Recently, I wondered: just what
is incense, actually?
It turns out incense is many things, but the most important component can be a number of different aromatic flammable materials. In the Middle East and Europe, this is usually either frankincense or myrrh, both of which come from a set of related plants that grow mostly in the Horn of Africa and southern Arabia. The main plant that produces frankincense,
Boswellia sacra, grows especially in Somalia and Oman. There is also a species of
Boswellia that grows in India.
Incense is also a big thing in China and Japan, where it is made from two types of tropical trees: agarwood and sandalwood. Interestingly, however, these trees do not grow in Japan or China (except perhaps the very south of China). The main species of sandalwood,
Santalum album, is native to SE Asia and India. All agarwood species are native to SE Asia. Chinese incense can use other ingredients, including frankincense, which was imported all the way from Arabia even during antiquity. Thus, similarly to spices in Europe, incense in East Asia is an imported luxury.
The main producer and exported of incense today is India. It seems Indian incense is made from a variety of ingredients, including sandalwood, frankincense and myrrh, and that most of these ingredients are produced locally. Tibet also has a rich tradition of burning incense, using diverse ingredients that are also locally produced in many cases, from what little I can find.
I didn't find any references to incense use or production as part of Persian or Iranian culture (or Zoroastrian practice, except for the fact that Zoroastrians like to burn sandalwood in their sacred fires). This came as a surprise, since the small map has two incense resources in Iran, and the Zoroastrian URV requires 6 incense resources. Unless someone can point to a source about Persian incense, I think these are unwarranted.
So what does this all mean for the map?
From what I can see, we currently have incense in the following areas: Somalia, southern Ethiopia, Sudan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia near Mecca, central Iran, coastal Pakistan, Thar desert in India, Tibet (2), northern China (2), and southern Japan. Hopefully I haven't missed any. Almost all of them are in dry areas, probably intended to represent frankincense and myrrh.
Based on my research, I think we should:
- Remove the incense in Iran, Pakistan, China, and Japan.
- Give additional incense to Somalia (including the Somali region of Ethiopia). It has been a major supplier of frankincense and myrrh since Ancient Egyptian times, and still is. I think 3 copies would not be too much; 2 would be a minimum. They could be new copies, or we could move the Ethiopian and Sudanese copies. The Egyptians should have to reach further south to get the incense they need for their mummies!
- Give one incense to Oman, which is the origin of Boswellia sacra. Either move the Mecca or Yemen incense here, or simply add a copy.
- Give additional incense to India, so they can export it and recreate the eastern part of the incense route. The incense in the desert can stay, representing frankincense. But I think they should get 2-3 more copies in coastal forest areas, representing sandalwood.
- Give incense to SE Asia, which currently has none. I'm not sure how many and where exactly, but I've seen Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia cited as important sources of agarwood for Chinese and Japanese incense. I think there should be 3-4 copies that could occur anywhere from Assam to Papua New Guinea.
- Give one incense to Western Australia, which has a few native species of sandalwood that have been exploited since colonization. Especially interesting, since this area isn't very resource-rich.
- Let Tibet keep its two copies, but if there's too much incense on the map, one of them could be removed.
The current incense graphics most likely represents the arid
Boswellia plant. It would be interesting to have a different resource variety for sandalwood and agarwood in the tropical areas, but it's not a big deal if we don't have one.
