The Perfume of Cyprus

from Pyrgos to François Coty

the route of a millenary charm

MARIA ROSARIA BELGIORNO

Third Revised Edition

Maria Antonietta Rizzo: Foreword
Amber Roy: short review and
Proofreading of the English text
Antonio De Strobel:
Computer processing of all illustrations;
©photographs and design elaboration:
Figure n° 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14, 19, 26,
31, 35, 42, 56, 57, 62, 63, 65, 67, 68, 70, 77,
81, 88, 89, 92, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 104, 109,
110, 111, 112, 113, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120,
121, 122, 123, 124, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130,
131, 132, 133, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140,
142, 143, 144, 145, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151,
153, 156, 159, 163, 164, 166, 168, 169, 170,
173, 177, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 186, 190,
191, 197, 198, 200, 201, 202, 210, 212, 215,
216, 221, 222, 224, 225, 227, 231, 232, 233,
234, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242,
243, 244, 245, 246, 247, 251, 252, 259;
pages: 8, 21, 57, 69, 87, 105, 139, 191, 233,
Hard cover: photo and elaboration.
Simone Iacomini: virtual reconstruction
Figure 108, maps figure 115 and 230.
Clara Vasitzek: drawings figure: 141, 146, 226.

Sponsored by:
Associazione Culturale “Armonia”
Via Canino 10, Roma, Italy.

No part of this book can be reproduced

without previous consent from the publisher.

Copyright © 2017 Maria Rosaria Belgiorno

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-9963-2448-2-9
Edited by Antonio De Strobel
October 2017, Nicosia, Cyprus

ii
 To
Lavinia,
Nausicaa,
Arianna.
 INDEX

Foreword 1

Introduction 7

1 Cyprus 21

2 The oldest texts up to 1000 A.D. 57

3 Essence of Aphrodite 69

4 Perfume is a Feline God 87

5 Production of perfumes in antiquity 105

6 Instruments of an antique perfume 139

laboratory
7 Distillation 191

8 Notes on the use of wine in production of 217

perfumes and pharmaceuticals tinctures
9 Opium 233

10 Dressing perfume as a status symbol. 247

The Art of Scent
11 Charm and Cosmetics 273

12 Kypros-Chypre, Cipria 313

REFERENCES 340
 Foreword

The fragrance, with its intangible nature, its medicinal qualities

and magic has always fascinated mankind since the most distant in
today's times. It is a true gift that the gods wanted to humans.
This book has a significant subtitle "From Pyrgos to François
Coty the route of a millenary charm". The extraordinary discovery
of a perfume shop early second millennium BC, brought to light in
Pyrgos along the southern coast of Cyprus, gives the author the
opportunity to follow the history of perfume through the centuries,
with careful and philological analysis of its ancient origins and a
detailed examination of the many archaeological sites that have so
far produced partial data, difficult to understand for an accurate
reconstruction of the old production process.

The book includes a fascinating presentation of the excavation

and new scientific discoveries, because of the long and complex
archaeometric analysis conducted by researchers from the Italian
National Research Council, and considerations of what the
perfume represented over the centuries to us. The test is intended
not only for archaeologists and experts, but for all those who are
interested the history of costume, in a rigorous scientific
understandable language for all.
Recent discoveries in Pyrgos, not only confirm, but draw on
exceptional we knew ancient sources around the fragrance and its
properties. For the first time, we have direct information on
production technology, species and plants from which they
extracted fragrance. But we also learned about the tools of the
workshop, containers, various stages of production, storage and
use of different flavours. Knowledge that a very careful
stratigraphic excavation, accurate recovery palaeobotanists data,
analysis and testing of numerous collaborators, who tried to revive
the olfactory pathways lab, made possible with success.
It is a truly exemplary excavation, along with a strong side and

1
methodical investigation that allowed us to know the precise
organization of a perfume shop. Something that would have
seemed unthinkable a few years ago.
The author travelled enthusiastically a complex and articulated
way, from geographical and historical considerations on Cyprus
island connected to other major Mediterranean islands, Rhodes
and Crete in the first place, but also in more distant Sardinia.
Cyprus has always been a crossroads of civilizations, because of
its position of bridge between East and West, 43 miles off the coast
of Turkey, 76 miles off the coast of Syria, Egypt, 264 miles, 500
miles from Piraeus. It was a starting point for anyone wishing to
navigate to and from the East: busy and occupied at different times
by the Mycenaeans, Greeks, Phoenicians, Romans and later by
crusaders, Genoveses, Venetians and Turks. Cyprus was a melting
pot where different civilizations met, approached, merged and
clashed in the centre of a vast maritime trading system and node
of an ancient trade network traffic initiated by the end of the
Chalcolithic period, intensified over the centuries.

