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Kyphi, cyphi, or Egyptian cyphi is a compound incense that was used in ancient Egypt for religious and medical purposes.
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| Egyptian hieroglyphs |
Kyphi, cyphi, or Egyptian cyphi is a compound incense that was used in ancient Egypt for religious and medical purposes.
Kyphi (Latin : cyphi) is romanized from Greek κυ̑φι for Ancient Egyptian "kap-t", incense, from "kap", to perfume, to cense, to heat, to burn, to ignite. [1] [2] The word root also exists in Indo-European languages, with a similar meaning, like in Sanskrit कपि (kapi) "incense", Greek καπνός "smoke", and Latin vapor. [3] [4]
According to Plutarch (De Iside et Osiride) and Suidas (s. v. Μανήθως), the Egyptian priest Manetho (ca. 300 BCE) is said to have written a treatise called "On the preparation of kyphi" (Περὶ κατασκευη̑ϛ κυφίων), but no copy of this work survives. [5] [6] Three Egyptian kyphi recipes from Ptolemaic times are inscribed on the temple walls of Edfu and Philae. [7]
Greek kyphi recipes are recorded by Dioscorides (De materia medica, I, 24), Plutarch [8] [6] and Galen (De antidotis, II, 2). [7]
The seventh century physician Paul of Aegina records a "lunar" kyphi of twenty-eight ingredients and a "solar" kyphi of thirty-six.[ citation needed ]
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 aspalathus, which Roman authors describe as a thorny shrub. Scholars do not agree on the identity of this plant: a species of Papilionaceae (Cytisus, Genista or Spartium), [7] Convolvulus scoparius, [7] and Genista acanthoclada [9] have been suggested. The Egyptian recipes similarly list several ingredients whose botanical identity is uncertain.[ citation needed ]
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]
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