Kepu-Kyphi Temple Incense
“The Obsequies of an Egyptian Cat” by John Reinhard Weguelin, 1886
The Sacred Temple Incense of Ancient Egypt
By R. Shane Clayton
© 2019/25 Wandering Stars Publishing
All Rights Reserved
They called the wafting fragrance Ta-n-akh - an "offering of the spirit," and it was said that the rising perfumed smoke carried their orisons to the Neteru, its sweet smell attracting them, in turn, to take up residence within the temple sanctuaries.
We know that there were three primary types of temple incense: Senetjer (frankincense - senetjer meaning “to make divine”), Antiu (myrrh), and Kepu (masculine) or Kapet (feminine). Consecrated and transmuted by fire as offerings to the divine Neteru, frankincense and myrrh are naturally occurring singular resins, while Kepu involved a complicated recipe with up to sixteen ingredients.
Like the Seven Sacred Oils or Merhet, the incense was often called the “Eye of Horus” by the ancient Egyptians, whose term Kepu/Kapet was later transliterated to Koine Greek as Kyphi, the most familiar term still used today.
The historian Plutarch (ca. 45–120 CE) tells us that olibanum (frankincense) was the first offering in the morning as the doors to the shrine were opened, followed by myrrh at midday, and finally Kyphi in the evening at sunset after which the doors of the shrine were resealed. As it turns out, Kyphi was offered in the morning as well according to inscriptions at Karnak and Abydos, so Plutarch had it half right. Either way, Kepu or Kyphi was the most venerated and mysterious of the three.
The term Kyphi is a Latinized form of the Greek κυ̑φι for the Egyptian Kapet - from "kap" - to perfume, fumigate, cense, heat, or ignite. The root word also exists in Indo-European languages with a similar meaning, most notably the Hindu Sanskrit कपि (kapi) - "incense", Greek “kapnoz” καπνός - "smoke", and Latin “kap” - “vapor”.
The Egyptian and Sanskrit correspondence is downright uncanny, suggesting that the word, and incense, were passed down from a still older root culture. Also, the first use of the word “perfume” was its ancient Latin root “parfumum”, meaning “through smoke”, originally used to describe any fragrant smoke from burning materials - primarily those used as incense or for disinfectant fumigation. Therefore technically, incense is the material to be burned and perfume is the fragrance it emits.
This celebrated incense was reportedly compounded of various exotic resinous woods, gums, and other botanicals, most of which were necessarily imported from distant lands, so it was quite expensive to produce. The other two temple incense varieties, frankincense and myrrh, are well-known single resins with a long history of religious use, and both are included in the Kepu recipes.
After Egypt fell and the temples were finally shut down, the meaning of the hieroglyphs, along with the traditional temple formula and its sacred scent, was lost for nearly two thousand years.
Until 1865 we only knew of the existence of Kyphi through the earliest surviving Greek recipes of late antiquity - usually consisting of up to sixteen ingredients. Such was the case for the recipe given by Plutarch that he attributed to the 3rd century BCE Egyptian priest Manetho. He writes:
“Kyphi is a mixture composed of sixteen ingredients; of honey and wine, raisins and galingale, pine resin and myrrh, aspalathos and seseli; moreover, of mastic and bitumen, bulrush and sorrel, together with the two kinds of juniper berries (of which one is called major and the other minor), cardamom and sweet flag.”
As it turns out, there are indeed sixteen component ingredients in the Edfu “A” Kepu recipe, including several of Plutarch’s as we shall see. Meanwhile, the most mysterious ingredient of these, aspalathos, will become of particular interest later in this story.
Additional Kyphi recipes, along with formulas for several exotic Egyptian perfumes, came from two other venerable Greek writers, Pliny the Elder and Dioscorides – both of whom had lived in or visited Egypt before the end of the 1st century CE.
Later, Kyphi was most often recorded as a medication to be taken orally, such as a recipe from the Greek physician Galen, who quotes from a scroll he “found”, written by a physician named Damocrates transcribing the lost writings of his mentor Rufus of Ephesus, both active in Egypt during the 1st century CE.
All six of these aforementioned writers lived during the last decades of pharaonic Egypt, and are considered fairly reliable authorities by contemporary academics – Dioscorides in particular. His influential botanical masterwork, translated into Latin and called De Materia Medica, served as a valuable reference textbook for over 1,500 years and is still used by natural herbalists today. That their writings survived the later book burning and pogroms instituted by Christian Roman emperor Theodosius I is nothing short of miraculous.
On the dual subjects of these banned writings and the temple incense, in one of the Greek Magical Papyri (Papyri Graecae Magicae, abbreviated PGM), called “The Eighth Book of Moses” c. 350 CE, no less than five of the ancient Kepu ingredients are included among the seven “secret incenses” used in a passage from a fascinating initiation ritual.
These texts are mostly coterminous with the Gnostic Gospels of Nag Hammadi and reveal a syncretic form of religious magic or "theurgy" that proliferated in the early centuries of the Common Era that incorporates a mixture of Egyptian, Greek, Hebrew, Hermetic, and early Christian features - so indicative of the melting pot of influences in Alexandria. These would all be lumped into either “paganism” or “heretical” by Christianized Rome and were pretty much stamped out - or forced underground.
I was fortunate to have run across the work of my friend magical symbolist Dr. Kirsten D. Dzwiza. She and the museum kindly allowed me to share the graphic of her translation of this PGM passage below. This is one of only three historical instances of “seven sacred/secret scents” that I have yet to encounter, besides the Hindu chakra attributes and the Egyptian Seven Sacred Oils (see: Seven Sacred Oils & Chakras.)
