Kyphi
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kp.t Determ: grains, incense in hieroglyphs | ||||||||||||
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Kyphi, cyphi, or Egyptian cyphi is a compound incense that was used in ancient Egypt for religious and medical purposes.
Etymology
Kyphi (
History
According to
Greek kyphi recipes are recorded by
The seventh century physician Paul of Aegina records a "lunar" kyphi of twenty-eight ingredients and a "solar" kyphi of thirty-six.[citation needed]
Production
The Egyptian recipes have sixteen ingredients each. Dioscorides has ten ingredients, which are common to all recipes. Plutarch gives sixteen, Galen fifteen. Plutarch implies a mathematical significance to the number of sixteen ingredients.[7]
Some ingredients remain obscure. Greek recipes mention
The manufacture of kyphi involves blending and boiling the ingredients in sequence. According to Galen, the result was rolled into balls and placed on hot coals to give a perfumed smoke; it was also drunk as a medicine for liver and lung ailments.[7]
Dioscorides (10 ingredients)
- honey
- wine
- raisins
- myrrh
- juniper berries
- cyperus (Greek κύπειρος)
- terebinthresin, Greek ῥητίνη)
- aspalathus (Greek ἀσπάλαθος)
- calamus (Ancient Egyptian "kanen", Hebrew קָנֶה, Greek κάλαμος, Latin culmus)
- rush (Greek σχοῖνος)
Plutarch (+6 ingredients)
Galen (+5 ingredients)
Egyptian (+6 ingredients)
See also
- Ketoret
- Riha (Mandaeism)
References
- ^ E. A. Wallis Budge (1920), "kap-t", Egytian Hieroglyphic Dictionary, vol. 2, John Murray, p. 786b
- ^ Heinrich Brugsch (1868), "kep, kepu", Hieroglyphisch-demotisches Wörterbuch, vol. 4, Hinrich, p. 1492
- ^ August Fick (1871), "kvap, kap", Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der Indogermanischen Sprachen (2nd ed.), Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, p. 52
- ^ Monier Williams (1872), "कपि", A Sanskrit-English Dictionary, Clarendon Press, p. 202a
- ^ E. A. Wallis Budge (1902), A History of Egypt, vol. 1, Oxford University Press, p. 129
- ^ a b Leonhard Schmitz (1849), "MANETHO", in William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. 2, Murray, pp. 915a–916a
- ^ a b c d e f Victor Loret (1887), "Le kyphi, parfum sacré des anciens égyptiens", Journal asiatique, 10 (juillet-août): 76–132
- ^ Plutarch (1936), De Iside et Osiride (§80), in Moralia. with an English Translation by. Frank Cole Babbitt., Harvard University Press.
- ^ Immanuel Löw (1881), Aramäische Pflanzennamen, Engelmann, p. 341