This is the island where the perfume, according to ancient

tradition, was born with Aphrodite goddess of beauty when she
arrived from the sea.
A Pyrgos archaeometric research done on samples taken from
excavations have identified presence of fibres and colours
imported from Egypt and the Middle East at the turn of the
second millennium BC exotic, manufacture and dyeing of fabrics
and produce goods ephemeral prestige. From Bronze Age
production of essences, perfume bottles testify in funerary
contexts, suggests the import and export of spices, resins and
precious essences. Textiles, bronzes and fragrances then become
the major categories of luxury goods imported and exported from
Cyprus in the second millennium BC. Movement ceramics,
cuneiform texts, and hieroglyphic syllabic (Tell el Amarna) records
suggest Cyprus as a source of copper ingots and precious
discovered in wrecks along the routes of the Mediterranean as the
Ulu Burun ship wreck.
Towards the end of the second millennium BC Cyprus reputation
exporter of luxury goods increased dissemination of the legend of
the birth on the island of the goddess of love, combined with the
aromas emanating from his divine body. Then, eight seventh

2
century BC, a similar deity appears in the Greek pantheon.
The preciousness of fragrance depends on the quality of
ingredients and knowledge of the exact procedure to get them.
Perfumes, resins, essential oils mentioned by Pliny in the first
century AD, are described by Theophrastus in IV-III century BC.
Their texts were considered essential until 1500 for medical
practices and composition of pharmaceutical remedies. Cyprus
scent of the IV-III century BC already contained the ingredients
which, in 1917, François Coty considered characteristic of
olfactory family "Chypre", the one that bears the name of a
geographical location.

Research Pyrgos perfumery was complex, distinct and

multidisciplinary in many ways. Archaeological evidence has
allowed us to know that the laboratories and workshops have been
diversified producing valuable products such as perfumes,
cosmetics, medicines, bronzes, textiles and wine.
For many of these productions olive oil produced in the press-
large room of Pyrgos and distributed in different stores large jars
was essential. Archaeometric research on ceramics and lithic
found in the room of press and palynological investigations in the
ground allow a preliminary reconstruction of the paleo
environment Cyprus, where even today more than 50 botanical
fossils protected by the Berne Convention live. Experimental
archaeology, an important investigative tool to confirm excavation
and archaeometric assumptions, gave more surprising results.
From experimental trials consideration that olive oil was used as
fuel in metallurgy, in the weaving ointment fibres, in the clay
manufacturing, perfumes, cosmetics and medicine takes the body.
Of particular interest then research the continuity of the Cyprus
perfume production, reported with abundant citations.

The author recalls the various claims of ancient authors,

recognizing the island home of perfume, a factor that has
contributed to identify it with one of the 10 olfactory families in
which you divide all the perfumes of the world.
The historical and archaeological study of the production and
use of perfume in the Mediterranean was addressed not only to
identify the earliest productions, but especially the socioeconomic
aspects that affect the use and trade. Study of the various

3
distillation techniques, including the Biblical East and the Persian
world has left us written documents, and even examining the
ceramic devices found in Pyrgos, have indeed enabled a
comparison between the apparatus 4000 years ago and those of
today. Research on the use resins and the archetypal perfume
revealed that, for production of aromatic substances are used
gums and resins collected from tree bark, dissolved in fat and
wine. Production of this vital essence oozing from the tree
wounds and its content in perfumes, spreading after the burning,
allowed to assign a metaphysical role, which justifies its traditional
use in religious ceremonies and rites of passage. In Egypt
fragrances were something sacred and divine, private ownership
of Pharaoh or priests who manage their production and
distribution as an expression and symbol of power. In Cyprus,
but the scent was used by all: not only the statue of Aphrodite, but
all the girls anointed and perfumed, regardless of their social
status, as confirmed by the outfits of female graves.