Regarding our story, this text shows these particular scents as sacred to divinities in late antiquity, and all but costos and cassia are ingredients in the Edfu 'A' Kepu recipe.
Image and research courtesy Dr. Kirsten D. Dzwiza and the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden.
After the fall of the last Ptolemaic Dynasty to Rome with the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BCE, the subsequent Egyptian culture and religion managed to continue for a few more centuries, supported and maintained by Roman Emperors Augustus, Tiberius, Domitian, and Trajan - up to the end of the second century CE. Even so, early Coptic Christians began co-opting the Egyptian temples in Alexandria as early as 42 CE, some of which by then had been decommissioned and abandoned by the Egyptian priests after Rome's takeover, and had already begun falling into disrepair.
By 390 CE the Roman Church under Theodosius I began shutting down the remaining operational temples throughout Egypt (mostly newer Ptolemaic ones) and outlawed all of the “pagan” and “heretic” religions wholesale - widely affecting a huge percentage of Roman and Egyptian citizens who lived outside of the cities where Christianity first became influential and organized.
By 500 CE, the Egyptian language and the meaning of the hieroglyphs had faded from use and were forgotten.
Unsurprisingly, Rome fell 45 years later as the Persians and Islam conquered most of Egypt, controlling it on and off ever since, with only the Coptic Christian Egyptians remaining in Alexandria and southern settlements near Abydos, Dendera, and Luxor. During these 300 years, the fine temple carvings of the Neteru were systematically defaced under the order of Theodosius I’s edict banning pagan images, and the vandalism was continued later by superstitious Coptics and Muslims.
Defaced divine images in the temple of Hathor at Dendera. March 2018 photo by author.
John Anthony West once suggested that some of the more systematic defacements such as at Dendera above might have even been done by the few remaining Egyptian priests themselves - in order to reverently “uninstall” or “decommission” the temples before they left forever. Who knows? Along with the defacement of the carvings, all of the temple furnishings were put into piles and burned, blackening the beautifully painted ceilings and walls with a thick layer of creosote.
As the sands of centuries slowly filled them thereafter, itinerant Bedouins used the temple rooms as living quarters – continuing the process of blackening the exquisite painted carvings and inscriptions with thick layers of soot from their campfires and ovens. Holes were dug into the walls to support curtain rods, and the carvings suffered further defacements and graffiti in the process.
Earthquakes damaged or destroyed many of the greatest and oldest temples, and sultans plundered them of their fine limestone, alabaster, and pink granite for the construction of their palaces and cities. Sandstorms and Nile floods eventually buried the remaining edifices up to their architraves in sand and mud, which quite luckily protected a few of them from further degradation for future generations.
Fortunately, the creosote layer seems to have protected the paint and is currently in the process of being systematically removed by laser from the best-preserved temples, revealing amazingly fresh and colorful art and inscriptions. The temple of Khnum at Esna and the temple of Hathor at Dendera stand out in this regard.
The Rosetta Stone, photo courtesy of The Bristish Museum
Egyptomania swept Europe after this, accompanied by a huge demand for valuable Egyptian antiquities by museums and wealthy collectors alike. Many priceless artifacts began flooding the markets – the lost provenance or location and context of their origin only traceable by the presence of hieroglyphs and pharaonic cartouches, and latter modern-day scientific technologies.
Even the famed circular ceiling zodiac from the Dendera temple of Hathor was hacked with saws and blasted out with dynamite, only to be replaced with a plaster cast copy in 1821 - painted black to match the creosote deposits. Meanwhile, the mate to the now solitary obelisk of Luxor temple was loaded onto a barge and shipped to Paris in 1833. They both still reside today in France, in the Louvre and the Place de le Concorde respectively.
Among this initial flood of antiquities was a 1500 BCE medical papyrus acquired by German Professor Georg Ebers which contains the only existing pre-Ptolemaic recipe for Kepu/Kapet, although the context of the recipe was for medical fumigation and as an orally prescribed medication (an important factor in identification of certain ingredients), rather than for use in the temples and sanctuaries of the Neteru. Of course, these precious artifacts were just the tip of the iceberg of the removal of Egyptian antiquities which disappeared into private collections - but fortunately, the temple walls remained...
The temple of Horus at Edfu - March 2018 photo by author, with Luxor guide Omar Ali leading the way.
In the spring of 1865, the German archaeologist Johannes Dumichen discovered a so-called “laboratory” chamber in the Ptolemaic period temple of Horus at Edfu (above). While carefully and laboriously scraping mud from the walls by the light of kerosene lanterns in the room, he was amazed to find clear ingredient lists for the famed anointing oils and unguents (see “The Seven Sacred Oils”), and - lo and behold - a recipe for the celebrated Kepu incense, a veritable archaeological holy grail! He excitedly wrote, “Could this be the Kyphi of Plutarch?”
Just months prior, his mentor Heinrich Brugsch had discovered a similar, though at the time not understood, formula for Kapet at the Isis temple at Philae. Armed with the new understanding of the hieroglyphs, three true ancient Egyptian temple recipes for Kepu were revealed, two at Edfu (called ‘A’ and ‘B’, with the first considered the oldest) and one at Philae (called ‘C’). Thus began the first attempts to decipher the Kepu ingredient hieroglyphs and the respective methods and quantities of the recipes.
