Incense route
Ruta del incienso
- Date
- c. 500 BCE · confidence low
- Place
- Shabwa, Hadramawt, Yemen
- Credited to
- South Arabian kingdoms (Saba, Hadramawt, Qataban) and Nabataean traders
- Field
- Movement
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A network of camel caravans carrying frankincense and myrrh from Dhofar and Hadramawt to Gaza and Petra, via oases and wells of the Hejaz. It turned a resin into wealth and used it to finance cities and temples.
The trade's chronology is vague: incense is used from the third millennium BC, the overland caravan route consolidated between the 7th century BC and 1st century AD, and its peak was Roman. Sources are mainly classical (Pliny, Periplus of the Erythraean Sea) and archaeological.
What it led to
- oasis cities such as Shabwa, Marib, Dedan, Hegra and Petra
- reach of the spice trade from Arabia to the Mediterranean and India
- incense ports such as Sumhuram (Khor Rori) in Dhofar