Of great interest is the section on knowledge of medicinal plants

in the ancient world and production of perfumes in antiquity.
In China and India, the use of these substances is indicated in
Big Herbal Pen Tsao Ching Big, which collects 237 herbal recipes;
in the Rig Veda (about 2000 BC), in the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus
of 1600 BC, with its 876 formulas and Akkadian cuneiform texts
in 1500 BC, contain the earliest evidence of the practice of
distillation. Later in the Greek world we find the first classification
of medicinal herbs in Hippocrates, that Theophrastus includes in
a large treatise on pharmaceutical botany, partly copied by
Dioscurides and Celso as evidenced by receipts of the Roman
pharmacopoeia, Pliny the Elder botanical notes and the writings
of Galen of Pergamum and Synesius.
Thanks to Byzantium, the Arab civilization has inherited this
huge wealth of knowledge. So much so that we have to thank the
Abbasids (750-1258) Caliphs to have preserved and translated into
Arabic, Greek and Latin compendium.
The caliph al-Manzur founder of the University of Baghdad in
the eighth century AD, was responsible for the creation of a
factory specializing in perfumes and herbal medicines.
Later, beyond the Khorestan School of Medicine in Iran, three
major schools of alchemy, the Irano-Mesopotamian, Andalusian

4
and Egyptian (Cairo) were active between the eighth and ninth
centuries.
At the turn of the first millennium, medical and pharmaceutical
science and art of perfume spoke Arabic. For good reason the
history of alchemy then assigned alcohol to Arabs discovered by
wine distillation, although a historic Italian text targeting alcohol
consumption instead of oil as carrier perfumes, seems question
this attribution. In fact, methods to produce scents through
amalgam with animal fat, warm maceration in wine, spraying and
dry resin mixture and the mixture of vegetable oils has not
changed much from the Bronze Age to the Middle Ages.
The oil was rather the fundamental element of Cypriot perfumes.
For its conservation craftsmen created increased larger containers.
In the ceramic typology of Cyprus, we can follow evolution of
these “storage jars”, which for the first 60-70 litres (end of the III
millennium BC) get 600 litres capacity in Pyrgos examples (early
II millennium BC).

These large vases were in the annex warehouse of the factory,

not far from where perfumes and cosmetics were produced.
Perhaps the mill was not working at the time of the sudden
abandonment of the site, but pits for maceration of herbs, still
containing the jars with hot rocks and ash around were working.
Grindstones, stills, tools and containers to mix and pour
ointments have been abandoned too, with the ingredients that
archaeometric correct analysis allowed to identify: coriander,
laudanum, bitter almond, bergamot, oak moss and pine trees,
laurel, myrtle, marjoram, sage, lavender, rosemary, chamomile and
parsley.
They are evidence that confirming the recordings on the
Mycenaean Linear B tablets on perfumes traveling between Crete
and Cyprus in the XIII-XIV century B.C., validate the heat
extraction technique perfumes, as reported in a famous Knossos
tablet mentioning a Ku-pi-ri-j-o character. From this evidence, we
can consider how the availability of olive oil has influenced use of
resins that melt only in oil or hot wine.
Therefore, Nonno Panopolis of the fifth century AD describes
perfume production in bronze cauldrons where the herbs were
mixed with olive oil and oriental perfumes from Syria and India.
This book is the result of long years of field research and complex

5
studies that have put together researchers from different
disciplines, and opens new perspectives for the understanding of
the production process of the perfumes in the ancient
Mediterranean, retracing a journey that starts from the Bronze Age
going on through the goddess of Cyprus and François Coty until
today.

Maria Antonietta Rizzo*

*Professor of Etruscology and Italian Antiquities at the University of

Macerata; Member of Centre of Documentation and Research of North Africa
Archaeology “A. Di Vita”; Director of missions at Leptis Magna and
Sabratha in Libia.

