Myrrh was one of the most versatile substances in the ancient world, used for everything from embalming the dead to treating infected teeth to perfuming temples. A bitter, aromatic resin harvested from thorny trees in the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa, myrrh held value across nearly every ancient civilization from Sumer to Rome. Its uses fell into four broad categories: medicine, religious ritual, preservation of the dead, and perfumery.
Medicine: The Oldest Recorded Use
The earliest known medicinal use of myrrh dates to around 1100 BCE, when the Sumerians applied it to infected teeth and used it to treat intestinal worms. These weren’t folk remedies passed down by word of mouth alone. Sumerian inscriptions record the specific applications, making myrrh one of the first antimicrobial agents documented in writing.
In ancient Egypt, the Ebers Papyrus (circa 1500 BCE) describes myrrh as a treatment for wounds and skin sores. Egyptian practitioners used it extensively for joint inflammation, parasitic infections, stomach disorders, and general pain management. The resin was also applied to help fractures heal, a use documented independently in India’s classical medical texts as well.
The Greek physician Dioscorides, writing in the first century CE, recommended myrrh for coughs and infections of the eyes, teeth, and mouth. This oral health application turned out to be remarkably persistent across cultures. Ancient peoples chewed the resin, dissolved it in water as a rinse, or applied it directly to sore gums. Modern clinical research has since confirmed that myrrh does have genuine antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory properties, which helps explain why so many unconnected civilizations arrived at similar uses for it.
Myrrh oil was also inhaled as steam to relieve headaches caused by nasal congestion, a practice that foreshadows today’s use of essential oils for similar purposes.
Embalming and Mummification
Ancient Egyptians prized myrrh as part of their elaborate mummification process. The Ebers Papyrus specifically lists it as an ingredient in embalming ointments, and for centuries scholars assumed the Egyptian word “antiu” referred to myrrh.
That assumption has recently gotten more complicated. In 2023, researchers published findings in Nature from the analysis of 31 ceramic vessels recovered from an embalming workshop at Saqqara, dating to roughly 664 to 525 BCE. The vessels labeled “antiu,” long translated as “myrrh” or “incense,” actually contained a mixture of cedar and juniper or cypress oils combined with animal fat. This doesn’t mean myrrh wasn’t used in Egyptian embalming. It was. But it suggests that our translations of ancient Egyptian embalming terminology have been imprecise, and that the process involved a wider range of plant-based substances than previously understood.
What’s clear is that embalmers selected resins like myrrh for practical reasons. These substances are naturally antimicrobial, meaning they slow the growth of bacteria and fungi. That’s exactly what you need when preserving a body for the afterlife.
Religious Ritual and Sacred Incense
Myrrh appears throughout the religious texts of the ancient Near East. In the Hebrew Bible, it is listed as an ingredient in the holy anointing oil used to consecrate priests and sacred objects. Temples across Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Levant burned myrrh as incense during worship, both for its fragrance and for its perceived spiritual significance. The offering of myrrh to the infant Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew reflects this long tradition of associating the resin with the sacred and the divine.
The Egyptians incorporated myrrh into kyphi, a famous compound incense that doubled as a perfume and a medicine. Kyphi recipes varied, but they typically combined myrrh resin with frankincense, cinnamon, cedarwood, and other aromatics. The dry ingredients were ground separately with a mortar and pestle, then mixed with soaked raisins and wine or honey to form a sticky paste. This paste was rolled into small balls and left to dry for up to two weeks. The result was a slow-burning incense pellet used in temple ceremonies, particularly evening rituals meant to soothe and purify.
Perfumery and Cosmetics
Beyond the temple, myrrh was a staple of ancient perfumery. The Egyptians developed several methods of aromatizing the body, including fumigation, pomades, and fragranced oils. Of these, aromatic perfume oils were the closest equivalent to what we’d call perfume today, and myrrh was a core ingredient. Its warm, slightly bitter scent provided a base note that blended well with sweeter aromatics like frankincense and cinnamon.
Myrrh oil was also used to treat skin conditions, including acne and fungal infections. This placed it at the intersection of cosmetics and medicine, a boundary that barely existed in the ancient world. A substance that made your skin look better and also fought infection was simply considered good practice.
A Commodity Worth Crossing Deserts For
Myrrh’s many uses made it enormously valuable, and an entire trade infrastructure grew up around moving it from where it grew to where it was wanted. South Arabian merchants transported myrrh along the Incense Route, a camel caravan trail that ran roughly 100 miles inland from the Red Sea coast. The route originally began at Shabwah in Hadhramaut (in modern Yemen) and ended at the Mediterranean port of Gaza. Pliny the Elder described the journey as consisting of 65 stages separated by rest stops for the camels.
The Incense Route didn’t carry myrrh alone. Caravans also moved frankincense, spices, gold, ivory, pearls, precious stones, and textiles, many of which arrived at Arabian ports from India and East Africa. But myrrh and frankincense were the signature goods of this network, valuable enough to justify the enormous logistical effort of crossing some of the harshest desert on earth. The region became so associated with aromatic wealth that Greco-Roman geographers called it Arabia Felix, “Fortunate Arabia,” a name that tells you exactly how the ancient world viewed the people who controlled the myrrh supply.