the.com/myrrh
a wound that became a perfume, weeping resin worth more than gold to ancient kings.
means A fragrant reddish-brown gum resin tapped from thorny trees of the genus Commiphora, prized since antiquity as incense, perfume, embalming agent, and medicine.
from The word traces back through Latin myrrha and Greek myrrha to a Semitic root meaning 'bitter' — a cousin of Hebrew mor and Arabic murr, words that taste of the resin's sharp flavor on the tongue. The plant earns its name twice over: bitter to taste, and 'wept' from the wounded bark in tears that harden in the sun, a connection echoed in the Greek myth of Myrrha, transformed into the tree whose weeping resin became her perpetual lament.
- defense wound
- the tree bleeds resin to seal its own cuts
- name origin
- from Semitic root meaning bitter
- embalming staple
- Egyptians packed mummies with it
- wise men's gift
- valued alongside gold and frankincense
- mild painkiller
- chewed for toothaches for millennia
frankincense and myrrh trade — arabian peninsula to mediterranean, 1500 bce-500 ce, one of ancient world's most valuable commerce routes
myrrh of yemen dhofar — commiphora myrrha trees in oman's dhofar region, still harvested today for resin used in perfume and incense
myrrh in nativity gifts — one of three gifts brought by magi to baby jesus in bethlehem, symbolizing suffering and death in christian tradition