6
 Introduction

The contribution that perfumes have given to the civilizations of

the past and the present is unparalleled in the material universe.
The emotional, spiritual and cultural support took extraordinary
proportions, though just a few have spoken about it. At the dawn
of the perfume, it is its sacred messenger symbolism, expressed in
the identity of an invisible substance regarded as among the most
secret and most fascinating gift of nature, which spreads
unrestrainable and remains suspended in the air to support human
prayer to God. Countless testimonials illustrate how scents have
influenced every human experience through the millennia telling
the intriguing history of perfumes.
The primordial sacredness of perfume gave healing powers,
charisma and magic to the different aromatic essences so much so
that their use and mixture are not only a part of the history of
perfume and cosmetics, but also the art of medical science.

The finding at Pyrgos of an Early Middle Bronze age installation

to produce essential oils has been an important occasion for
Istituto per le Tecnologie Applicate ai Beni Culturali (ITABC-
CNR: Sciences for knowledge, conservation and use of cultural
heritage) to collaborate with the Department of Antiquities of
Cyprus in making known, outside the academic environment, an
important aspect of Cypriot culture. The multidisciplinary
approach that has characterized the research is testimony to the
spirit of cooperation that has fuelled the research itself, to
reconstruct some elements of the ancient civilization of Cyprus,
bringing out, strengthening and consolidating the continuity of one
of the oldest Cypriot traditions, without betraying its origins.
That approach was fundamental to create strong synergies
between the scientific and the humanistic heritage, together with
intent of preserving and transmitting part of a cultural identity that
we can consider Mediterranean. Excavation of the sector
connected to the processing of the fragrances began in 2000 and
ended in 2003.
The Archaeometry investigation was conducted in the

7
laboratories of ITABC-CNR, renowned for having studied under
the direction of Giuseppe Donato of the ancient perfume factory
of En Boqeq in Israel. In 2003 and 2004 Alessandro Lentini of the
ITABC-CNR and Giuseppe Scala of the, University of Florence,
carried on the first analyses, and in 2007 Manuela Nelli, botanist of
the Officina Profumo of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, joined
the team. The chemical analyses were able to identify some of the
fragrances that were produced, while others were recognized by
the study of pollens, seeds and botanical charred parts.
They revealed that the plants processed were from the Cyprus
flora and within the limits of the samples examined, there were no
foreign ingredients. In 2006, the Centre for Experimental
Archaeology "Antiquitates" of Civitella Cesi, Blera (VT), well-
known in the academic world and accredited by MIBACT, ran tests
of experimental archaeology to verify interpretation of the data
(Fig.1) and the efficiency of the ancient technologies that coincided
with those described by Theophrastus, many centuries later.

Alessandro Lentini † 10 March 2016

8
 First, “Antiquitates” made replicas of vases, which they used for
the maceration and distillation of the herbs including Rosemary,
Lavender, Marjoram and Myrtle. Second, they added to each one
olive oil or almond oil, to blend the fragrances according to the
recipes handed down by Theophrastus, Pliny the Elder, and
Dioscurides.
After the first two exhibitions organized by the Department of
the Antiquities in Cyprus, the findings of the perfumery of Pyrgos
were also involved in a number of exhibitions and events organized
abroad (around 28). The most important, visited by over half a
million of people, was held in Rome at the “Musei Capitolini” from
14 March to 15 September 2007.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrRrv6NfTHw.
On that occasion, a path for blind people was organized using
the replicas and fragrances remade by "Antiquitates"(Fig.2).
http://www.stampa.cnr.it/docUfficioStampa/cnrWeb/2007/Ma
g/ 16_mag_07_03.pdf.
During the period of this exhibition Eugenio Alphandery, general
manager and co-owner of the Officina Profumo of Santa Maria
Novella, asked to the Italian Ambassador Gherardo La Francesca,
General Director for Cooperation and Cultural Promotion of the
Italian Ministry for Foreign Affair in 2007-8, DGPCC-MAE, the
collaboration to organise the same exhibition at Florence, with the
intention to propose to the Department of the Antiquities of
Cyprus a trip exhibition in Japan, Taiwan and New York sponsored
by them.
http://www.smnovella.it/400anni.html?lang=en.
Following this request, the furnishings of the Capitolini Musei
exhibition were stored in the warehouses of the Italian Ministry for
Foreign Affair, waiting the performing of the procedures to host
the exhibition in Florence. For the exhibition at the Museum of
the Officina Profumo of Santa Maria Novella in 2008, it used the
same furniture and reprinted the volume “I profumi di Afrodite e
il segreto dell’olio”, Gangemi 2007 under the title “Mavroraki Il
Profumo di Afrodite”, Gangemi 2008”, which was available in the
bookshop of the Museum along with a small bottle, containing a
few ml of an oil perfume Mavrorachi, created in limited numbered
edition for the occasion. As expressly stated in the product
information sheet, the perfume elaborated by the botanists of
Santa Maria Novella included only a few fragrances among those