According to the temple inscriptions, these recipes, among other arcane temple knowledge, were copied from even more ancient papyri, which, due to their antiquity, had deteriorated beyond saving. Exactly why the priests decided to commit them to stone is pure conjecture, but we do know that the tradition of deconstruction of older damaged, decaying temples and then rebuilding and reinstalling them on the same site was common from the New Kingdom on.
The well-preserved temples of Horus at Edfu, Hathor at Dendera, and Isis at Philae were built with great attention to traditional detail during the last centuries BCE by the Ptolemaic pharaohs to replace such outdated or dilapidated structures and stand upon the very ancient footprints of past temples. In fact, “seed” blocks and upright pillars from earlier temples have been found at Dendera buried under the hypostyle floor, a practice seen also at Karnak and Luxor, and we can surmise the same for the others.
Although construction of the Edfu, Dendera, and Philae temples began about a century after the last native Egyptian pharaoh Nectanebo died in 343 BCE, these awe-inspiring Ptolemaic edifices exhibit much of the same ancient Egyptian state-of-the-art stonework skills architecturally, and are quite faithful to the traditional temple layouts and harmonic proportions, as we see at Karnak and Luxor, which had remained constant for at least 2,500 years, if not much, much longer.
The differences are mostly found in some Greek artistic motifs and refinements, and the addition of many new hieroglyphs; but with construction overseen by the Egyptian priesthood, the most salient sacred symbolism, geometry, and mathematics remained the same. Thus, we can rightfully suspect greater antiquity for Kepu recipe ‘A’ and the consecrated oil and unguent recipes - written in stone some 2,100 years ago.
The Research:
The first translations of the recipes and ingredients were from Dumichen and Brugsch, publishing their archaeological findings in Recueil de Monuments Egyptiens II and IV, and later articles from Zeitschrift fur Agyptische Sprache und Altherthumskunde in 1865. Twenty-two years later, French Egyptologist Victor Loret published his work in Le Kyphi – Parfum Sacre’ des Anciens Egyptiens, among other journal papers. Here the research languished until the renewed efforts of German scholar Agnes Luchtrath with scientific papers published in 1988 and later in 1999.
That same year saw additional work from French scholar Lise Manniche, published in her gorgeous coffee table rendition called Sacred Luxuries – Fragrance, Aromatherapy & Cosmetics in Ancient Egypt. In addition to her English translations of the Edfu inscriptions from French and German academic texts, she also offers the Egyptian perfume recipes of Theophrastus, Plutarch, Pliny the Elder, Dioscorides, and Galen.
Later, in 2011, Egyptologist Karl Vermillion self-published his own detailed and thorough research in his book Kyphi – The Sacred Scent, which includes his English translations of Dumichen and Loret’s work from German and French. He offers two recipes at the end of the book, for Edfu ‘A’ and ‘B’. Vermillion’s work on Kyphi is prodigious and was indispensable to developing the recipe offered here.
Taking the time to assiduously research and document everything in-depth, Vermillion also thankfully did the mind-numbing math to come up with accurate measurement conversions from Egyptian to metric. There would be no 'Wandering Stars' Kem Kepu incense nor this article were it not for his assiduous work. Anyone seeking to make their own Kepu based on my recipe has him to thank for all but a few important new discoveries on my part.
Lastly, scholar Sheila Ann Byl from the University of South Africa compiled an impressive and comprehensive overview in her Master’s thesis entitled The Essence and Use of Perfume in Ancient Egypt published in 2012 that fills in many important blanks concerning not only the Kepu recipes but also that of the Egyptian oils and perfumes. My first introduction to translations of the temple inscriptions of the Kepu recipes came from Byl’s outstanding thesis.
I had come across it online during my subsequent research into the Merhet, or Seven Sacred Oils, after having first heard about them from a certain Dr. Sherif on my first day in Cairo, in March of 2018. Her work inspired me to dig in and see if it was possible to try and reproduce not only the seven Merhet, but Kepu as well.
The Ingredients:
While every one of these writers agreed on the greater part of the ingredients, there was disagreement as to the identity of a few others. With neither Vermillion nor myself being satisfied with Dumichen, Loret, or Luchtrath’s identification of these, and not feeling at all resonant with Vermillion’s substitutions either (sandalwood?), I began my foray down the rabbit hole to see what I could turn up.
Along with my background in botany and horticulture, this included reviewing photos of inscriptions from inside the temples, reading a stack of related academic articles in scientific journals and books, and becoming familiar with and gathering uncommon and exotic botanical ingredients.
Along the way and over the course of a few years, I slowly began the process of learning the ancient arts of perfumery and incense making, and the various methods and rules for the extraction and blending of essential oils and unguents. I later discovered that, unsurprisingly, many of the Egyptian terms and botanicals crossed over between the incense and the oils, and between the medical papyri, Greek recipes, and the temple inscriptions – all mutually supporting my final pre-production conclusions as to what the ingredients in question most likely were.
Coupled with this fascinating yet mundane study, there was also my work in spirit - meditation, contemplation, and vision quests - all seeking after experiencing authentic ancient Egyptian sacred scents - and this brought fresh revelations and validation. What follows is one, among many, of the great prizes resulting from my sojourn in Egypt - what I believe to be the most accurate Egyptian Kepu recipe yet reproduced, both in spirit and ingredients, for nearly 2,000 years.
Since ancient Egypt was known to its citizens as Kemet, meaning the black land, after the dark fertile alluvial deposits of the Nile river, I call the black-colored product of this recipe Kem Kepu. The differences between this and the other temple recipes are negligible and likely due to availability or tastes at the time. Those interested in these are referred again to Vermillion’s “Kyphi – The Sacred Scent.”
