Latest / Trade Routes That Changed Human History Forever — Fexingo History / The Incense Route: Frankincense and the Arabian Desert
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've done the Silk Road, the Spice Islands, the Amber Road — but there's another ancient highway that's maybe even older, and it's one we haven't touched. I'm talking about the Incense Route, the frankincense and myrrh trade that ran from the southern tip of Arabia all the way to the Mediterranean. Luna: Oh, that's the one where the Queen of Sheba comes in, right? Lucas: Exactly — and she's just the tip of the iceberg. The frankincense tree, Boswellia sacra, grows almost exclusively in a narrow strip of southern Arabia, especially in the Dhofar region of modern Oman and the Hadhramaut valley in Yemen. For thousands of years, that resin was worth more than gold. Lucas: The Egyptians used it in mummification, the Greeks burned it in temples, and the Romans used it in everything from medicine to perfume. But getting it from those groves to the markets of Alexandria or Rome required a journey of over two thousand kilometers, much of it through the Empty Quarter — the Rub' al Khali. Luna: That's the largest sand desert in the world, isn't it? How did they even cross that? Lucas: They didn't cross it directly, actually. The route hugged the western edge of the desert, following a chain of oases and wells. Caravans of camels — the only pack animal suited to that terrain — would travel in stages, each day's journey determined by the next water source. The camels themselves were as crucial as the cargo, because they could go days without water and carried their own fat stores in their humps. Lucas: The trade was so lucrative that it built entire kingdoms. The Sabaeans, whose capital was Marib in modern Yemen, controlled the southern end of the route. They built an enormous dam — the Marib Dam — that irrigated thousands of hectares and made their capital a garden in the desert. They also grew fat on taxing every load of frankincense that passed through. Luna: So they were like the toll booth operators of the ancient world. Lucas: Ha, pretty much. And their wealth became legendary. The Bible talks about the Queen of Sheba visiting King Solomon with camels carrying spices, gold, and precious stones. Whether she was a real historical figure is debated — some scholars think she was a Sabaean ruler, others think she's more myth than history. But the story reflects the reality that South Arabia was the source of the world's most coveted luxury goods. Lucas: Farther north, the Nabataeans took over the trade as it approached the Mediterranean. They built Petra, the rock-carved city in modern Jordan, which became a kind of choke point where the caravans from the south met the routes to Egypt, Syria, and the ports of the Red Sea. The Nabataeans were master engineers — they carved cisterns and channels in the desert rock to capture every drop of rain, making the city viable in one of the driest regions on Earth. Luna: So they were middlemen, but they made themselves indispensable. Lucas: Exactly. And they weren't just passive passers-through. They became the dominant power in the region, partly because they controlled the water sources along the route. If you didn't have their permission, you didn't get through. They also diversified — they collected tolls, traded in spices, and even produced their own goods like bitumen from the Dead Sea, which was used in mummification in Egypt. Lucas: One of the most interesting chapters in this story is the Roman attempt to take over the trade directly. In 26 BC, the Emperor Augustus ordered a military expedition to conquer South Arabia and seize the frankincense groves. He sent a prefect named Aelius Gallus with a large army. But the campaign was a disaster. The guides — who may have been Nabataean, and who had no interest in seeing a Roman takeover — apparently led the army on a long, circuitous route through the desert, and many soldiers died of disease, thirst, and exhaustion. They never even made it to the frankincense trees. Luna: Wow. So the Romans failed, and the trade stayed in local hands. Lucas: For a while, yes. The Romans did eventually establish a naval route through the Red Sea, bringing spices directly from Arabia and India to Egypt, which cut into the overland trade. But the overland route remained vital for centuries, especially for the Nabataeans, who thrived until the Romans annexed their kingdom in 106 AD. After that, the trade shifted more heavily to the Red Sea ports, and Petra began its long decline. Lucas: The frankincense itself was harvested the same way for millennia — and still is in a few places. The trees are tapped by making shallow cuts in the bark, and the milky sap oozes out and hardens into golden tears. It takes about three months for the resin to fully form, and each tree yields only a few kilograms a year. That's why it was so expensive — it was labor-intensive and rare, and the demand was huge. Luna: So every tear was literally worth its weight in gold. Lucas: Often more. In the Roman Empire, frankincense was taxed at nearly 25 percent of its value, and it was still a luxury that only the wealthy could afford. Pliny the Elder complained about it — he said the Romans spent more money on perfumes than on all the other luxuries combined. And that's a pretty pointed critique, because by then, the trade had been going for over a thousand years. Lucas: The incense route also had a profound environmental impact. The demand for frankincense and myrrh — and for other products like balsam and spices — led to deforestation in some areas, as the trees were over-tapped and the wood was used for fuel and construction. So even in antiquity, there was a kind of ecological cost to global commerce. Luna: So it wasn't just about the profit — it changed the landscape. Lucas: Right. And the route's decline came with a shift in the world's religious and political landscape. As Christianity spread, the use of incense in public rituals declined — at least in the West. The rise of Islam in the seventh century also changed trade patterns, and the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea became the main arteries for East-West commerce. The overland route through Arabia, once so vital, slowly dried up, and the cities that had flourished on it — Petra, Shabwa, Marib — fell into ruin. Luna: It's wild to think that this whole network of trade — and the empires it built — essentially vanished, and it wasn't until the 20th century that archaeologists even started to piece it together. Lucas: Exactly. And even today, the frankincense groves in Dhofar and Hadhramaut are still harvested, and the resin is still exported to markets around the world for use in incense and perfumes. It's a living connection to that ancient past. Lucas: You know, this show has always been about exploring those connections, and we love being able to bring these stories to you without any commercial breaks. If you've been getting something from these conversations, and you want to support that, there's a link in the show notes — it's buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. That's what keeps this show going. Luna: Yeah, it's a really small thing, but it makes a big difference for us. Lucas: So, back to the past — the next time you light a stick of incense or smell a perfume that's got a bit of spice in it, just remember that you're touching a trade network that shaped the ancient world, and that the people who brought it to you were walking through some of the harshest terrain on Earth, with only a few camels and the stars to guide them.