9
identified at Pyrgos.
http://www.morningmystbotanics.com/images/pdf/Distillatio
n PDF/pyrgosdistillation.pdf.

In 2009 in occasion of the Exhibition “Secreta Secretorum

Afroditis Perfumum”, organised at the Pierides Museum of
Larnaca in Cyprus (December 2009 - January 2010), the “Lazarou
Cyprus Herbs Ltd." created a fragrance named Mystikò using
Cyprus endemic herbs to show the treasure of fragrances still
owned in Cyprus.
After the diffusion to Cypriot, Italian and International media of
the news about the discovery of the Pyrgos perfumery, many
researchers and professional perfumers have been interested in the
botanical species recognised at Pyrgos. Most of them tried to use
and complete the fragmentary sequence coming from the
Archaeometry research, giving personal interpretation, to find the
original recipe of the ancient perfume Kypros, one of the most
famous fragrances mentioned by Theophrastus (270-285 BC),
Pliny the Elder (23-79 AD) and Pedanius Dioscurides (40-90 AD).
As known, the fragrance is in the history of perfumes as the
longest that has given its name to one of seven olfactory families
in which are divided all the perfumes of the world. The only which
survived with its name through 20 centuries of commercial traffics.
Today, the Encyclopaedia of the Perfumes mentions thousands
of perfumes belonging to the family Chypre officially produced
since the beginning of XIX century, and hundreds named Chypre
or Kypre. www.perfumeintelligence.co.uk/library.
It is not surprising then that most perfumes of Cyprus produced
by the flora of the island have been in various ways attributed to
the goddess of love that the Greeks in the VI century BC called
Aphrodite. So too is there no coincidence that the discovery of the
oldest perfume shop was made in Cyprus whilst investigating a
second millennium BC site.
After the discovery in 2003, many investigations have been
carried out on archaeological samples and several experimental
tests enabled to reproduce fragrances, with the methods of the
Early-Middle Bronze Age. Availability of ceramic replicas
(reproduced without a lathe, using local clay and baked in a ground
kiln), basalt tools and essential oils extracted from the endemic
plants in Troodos, it gave the possibility to organize interactive

10
(olfactory and tactile) exhibitions, accessible even to blind people
extending a wide audience the chance to know aspects of Cyprus
Bronze Age civilization.
The investigative path has been diverse, through the study of the
primary components, such as olive oil and wine, to advance in the
complex world of Palaeobotany. Far from being complete, the
multidisciplinary research on the perfumery of Pyrgos is based on
eight fields of study:

1° The Archaeological evidence. The perfume factory is located in the

centre of the industrial and commercial area of Pyrgos/Mavroraki
settlement, which today is within the urban area of the modern
village, surrounded by villas. The structures emerged to belong to
laboratories and workshops that have made quality products, such
as perfumes, cosmetics, drugs, bronzes, textiles and wine. Many of
these activities have been benefited from the olive oil produced in
the large mill and distributed to the various workshops in large
storage jars.

2° The Archaeometry: The copious number of pottery and stone

tools found in their original context in the great hall of the press,
has allowed the opening of a specific field of research,
archaeometry, whose primary purpose is to reconstruct the second
millennium BC organization and collect all possible information
through laboratory instruments and modern protocols of research.