The Sixteen Ingredients of Kepu recipe ‘A’ - Horus Temple, Edfu:
2. Swt Nmtj - *Calamus root – Acorus calamus (or Cannabis sp.- see below)
3. Sbb - Mastic resin – Pistachia lentiscus
4. D’de n qdt - Aleppo pine resin – Pinus halapensis
5. Tj sps - Camphor resin – Cinnamomum camphora
6. Kej - Gum Arabic – Acacia seyal
7. Db.t - *Acacia root charcoal/tar – Vachellia (Acacia) nilotica or farnesiana
8. Prs – Prickly Juniper berries – Juniperus oxycedrus - either alone or mixed with J. communis (per Manetho earlier).
9. Mrh.t nar - *Spikenard rhizomes and/or flower oil – Nardostachys jatamansi*
10. Pqr - *Galbanum resin – Ferula galbaniflua (or tuberous chervil - Chaerophyllum bulbosum)
11. Sbn - Orris root – Racine d’iris
12. Irp - Wine – both red and white
13. Ssp n dsds – Green Oasis Raisins
14. Sntr - Incense resin – *Frankincense Boswellia papyrifera or sacra (or Pistachia terebinthus)
15. Bj.t - Date syrup or African honey – or a mixture thereof
16. Hrj - Myrrh resin – Commophora myrrhum
*1) It is worth noting first that the 2nd ingredient, calamus root, can no longer be set in stone. While the Egyptologists Luchtrath and Loret identify the second ingredient in the Edfu recipe - "sw.t Nmtj" ( 𓆄 𓅈 𓆰) as calamus and camel grass root respectively, the term is not definitive as either of these. The 𓆰 hieroglyph means plant, not root, and relates to flowers and canes.
Egyptologists followed suit in identifying calamus as the source of the reed used as a writing stylus by scribes and the god Djehuty or goddess Seshat, but several different types of reeds or canes besides calamus were used to make these pen/brushes, and cannabis cane was one of them. Perhaps this is alluded to in Seshat’s seven-petaled “flower” on her head, which every cannabis aficionado recognizes, albeit not serrated - who knows? I see lotus flower petals as well, so perhaps it’s a composite flower symbol - but I digress…
Calamus is also given as an ingredient in the Jewish Holy incense, the Ketoret, and the holy anointing oil of the Tanakh, with recipes described in the Book of Exodus attributed to Moses. English translations of the Bible still list calamus for the ingredient called Kaneh-Bosm , which means "aromatic cane" in Hebrew. There appears to have been a conflation between “cala” and “canna” at some point in the translations of the Hebrew, however.
To wit: From the British journal New Scientist:
“Linguistic evidence indicates that in the original Hebrew and Aramaic texts of the Old Testament the ‘holy oil’ which God directed Moses to make (Exodus 30:23) was composed of myrrh, cinnamon, cannabis and cassia” (Malyon & Henman 1980).
Additionally, author and researcher Chris Bennett has very convincingly demonstrated how the enigmatic Hebrew Kaneh-Bosm, was either Cannabis indica or sativa.
(See a bio and articles by Chris on the Cannabis Culture website https://www.cannabisculture.com/content/author/chris-bennett/)
Moses was said to have been taught priest-craft in the Egyptian temples, and the sacred Jewish Tanakh anointing oil was very similar to the cinnamon-heavy Egyptian Madjet unguent and Mendesian perfume, ingredient-wise. We also see a nearly identical recipe for a holy oil in a grimoire called The Book of Abramelin, which tells the story of an Egyptian mage named Abraham, or Abra-Melin, who taught a system of magic to Abraham of Worms, a German Jew presumed to have lived from c. 1362–c. 1458. In it, he gives calamus as the only ingredient differing from the Jewish anointing oil, in exchange for the Hebrew ingredient Kaneh-Bosm, which we now know to more likely be Cannabis sp. (see also The Oil of Abramelin).
It seems then that Abraham’s “calamus” ingredient may have been either a conflation or a blind - for other than that, it mirrors the Tanakh formula of Moses. It also appears that the early English translators of the bible and the first Egyptologists generally followed suit with Abraham on this identification of calamus, perhaps due to scholarly precedence. Meanwhile, the recent discovery of a 450 BCE Judahite temple with an altar for frankincense and a smaller altar next to it with the remains of Cannabis resin sure seems to cement the place of Kaneh-Bosm as Cannabis, and as a consecrated incense in the Jewish temple rites of those that still worshipped both Yahweh and his Asherah goddess/priestess.
Considering all of this, it appears very likely that Luchtrath and Loret were understandably repeating the old blind and had the 2nd ingredient wrong, like everybody else, that ingredient being Cannabis. I think it could go either way, and while I do use calamus in my Wandering Stars Kepu recipe for obvious legal reasons, this shouldn’t stop anyone from using cannabis in their recipes instead, or from simply inhaling cannabis along with the incense (the efficacy of which I can personally attest.)
All in all, it appears that ingredient #2 is very likely to be Cannabis sp., especially since Kyphi was often prescribed to be taken internally, and calamus root is somewhat upsetting to the stomach, if not toxic to some folks. And that's the nail in the argument's coffin as far as I can tell.
*2) Loret’s discussion of the 7th ingredient, db.t - charcoal, identifies its synonyms djeba from recipe ‘B’ and djalem from Philae recipe ‘C’ with aspalathos, a plant often cited in various ancient perfume recipes, but never conclusively identified by academia. It’s here that I feel I have made my most notable discovery:
Pliny the Elder tells us that aspalathos is “a medium-sized tree having white spines and flowers like a rose”.
