture Elizabeth Urban
Konrad Hirschler
The Popularisation of Sufism in Ayyubid and
Mamluk Egypt
Nathan Hofer
edinburghuniversitypress.com/series/escihc
The Queen of Sheba’s Gift
A History of the True Balsam of Matarea
Marcus Milwright
Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish
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© Marcus Milwright, 2021
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
The Tun – Holyrood Road
12 (2f) Jackson’s Entry
Edinburgh EH8 8PJ
Typeset in 11/15 Adobe Garamond by
Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire,
and printed and bound in Great Britain
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7486 6849 6 (hardback)
ISBN 978 0 7486 6850 2 (webready PDF)
ISBN 978 0 7486 6852 6 (epub)
The right of Marcus Milwright to be identified as author of this work has been asserted
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the Copyright and
Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498).
Contents
List of Figures vi
Permissions x
Acknowledgements xi
Notes for the Reader xiii
Timeline xiv
Introduction 1
1 Travellers’ Tales: Experiencing Matarea 22
2 Resins in the Ancient World 53
3 Balsam in Egypt 87
4 The Balsam Tree and Balsam ‘Oil’ 118
5 Diplomacy and International Trade 153
6 Balsam in Medicine: From Greek to Arabic 182
7 Balsam in Medieval and Early Modern Medicine 210
8 Religious and Royal Dimensions to Balsam 241
9 Conclusion 273
Glossary 285
Bibliography 288
Index 326
Figures
I.1 Bottle of Turlington’s Balsam of Life, c. 1880 4
I.2 Albarello drug jar used for ‘balsam of the philosophers’ 5
1.1 Fruit and flowers of Calotropis procera, known as ‘Apples of
Sodom’ 24
1.2 Front cover of Michel-Marie Jullien, L’Arbre de la Vierge à
Matarieh, fourth edition 27
1.3 Church at Matarea, Egypt, constructed from 1902 28
1.4 Chapel in the gardens of Matarea constructed by the College of
Jesuits, Cairo 28
1.5 Sycamore fig in the gardens of Matarea 28
1.6 Woodcut map of Cairo from Sebastian Münster, Cosmographia;
and detail 30–1
1.7 Illustration of the balsam tree and the walled compound of
Matarea from Tractatus de herbis manuscript, Salerno,
c. 1280–1310 32
1.8 Sketch of a manuscript illustration of the balsam tree and
the walled compound of Matarea from a pharmacological
manuscript including the Tractatus de herbis 32
1.9 Illustration of the chapel and surrounding features of the
plantation of Matarea from the travel journal of Bernardino da
Gallipoli 34
1.10 Water-lifting device (sāqiya) with the obelisk of Heliopolis and
in the gardens of Matarea 34
2.1 Map of the sites associated with ancient balsam cultivation and
production 54
2.2 Painted relief showing trees carried in baskets 54
list of figures | vii
2.3 Map of the ancient incense routes in Arabia and the Horn of
Africa 56
2.4 View of ancient Petra, Jordan 57
2.5 Installation used in the production of perfumes, ʿEin Boqeq,
Israel. After Fischer, Gichon and Tal, ʿEn Boqeq 65
2.6 Installation used in the production of perfumes, ʿEin Feshka,
Israel. After Dov Porotsky in Hirschfeld, ‘The rose and the
balsam’ 66
2.7 Ceramic juglet wrapped in palm leaves found in the Qumran
region 67
2.8 Obverse and reverse faces of a ‘Judaea capta’ sesterce minted
by Vespasian in 71 ce 69
2.9 Relief showing the Triumph through Rome of Titus, Arch of
Titus, Rome. 71 ce 70
2.10 Inscription panel on the floor mosaic of the synagogue in
En-Gedi, Israel 73
2.11 Detail of the floor mosaic in the church of St George, Madaba,
Jordan 74
3.1 Stereoscopic photograph of obelisk located at ʿAyn Shams
(Heliopolis) 90
3.2 Sheet of papyrus 92
3.3 Map of Cairo and the surrounding areas in the medieval
period 94
3.4 Qubba of Yashbak min Mahdi at al-Malaqa bi’l-Matariyya,
Cairo 102
3.5 Illustration of Yashbak’s palace 103
3.6 View of the Palace of Qawsun, renovated by Amir Yashbak
min Mahdi, at al-Malaqa bi’l-Matariyya, Cairo 104
4.1 Balsam tree from the Arabic Dioscorides, dated 1083 127
4.2 Balsam tree being harvested 129
4.3 Balsam tree being harvested. From Kitāb al-diryāq 130
4.4 Balsam tree within a walled garden with guards 131
4.5 Balsam tree in the Book of Simples of Matthaeus Platearius 132
4.6 Woodcut illustration of a branch from a balsam tree from the
1591 edition of Prosper Alpin, De balsamo dialogus 133
viii | the queen of sheba’s gift
4.7 Illustrations of the fruit and wood of the balsam tree from John
Gerard, Herball 134
4.8 Illustration of the fruit of the balsam tree from John Gerard,
Herball 134
4.9 Woodcut illustration of a balsam tree from Prosper Alpin,
De plantis Aegypti 135
4.10 Illustration of a balsam tree from Pierre Pomet, Histoire
générale des drogues 136
4.11 Illustration of a balsam tree. From Benoît de Maillet,
Description de l’Égypte 137
4.12 Mecca balsam (Commiphora opobalsamum): entire plant 139
5.1 Giorgio Vasari, Lorenzo de’ Medici receiving gifts from the
ambassador of the Mamluk sultan 159
5.2 Reception of the Venetian ambassadors in Damascus, after
1511 160
5.3 Pilgrim ampulla, Palestine, sixth century. Museo del Duomo,
Monza 166
5.4 Metal flask containing Zamzam water 166
6.1 Fragmentary head of Mithradates VI Eupator 193
6.2 Portrait of Emperor Nero from the obverse face of an aureus 194
6.3 Dioscorides and student holding a mandrake plant. Arabic
Dioscorides 199
7.1 Diagram showing the recipe for pastilles of Hedychroum from
Kitāb al-diryāq 222
7.2 Diagram showing the theriac of Andromachus. Kitāb al-diryāq 223
7.3 Pewter container for theriac, Venice 224
7.4 Theriac stamp, Venice, 1601–80 225
7.5 Drug jars for holding Mithridatium 226
7.6 Glazed albarello for storing theriac, Italy, 1641 227
8.1 Ceramic ampulla with relief images of St Menas and camels.
Egypt 242
8.2 Bird-shaped gold ampulla, made in 1661 by Sir Robert Viner
and the coronation spoon 254
8.3 Cornice block showing the anointing of a pharaoh, temple of
Harendotes, Philae Island, Egypt 255
list of figures | ix
8.4 Samuel anointing David. Silver plate, 629–30 258
8.5 Samuel anointing David, Theodore Psalter, Constantinople,
1066 259
8.6 Drawing of a detail from an ivory plaque with baptism of
Clovis, c. 850 260
9.1 Fifteenth- or sixteenth-century glazed dish set into a vault in
the mosque of Nushabad, Iran 280