3° The study of Palaeobotany of the island (which still retains over 50

"botanical fossils," protected by the Berne Convention of the
Council of Europe in 2002, including 16 endemic aromatic plants,
and two native species: marjoram and laudanum, i.e. Cistus
Laudaniferus pink and white) is mainly based on palynological
investigations carried out on samples from different excavated
units. With attention to the materials of the perfume factory that
returned many botanic remains. Entire stratigraphic sections were
analysed from the point of view of mineral deposits, for
reconstruction of climate changes on the island since the second
millennium BC.

4° The experimental tests conducted in Italy and Cyprus are another

important investigative tool to confirm the hypothesis of

11
interpretation offered by the archaeometric, archaeological and
architectural data.

Figure 1: Angelo Bartoli makes an experiment of maceration.
The experimentation was mainly concentrated on the multiple
use of olive oil. The most important sectors are those uses in
metallurgy as fuel, in the weaving for the lubrication of the fibres,
for ceramic mixtures and in the production of perfumes, cosmetics
and medicines.
With regards to scents there has been only one attempt to remake
oil fragrances using the ancient techniques of Pyrgos. In 2006-7,
Angelo Bartoli (Figs.1, 2), director of the Centre for Experimental
Archaeology “Antiquitates” of Civitella Cesi, Blera, (Vt), created
four perfumes that were available to the public during the
exhibition at the Capitolini Museums in Rome (I Profumi di Afrodite
e il segreto dell’Olio: March- September 2007) Greek pantheon: Hera,
Artemis, Elena and Aphrodite.

12

Figure 2: Antiquitates Afrodite, Elena, Artemide and Era
As mentioned above, more fragrances made with the traditional
ingredients of the ancient Kypros (recipe from Pliny and
Dioscurides) have been created for different exhibitions on the
discovery of Pyrgos’ perfumery:

- Mavrorachi: a limited-edition perfume in a gadget bottle created

by the “Officina Profumo Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella”
on the occasion of the exhibition on Pyrgos perfumery, organised
at its Museum in Florence in 2008.

- Pyrgos: a perfume created by Enrico Buccella for the brand

“Sigilli” in 2010, but it is far from the plant fragrances found at
Pyrgos.

- Mystikò: a perfume gadget created by Yannulla Lazarou,

"Cyprus Herbs Ltd." with essential oils from the Cyprus herbs, for
the exhibitions on Pyrgos organised in Cyprus by the Pierides
Foundation of Larnaca, the Italian Embassy and by the
Department of the Antiquities of Cyprus and CNR (Festival della
Scienza di Genova) in 2009, 2010 and 2011.

In addition to the above-mentioned creations, in 2008 and 2010

the children of the school of Pyrgos remade some natural

13
fragrances following a short didactic course organized by the
Italian Archaeological Mission (Fig.3).

Figure 3: Pyrgos primary school leaflets event
The experiment was organized with the aim of preserving cultural
memory. A report and the results were presented as a paper in the
frame of the first (2008) and second (2010) edition of the Euro
Mediterranean International Conference on Digital Heritage,
organized by the Cyprus University of Technology of Limassol.

5° The research on the history of the perfumes of Cyprus is based on

copious quotations from ancient writers and the archaeological and
historical records that have made the island famous as the
birthplace of perfume, to the point of identifying with one of the
10 olfactory families, which has the name of a geographical place
"Chypre". Despite this identification was attributed to François
Coty, the type of fragrance Chypre had already spread in the '800,
and the name is traceable in a medieval "Kypros", very similar to a
more ancient perfume of the classical period.
The family Chypre (oak moss, rock rose labdanum, patchouli,
bergamot, etc.), is today so characteristic and "loved" that

14
Fragonard 1 reducing the olfactory families of Coty (from 10 to 7)
has recently confirmed its importance, dividing it into Chypre fruit,
Chypre floral, Chypre aldehyde, Chypre leather, Chypre aromatic
or spicy and Chypre green2.