Being a longtime horticulturist, for some reason upon reading this I immediately thought of the wickedly sharp and distinctly white thorns of Vachellia (Acacia) farnesiana, the Sweet Acacia, or Cassie, its flower extract being a long-time staple in perfumery with its deep, almost violet-like fragrance – and it hit me: “like a rose.”
Additionally, he refers to the root as colored red and having medicinal properties, being called “red scepter” or erysisceptrum, which is indeed the case for Sweet Acacia, which has rust-red colored sub-bark and long straight lateral roots. (I discovered this for myself - I would love to make a scepter or staff from one of these roots, but there’s some serious digging involved!) Dioscorides repeats this identification of aspalathos root with erysisceptrum, claiming it was an important ingredient in the Egyptian unguents (!) and that it grew in Egypt as well.
I later found that the Nile Acacia Vachellia nilotica and the species V. farnesiana are quite identical botanically in almost every way except the seed pod shape and that the latter was popularly grown in the Levant since late antiquity. How the New World Sweet Acacia V. farnesiana found its way across the ocean and into late-period Egyptian tombs is still speculation, so further research definitely needed. Either way, both species have identical flowers and thorns, and emit similar fragrances, although the Sweet Acacia scent is, well, sweeter. More importantly, either of them could fit these early descriptions for aspalathos.
Later in 1591, Italian physician/botanist Prospero Alpini described aspalathos in his "De Medicina Aegyptiorum” as having “a long hard reddish-yellow root, leaves like rue, hard white thorns and fragrant golden flowers” – all exact characteristics of both Vachellia (Acacia) nilotica and farnesiana. He also claimed it was not native to Egypt, which is indeed true for Sweet Acacia, its origin being traced genetically to Mesoamerica.
Albini also states that when it was unavailable it was replaced with another plant that he suspected was St. John’s Wort, with yellow flowers possessing a puffy multitude of bright yellow pistils and stamens, indeed quite similar in appearance to those of Cassie blooms! He could also have simply meant the Nile Acacia, which was used before the new import arrived - either by flotation of seed pods or human sailors.
Vachellia (Acacia) Farnesiana, Sweet Acacia located in Bidwell Park, Chico California. Photo 2019 by author.
The 2nd of the Seven Sacred Oils, also called Hekhenu, has as the top-note ingredient the self-same Acacia flowers. This has great import not only for our Kepu but also for the Greek and Egyptian recipes of several other oils, perfumes, and unguents that include djeba, djalem, or aspalathos, which I quite confidently now identify as Cassie, which I use in my reproductions. This archaeo-botanical identification, as well as the following for Merhet Nar, are perhaps the most important new identifications of Egyptian botanicals to come from my taking up the Kyphi research torch.
*3) Concerning ingredient #9, mrh.t nar, I first noted the obvious name merhet, meaning botanic oil, and the similarity of nar with nard, and that Galen (quoting Damocrates/Rufus of Ephesus) gives Spikenard (Nardostachys jatamansi, grandiflora) as the 10th ingredient of Kyphi. Later on, I discovered that the synonym from Philae recipe ‘C’, dd r pr.t snj - peret senej meaning “hairy seeds”, describes Spikenard rhizomes exactly, being humorously obvious once you see them for yourself:
Peret senej “hairy seeds” Nardostachys jatamansi rhizomes.
Vermillion divides Plutarch’s 13th ingredient “large and small juniper berries” (neither being noticeably “hairy”) into “large” for ingredient #8 and “small” for ingredient #9, citing Luchtrath’s almost convincing argument. Loret quite interestingly equates the “hairy seeds” with A. farnesiana - cassie flowers – which perhaps do appear “hairy” (see above) - though they are hardly seed-like in function, unlike small rhizomes planted into the soil from which a young plant may sprout, as is the case with spikenard rhizomes. I find it fascinating that being familiar enough with the presence of Sweet Acacia in Egypt to make this conclusion, he wouldn’t have immediately connected it to Pliny the Elder’s or Prospero Alpini’s descriptions of aspalathos.
As if to cleanly cut this Gordian Knot, the sole surviving Kapet recipe from the New Kingdom in the Ebers medical papyrus lists Spikenard amongst its thirteen ingredients. This is a formula that is prescribed to be taken by mouth, and spikenard root was prescribed similarly in Ayurvedic medicine. Here we see the wisdom too of exchanging calamus with cannabis. Later I found that spikenard was one of the ingredients in the Hebrew Tabernacle incense called the Ketoret, mentioned above. Knowing how heavily they borrowed from the Egyptians, I can do no worse than to do the same.
*4) Ingredient #10 called Pqr has been generally identified by scholars as some form of a fragrant umbelliferous plant, based on tomb wall paintings (fennel, celery, parsley, and carrot being the most well-known). The most notable of these in perfumery is galbanum (Ferula galbanum) with a long history of use as incense. As such, early Egyptologists agreed that Pqr was likely galbanum, if not something similar.
But fairly recently it seems that an alabaster jar labeled Pqr, discovered in the New Kingdom tomb of Tutankhamun, was found to still have plant remains inside (seeds, stems, leaves, and root), and these have been positively identified as Chaerophyllum bulbosum. Known as tuberous chervil, this once-common umbelliferous plant grows in colder climates in Europe and is valued in the culinary arts for its small yet delicious and fragrant tubers. It is truly fascinating that it was so valued as to be imported in ancient Egyptian times and placed in a pharaoh’s tomb.
