Database: Perfumes

Perfume Flasks / 7th-8th century, Syria

Perfume was extremely important in Abbasid society. Adults of both sexes and every class as well as children of any age wore it daily. Food was perfumed as it was thought to prevent decay. Physicians suggested the use of aromatic ointments derived from both plants and animals as part of their remedies. Fragrance was even added to ink and to the materials used in mosque-building.

Multiple production techniques existed to accommodate such widespread usage. Some were new, such as a distillation process of dried fruits and flowers invented by the alchemist Jabir ibn Hayyan (722-815). Others had existed for centuries, such as mixing fragrant ingredients with wine or pressing fruits and plants until oil was extracted. Another ancient technique was enfleurage, the act of rubbing oil-soaked cloth against aromatic materials before pressing the cloth to obtain scented oil. A ninth-century historian, al-Tabari, describes how Caliph Harun al-Rashid (r. 786-809) had the air of his palace perfumed by having women dressed in tunics sodden with rose water seated on top of aloeswood. Scented oil dripped from their clothes and coalesced with the wood's aroma to make the air heavy with rich odour.

Arabia had been an important producer of aromatics such as basalm and myrrh since antiquity. The widening of horizons that characterized the Abbasid period made these "local" products less popular than exotic fragrances brought from South and Southeast Asia. The most sought-after were camphor, a powder made from the bark of the camphor tree; musk, obtained from the gland of Himalayan deer; and ambergris, a substance produced in the digestive system of sperm whales.