Figure 4: A Chypre on the market: “Chypre Mousse”

Oriza L. Legrand

6° The historical and archaeological study of the production and use of

perfumes in the Mediterranean is directed to the identification of
ancient productions and to social and economic factors that
influenced the use and trade. The investigation also includes some
comparisons with testimonies from the great civilizations
surrounding Cyprus, most notably Egypt and Mesopotamia, with
attention to the perfume factories, dating to the Hellenistic and
Roman period. The aim is to outline the common characteristics
that identify a laboratory to produce perfumes in an archaeological
context, and to find new interpretations of dubious archaeological

1
The "Parfumerie Fragonard" owns the Perfume Museum in Grasse. Eugène
Fuchs, who gave the name of the great painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-
1806 a native of Grasse) the Museum, set it up in 1926. Today, the brothers
François and Agnès "Costa" direct both the museum and the perfume factory.
2
The Seven Fragonard olfactory families: Hesperidia, Cyprus, Floral, Fruit,
Oriental or Amber, Aromatic, Woody.

15
evidence.

7° The investigation of various distillation techniques is based on the

archaeometric, archaeological and historical documentation, while
the written testimonies come mostly from the biblical East and
from the Arab and Persian environment3.
Our study starts from ceramic equipment used to distil (also
represented in the miniatures, drawings and paintings depicting
alchemical laboratories), looking for evidence about the cultural
continuity that led to the use of clay still until modern times. These
stills are produced in Italy by certain industries of ceramics and the
comparison with the examples of Pyrgos and Paphos are amazing,
if you calculate an interval of 4000 years.

8° The use of resins and the archetype of the perfume is the subject
that refers to the prehistory of the perfume, as the oldest
attestations of the use of aromatic substances specifically concern
the resin, which is easily available from the barks of trees.
Since the resin is dissolved in fat and in wine, the various attempts
to extract fragrances have led to the composition of the first
ointments.
Indeed, in Egypt during the fourth millennium BC, the first seven
sacred ointments are all based on resins dissolved in scented
Moringa oil. The same resins were already used during religious
rituals, and so it is assumed that their first use was linked to religion.
Archaeological findings also show that the resins have been used
for different purposes: as a sealant to secure tool handles, glue,
waterproofing, adhesives, wound healing and skin disinfectant.
Their texture and aroma, along with the fact that ooze from the
wounds of tree bark of plants, were considered like human blood,
and regarded as expression of lifeblood in which essence of life
flows.
As a result, the observation that the fragrance of resin is
unleashed into the air when burns, gives this substance a

3
According to Martin Levey, who found testimonies about the distillation in
the Akkadian texts of the first millennium. BC and concordances with Arab
codes of the twelfth century: M. Levey 1973. Early Arabic Pharmacology:
An Introduction Based on Ancient and Medieval Sources, Archive, E.J. Brill
Leiden.

16
metaphysical role, undoubtedly connected to the older concept of
supreme entity, which grants all the life on earth. It is a primitive
association that justifies the ubiquitous resins in religious
ceremonies and rites of passage.
The resins of conifers and terebinth, have played a decisive role
in social evolution in Cyprus along with other fragrances of the
Mediterranean flora. If we try to draw a similarity with Egypt, the
country that more than any other has made use of scents for every
occasion of life and death, there are huge differences not only in
taste, but also especially in the cultural choices.

Figure 5: Pistacia Terebinthus, Cyprus

In Egypt, the scent was something sacred and divine, the private
property of the Pharaoh and the priests, who completely
controlled its production and use. It was so important that its
administration was the expression and symbol of power itself.
While in Cyprus, everyone produced and used perfumes,
especially at the domestic level. Not only the statue of Aphrodite,
but also all the girls, who, according to the sacred ritual, went for
initiation in the temple, were anointed and perfumed, regardless

17
of their social status. In all the tombs of the island, of any historical
period, were found perfume bottles and jars of ointments,
cosmetics or like those found in Pharaoh Tombs.
We know that trade in perfumes developed in the Bronze Age
(particularly in the second half of the second millennium BC) as
shown by findings in Egypt and Cyprus. Because of the Millenary
tradition, after the collapse of the Roman Empire, the continuity
and reputation of Cypriot perfumes survived in family entourage
that continued to produce fragrances without any control by
official authorities.
Available scents on the Mediterranean market has kept alive the
fame of Cyprus, directing probably its taste toward more
obtainable than mostly used Mediterranean fragrances. The
continuity of production of perfumes through the centuries in
Cyprus seems to be related to special factors and reasons that
favoured the choice of specific perfumes in Europe.