The plant, tubers, and seeds are not available as far as I can tell in the US, although I was able to acquire some seeds mail-order from Bulgaria - I had no success in sprouting them. Until such time that I manage to find a way to grow or acquire this plant, I will stick with Iranian galbanum (literally “stick” – the resin is like Gorilla Glue). Meanwhile, it seems likely that the term Pqr denotes a general type of plant, i.e. umbelliferous.
*5) Ingredient #14, Sntr or Senetjer has traditionally been identified as frankincense by Egyptologists and is usually translated simply as “incense” - the word simply meaning “divine” or “of the gods”. Scholars tell us that it denoted Boswellia spp. resin in the Old Kingdom, but Pistacia terebinthus or lentiscus resin appeared in the archaeological record later as Senetjer in the New Kingdom, becoming preferred by the late period Dynasties for unknown reasons, perhaps due to availability or olfactory tastes. Even so, according to Plutarch, c. 70 BCE, Senetjer was olibanum – that is, frankincense.
Interestingly, regarding sacred incense used in religious worship, frankincense has been clinically proven to relieve anxiety and stress-related psychological issues and increase one’s sense of well-being, among other notable medicinal properties. Recent scientific research has shown that combining frankincense and myrrh, both integral ingredients in the ancient Kepu temple recipes, actually has a powerful synergistic effect as a mood-enhancing analgesic medicine. (See the paper “Seeing the Unseen of the Combination of Two Natural Resins, Frankincense and Myrrh.”)
Egyptologists have long maintained that Boswellia spp. resin was also called nenib by the Egyptians, but recent gas chromatography on remains in a jar labeled nenib at Saqqara proved to be Storax after all.
Again, Senetjer was known as olibanum to the ancient Greeks, and it was later named frankincense in Western Europe after the Frankish Crusaders who revered it. There are at least 25 known species of fragrant resin-producing Boswellia spp. trees/shrubs that occur in Africa, India, and the Middle East – none of which grew in ancient Egypt.
Some scholars believe that B. papyrifera has the longest history of use as incense in Egypt, being from nearby Eritrea to the South - the closest source. It was considered sacred to Osiris due to its golden color and so it is the frankincense species I use in my Kepu recipe.
Boswellia sacra, imported from Oman, across the Red Sea on the Arabian Peninsula, was called Hedeg “white” or Wadj "green" and was the most revered in ancient Egypt due to its milky greenish-white color and sweetness of scent. It was considered sacred to the fertility god Amun-Min for its semen-like appearance. Boswellia frereana was also available to ancient Egypt from nearby Somalia and is still valued today in Arabian society as the ‘King’ of Frankincense or ‘Maydi’. Scholars also have evidence that B. frereana was likely the earliest source of frankincense essential oil.
The frankincense story necessarily changed, however, when pottery shards labeled Sntr were found in the ruins of Akhenaton’s destroyed city of Akhetaten at El Amarna, with intact residue that was later positively identified as Pistacia terebinthus resin. As such, when we approach Egyptian recipes where Sntr is specifically the ingredient, we may have the unenviable choice between either Old Kingdom B. papyrifera/sacra/frereana or New Kingdom P. terebinthus – all depending upon the particular recipe, one’s tastes, and the availability of the resin or essential oil. P. terebinthus oil, but not the resin, is currently available as far as I know.
Since B. papyrifera is considered the most ancient, as Edfu recipe ‘A’ appears to be in the inscriptions, my choice was made for me for my production, although I think B. sacra would give it a sweeter fragrance in the long run. But it isn't cheap! Maybe next batch...
Concerning its companion ingredient #16, Hrj, also Khar, or Khery - Myrrh, a synonymous term often found in the ancient writings is Antiu, denoted as a burnable incense resin in the Old Kingdom inscriptions, attributed by Egyptologists again to either frankincense and/or myrrh; Senetjer being more prominent than myrrh. By the New Kingdom era, the term Antiu became used exclusively for high-quality myrrh resin imported from “the land of Punt”, with the term Senetjer being used for either Boswellia spp. or Pistacia spp. exclusively- most especially during the reign of Queen Hatshepsut, as depicted in huge piles of myrrh resin in her temple reliefs. Just as the white frankincense Hedeg was sacred to ithyphallic Amun-Min and semen, red Antiu was associated with the goddesses Hathor and Sekhmet, and the color of menses and blood. Correspondingly, the colors white and red also represent Upper and Lower Egypt respectively in temple art.
As if to explain this minor confusion over the identity of Antiu, especially after the New Kingdom in later Ptolemaic dynasties, the term seems to have become used generically for any sacred fragrant resin, including the various species of Boswellia frankincense and qualities of Commophora myrrha, as well as Opopanax - Commophora guidoti, and Storax balsam - Liquidambar orientalis, among others.
Lise Manniche tells us that no less than eleven different varieties of Antiu are listed and described in inscriptions at the Temple of Edfu, with descriptions that seem to fit the aromatic qualities of all of the aforementioned resins quite well. This would explain the use of the term Hrj not Antiu in this recipe in order to differentiate it as myrrh.
