Ancient Trade Route Scented with Essential OIls

"The Phoenician merchants also exported their scented oils and gums to the Arabian peninsula and gradually throughout the Mediterranean region, particularly Greece and Rome. They introduced the West to the riches of the Orient: they brought camphor from China, cinnamon from India, gums from Arabia and rose fromSyria, always insuring that they kept their trade routes a closely guarded secret.
The Greeks especially learnt a great deal from the Egytpians; Herodotus and Democrated, who visited Egypt during the fifth century BC, were later to transmit what they had learnt about perfumery and natural therapeutics. Herodotus was the first to record the method of distillation of turpentine, in about 425 BC, as well as furnishing the first information about perfumes and numerous other details regarding ordorous materials. Dioscorides made a detailed study of the sources and uses of plants and aromatics employed by the Greeks and Romans wwhich he compiled into a five volume materia medica, known as the Herbarius."
The Encyclopaedia of Essential Oils. Julia Lawless. Element Books 1992
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