After the cultural exchanges that occurred during the Crusades,

European tastes shifted progressively from plants typical of the
Middle East and Egypt, towards the scents of the Mediterranean
scrub, blended with floral essences, whose production involved
many European regions like France with jasmine and Bulgaria
with rose. It is possible that this preference was influenced by a
sort of rejection of the Arab world, responsible for invasions,
battles, and hateful bloody domains.
So, the taste of Europeans was directed more and more towards
Mediterranean nuances, causing disuse of hot and aggressive
oriental perfumes, which are still used in the production of a type
of perfume intended principally for the eastern market, and not
European. Returning to Cyprus, the fragrances that continued to
be exported by merchants in the form of scented talc, oil, tissues
and impregnated carbons were Pine resin, resin of Laudaniferus
Cistus (Laubdanum), Styrax, root of Iris, Rose, Oregano and
Marjoram, root of the chain Cypress, Neroli (i.e, the perfume
extracted from the flowers of wild orange), Bergamot, Oak moss,
and Lavender4.

4
Francesco Balducci Pegolotti, “La pratica della Mercatura” Della decima
e di varie altre gravezze imposte dal comune di Firenze, della Moneta e della
Mercatura dei Fiorentini fino al secolo XVI, (manuscript in Biblioteca
Riccardiana V3). He devotes a long chapter to the merchandise of Cyprus,

18
 Coriander instead became the most famous spices of the island,
and it was used not only in the manufacture of perfumes, but also
in pharmaceuticals and in cosmetics. Moreover, as is well
documented in the history of the perfume, the name of the island
was chosen as for excellence (for antonomasia) of a specific
olfactory family by François Coty in 1917.
In that year, the great perfumer, in dividing the nuances of the
ten olfactory families, which represent the standard on which it is
possible to classify all the perfumes of the world, launched on the
European market “Chypre de Coty”, the first perfume produced
at an industrial level. However, the perfume Chypre already
existed, as demonstrated by some bottles of Nimes dating back to
1840.
Eugene Rimmel had invented a Chypre for Catherine of Russia
in 1880, and Malhame Bichara 5 in 1913 sold a precious perfume
named “Chypre de Limassol,”5 in a very attractive Baccarat crystal
bottle, with the top in the form of a Pharaoh Head. In the series
of perfumes that Coty invented in honour of the island of Cyprus,
we cannot, however, forget "Origane" from the scent of essential
oils of oregano and marjoram, which brings us back to the myth
of Amaracus (son of Kinyra see p. XXX) and production of the
famous Cypriot perfume Amarichinum, so beloved in the Egyptian
world. Maybe today it survives as “Amarige de Givenchy” (Fig.6).

listing 228 different spices, which passed through the ports of the island in
1350: at page 35 the export of Laubdanum. 5Malhame Bichara was a
Lebanese perfumer of Beirut, who opened in 1896 in Paris a perfume factory,
giving himself the nickname “the Syrian Perfumer”. His slogan was Allah est
grand et Bichara est son perfumeur.
5
Limassol is the port of Cyprus that after the tenth century assumed the traffic
of the adjacent port of Amathus abandoned for silting up.

19
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 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Maria Rosaria Belgiorno is a senior associate researcher of the

Institute for Technologies Applied to Cultural Heritage of the
Italian National Research Council (ITABC-CNR) and president
of the Cultural Association Harmony of Rome. Since 1998 she
has been responsible for archaeological and archaeometry
investigations regarding the prehistoric site of Pyrgos/Mavroraki
(Limassol, Cyprus). She has organised many exhibitions and
experimental workshops on Pyrgos/Mavroraki discovery of
fragrance and cosmetic factories, editing several books and
didactic DVDs on the subject.

https://cnr-it.academia.edu/MBelgiorno;
mavroraki@hotmail.com; mariarosaria.belgiorno@itabc.cnr.it.

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