According to Manniche, the pressed oil of myrrh resin, also called Antiu in the New Kingdom, was also called Mdt (Madjet), the inclusion of myrrh is inferred by the name in the Madjet sacred oil ingredients, also from Edfu. She notes in her Sacred Luxuries that “By compressing myrrh (ntjw or antiu), a fragrant liquid (mdt) was obtained, called stacte by the Greeks.”; and also “in the pharaonic texts, the liquid expressed from the myrrh, which may itself be a perfume, is under the name of mdt (madjet), called stakte by the Greeks, which in Ptolemaic Period texts is a composite preparation, now apparently called bss (bes) instead of stakte.”
Stacte (Greek: στακτή, staktē) and nataph (Hebrew: נָטָף, nataf) are names used for one ingredient in Solomon's Temple incense, the Ketoret, specified in the Book of Exodus (Exodus 30:34); and while evidence points to myrrh, there is also evidence that up to a dozen variations with additives such as Storax were used in the recipe. (See the Wikipedia article on Stacte)
Only just recently, an ancient 26th Dynasty mummification facility was discovered at Saqqara that contained intact labeled jars that contained enough material to test with gas chromatography. (See Nature article: “Biomolecular analyses enable new insights into ancient Egyptian embalming.”) The primary botanical residue in them was unsurprisingly Pistacia sp., i.e. Senetjer; but quite surprising was the presence of Elemi - Canarium luzonicum from the Philippines, and Dammar, a gum resin obtained from various genera of the tree family Dipterocarpaceae in India and Southeast Asia, both also labeled Senetjer.
Meanwhile, the contents of jars labeled “Antiu” surprisingly contained no myrrh at all! Instead, their components were cedar and/or juniper, the primary ingredients of two of the Seven Sacred Oils, Hat en Ash and Hat en Tjhenu. This means that by the late period at Saqqara the term “Antiu” can no longer be viewed as myrrh alone, having become a term of function rather than an ingredient, just as Lise Manniche suggests. Meanwhile, here we see an emphasis on Pistacia spp. as Senetjer, as well as the international maritime trade of related Burseraceae resins from the faraway Asian Pacific in the 26th Dynasty!
As for the Greek perfume recipes which simply call for “resin”, we may safely assume they meant either Boswellia or Pistacia species, but considering the foregoing, it could very well be that Antiu was the term they translated from. In this case, “resin” could be any of one of those listed above, in the very broad and generic spirit of the Ptolemaic use of the word Antiu!
Using the sixteen ingredients above, the following Temple Recipe 'A' - I created my first batch which was astronomically timed to be ready on the day of the Heliacal Rising of Sirius 2019. The following is my overview having personally followed this recipe on multiple occasions since then.
If you would like to purchase my full translation and interpretation of Temple Incense Recipe ‘A’ from the temple of Horus at Edfu in .pdf format for $6.66 US, email me: shane@wandering-stars.net
Conclusion:
The end product of this unorthodox incense recipe is similar to Indian black dhoop in appearance and consistency, but it is much stickier to handle upon the final mixdown, and therefore much more difficult to produce - and, unlike most dhoop, it dries hard and must be warmed and pulled or cut into smaller pieces before placing on or over burning charcoal to release the burst of a rather mercurial fragrance. A few of the ingredients, as well as the final product, were quite challenging to work with due to their super-adhesive properties. Because of this, I no longer go to the trouble of pelletizing all of the mixture, but instead weigh out two-ounce portions and seal in aluminum foil until its time to soften with heat and pelletize orders. This way they are fresher upon delivery to my customers.
After letting the garbanzo-sized pellets “rest” overnight, they develop a hard and shiny skin, most likely from the gum Arabic in the recipe, with the inside developing a consistency similar to black licorice. I believe this was formulated intentionally to keep the inside sealed and fresh from oxidation during storage, and that smaller pieces were subsequently either “pulled” from the larger pellets after softening, or they were cut into quarters or eighths (that’s what I do) and rolled into smaller pills by the priests just before the ceremonies, exposing the fresh fragrant incense inside.
These smaller bead-like pills were then placed in the holding cup of the arm censer ready to be dispensed by either the high priest or pharaoh over the hot coals. As to whether a prescribed number of these were actually flicked sequentially from the hand to the coals as depicted in the temple relief below, well, I am supposing that practice made perfect!
Above: Seti I flicks beads of Kepu temple incense into the thurible of a special long-arm incense burner as offering to Horus in his Abydos temple. Photo by author March 2018.
Below: New Kingdom Royal “Offering Arm” Censer missing its thurible cup (note attacment holes in the hand), with receptacle for pellets in the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum - photo by author.
Now, years later, I have found that the incense gets better with age. The aroma becomes apparent before any smoke appears, and is distinctly pungent, fruity and sweet with an almost visceral effect, though it tends to fade rather quickly, leaving you wanting for more. As smoke begins to rise the fragrance then changes to warm cinnamon, finishing with myrrh and then an earthy burnt-resin scent. It has the same warm and fuzzy psychological effect as the smell of cinnamon buns baking in the oven. I believe that the purpose was to mimic the pleasant olfactory experience of festival foods cooking in the kitchens.
Unlike most other resin-based incenses that burn down to white ash, this one usually leaves a hard ball of carbon nearly the same size as the bead. I believe this is due to the high sugar content, most especially the raisins and date syrup/honey mix. When placed directly on charcoal, the finish emits a bit more smoke than the initial fragrance bursts, with a very light, slightly burnt-resin smell. This is diminished by burning the incense at a controlled temperature indirectly over the charcoal or on waning coals, or using an electric censer, to avoid full carbonization and the accompanying smoke, but the temperature needs to be over 250 degrees to get the full effect.
