LITMIR.BIZ

      Henna flower (Lawsonia inermis), used to make the ancient Egyptian perfume ‘cyprinum’.

      Swapan Photography

      The Egyptian priesthood also attached great importance to gardens as places of contemplation. Thus we find walled gardens attached to the temples as tranquil places of retreat. More importantly perhaps in botanic terms, was the fact that known medicinal plants were grown in these temple gardens, and form the earliest-known basis for the botanic garden. The Egyptian Papyrus Ebers manuscript, a materia medica written about 1552 BC (in the time of Moses), contains numerous descriptions of fragrant plants, aromatic remedies and their methods of use. Saffron was employed as a condiment and perfume material; galbanum, mastic and eaglewood were used for fumigation and purification purposes; and cannabis or Indian hemp was used as a sedative and for its narcotic properties. The scented oil from the blue lotus was considered sacred and offered to the pharaohs in their tombs along with narcissi and other aromatic materials. Frankincense and myrrh, especially, were considered invaluable plants throughout the whole of the ancient world, because their fragrant gum-resins formed the basis for most incense. The famous kyphi of Egypt, for example, was a liquid incense recipe whose fragrance, according to Plutarch, ‘allayed anxieties and brightened dreams and was made of those things which delight most in the night.’ This precious perfume was made from a mixture of over 16 aromatic substances including juniper, cardamom, calamus, cyperus (a fragrant grass), mastic, saffron, acacia, cinnamon, peppermint, myrrh and henna.

      In Cairo, street sellers sang of henna, ‘Oh odours of Paradise: oh flowers of Henna’: these were tiny white, very fragrant flowers which were also used to produce the enticing perfume ‘cyprinum’. Cleopatra drenched her Nile barge with cyprinum to create an aromatic greeting for Mark Anthony. Henna is also the ‘camphire’ mentioned in the Song of Solomon:

       A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed. Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates with pleasant fruits: camphire and spikenard, saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with trees of frankincense, myrrh and aloes with all the chief spices.

      (Rosemary Verey, The Scented Garden)

      The enclosed scented garden described in the Bible in the Song of Solomon depicts a sensual paradise where sacred and secular pleasure are united, and provides a model for the medieval ‘hortus conclusus’. Likewise, the Garden of Eden originally showed God and man in a state of complete harmony: in the Talmud, when Adam walked in the Garden of Eden on the first day, ‘he smelled wonderful scents and enjoyed beautiful sights’. But this sense of blissful ease was not to last, for both Judaism and Christianity refer back to the Garden as a place of original ease, a lost paradise, where humanity and nature were in accord with the divine, God.

       In the beginning, God created a garden called Eden. Eden is traditionally located in Mesopotamia, probably in the northern part of the region since an apple tree was able to grow there without irrigation. Before the fall, Eden was a fertile, fragrant oasis of delight, magically calm except for the sweet sounds of water and laughter. Since the dawn of civilisation, human kind has ceaselessly endeavoured to recreate this mythical paradise.

      (G. Van Zuylen, Visions of Paradise)

      This is doubtless the root of our search to create an arcadian paradise over the centuries: an attempt to recreate a sense of perfect harmony. This is even more relevant today when the pressure and problems facing both the individual and society at large seem to be increasing. The Prince of Wales finds his garden at Highgrove in Gloucestershire:

       … a place of escape from the noise, rush and often the brutality of the world. It is a place where both humans and wildlife can take sanctuary. The garden in this way can become a glimpse of Paradise; a sacred space where humanity, nature and the Divine meet in harmony.

      (Martin Palmer and David Manning, Sacred Gardens)