It is most curious that so many prominent stand-alone aromatic ingredients all mixed together should yield such a muted and controlled, yet mysteriously effective and distinctly pleasant and unique olfactory result. We might presume that the olfactory sense of the ancients was very likely far more acute than ours, bombarded as we are today with synthetic fragrances and air pollution. And of course, even with my more accurate ingredients list, those elements would have had to have changed in properties and scent too after the passing of millennia.
We can be quite sure that the priests had their reasons for concocting this unusual formula as they did. Perhaps the sacred fragrance needed to be emitted evenly and judiciously over a prescribed time, unlike frankincense or myrrh used in the outer sanctuary or hypostyle halls that tend to fume uncontrollably for a short period; thus, the small pellets (the number of which we can rightly assume to have a magical significance) depicted as arcing into the incense burner in the wall carving above, almost like a string of rosary or mala beads.
The relative size of the smoke plumes in the reliefs is notable, with Senetjer incense depicted emitting a large plume from a cylindrical censer, with incense rarely visibly deposited by hand, while the temple incense is depicted emitting two or three smaller plumes from the arm censers, with a sequence of incense beads being deposited. This indicates that a specific timing and count of the incense beads, along with a carefully controlled temperature, were employed with this special offering censer to maximize the duration of the fragrance while minimizing the smoke, as described earlier.
Burning Kepu is truly an ephemeral experience, much like the Neteru themselves. Always remember that, first and foremost, this was intended as a sacred offering to them. You won’t be disappointed as long as you don’t expect Kepu to produce clouds of long-lasting perfumey smoke like other incense, and are willing to divide, roll and parse out a special number of the beads over a specific period of time - a great practice for meditation/invocation I might add.
This incense is warm and earthy and was designed exclusively for ceremonial use in the temple. A large amount of smoke and a long-lasting fragrance would have been undesirable in the cramped inner sanctuary chapels where its offering is depicted. However, the exotic earthy-sweet scent works quite well with the blue lotus fragrance, and seems to stick in your nostrils and inexplicably shows up unannounced, ever so lightly, for some time thereafter.
Although Plutarch tells us it was burned in the temples in the evening, my study of the New Kingdom ritual offering ritual episodes in the temple reliefs and hieroglyphs in the temple of Seti I at Abydos shows Kepu was offered to the Neteru upon entry into the temple sanctuaries in the morning. Either way, I have found that it takes on subtle yet distinctive differences, depending.
The incense itself is fragrant on its own without burning. I enjoy simply softening and kneading a bead between my fingers and sniffing it periodically during meditation before pulling it into smaller bits to put on the hot charcoal. Not only is the scent conducive for contemplation and ritual use, but it is also fascinating just to smell and enjoy an authentic ancient Egyptian sacred scent for its own sake,
brought back from the lost annals of history, knowing that it hasn’t wafted into human, nor divine, nostrils for almost two thousand years!
Primary Resources:
Sacred Luxuries (Fragrance, Aromatherapy & Cosmetics in Ancient Egypt) – by Lise Manniche, Cornell University Press
An Ancient Egyptian Herbal – by Lise Manniche, University of Texas Press
The Essence and Use of Perfume in Ancient Egypt – by Sheila Ann Byl, University of South Africa
The Sacred Scents - Examining the Connection Between the ʿNtjw and Sfṯ in the Context of the Early Eighteenth Dynasty Temples – by Katarzyna Kapiec, Institute of Mediterranean and Oriental Cultures of the Polish Academy of Sciences
Kyphi – The Sacred Scent – by Karl Vermillion, self-published (includes offerings from the research of contemporary Egyptologists Agnes Luchtrath and Lise Manniche, as well as his invaluable translations of the writings of three 19th century Egyptologists – articles by the German discoverer of the Edfu inscriptions, Johannes Dumichen and his mentor Heinrich Brugsch published that year in 1865, and the French monograph Le Kyphi – Parfum Sacre’ des Anciens Egyptiens by Victor Loret published in 1887)
The Perfume of Cyprus - from Pyrgos to François Coty – by Maria Rosaria Belgiorno, de Strobel publisher
The Significance of Petroleum Bitumen in Ancient Egyptian Mummies – by K. A. Clark, S. Ikram, and R. P. Evershed, Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License
Ancient Egyptian Medicine – by John F. Nunn, University of Oklahoma Press
Codex of Ancient Egyptian Plant Remains – by Christian de Vartavan, Arminee Arakelyan & Victoria Asensi Amorós, SAIS Academic Books, London
Ptolemaic Hieroglyphs – by François Gaudard, Chapter 10 of Visible Language - Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East and Beyond, Oriental Institute Museum Publications Number 32, The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago
Fragment of a Graeco-Egyptian Work Upon Magic - from a Papyrus in the British Museum – edited by Charles Wycliffe Goodwin MA, Cambridge University
The Sacred Magic of Egypt – by Rosemary Clark, Llewellyn
Sacred Space and Sacred Function in Ancient Thebes – edited by Peter F. Dorman and Betsy M. Bryan, Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization vol. 61, The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago
Serpent in the Sky: The High Wisdom of Ancient Egypt – by John Anthony West, Quest Books, Theosophical Publishing House
Symbol and the Symbolic – Ancient Egypt, Science and the Evolution of Consciousness – R. A. Schwaller de Lubisc, Inner Traditions
Cannabis and the Soma Solution - Chris Bennett, Trine Day
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Wandering Stars is dedicated to expounding the Sacred Science of Ancient Egypt
In memory and in honor of John Anthony West
Born July 9, 1932 - Wested February 6, 2018