[1] Incensum (or incensum thuris) from incendere; Ital. and Port. incenso; Span. incienso; Fr. encens. The substantive occurs in an inscription of the Arvalian brotherhood (Marini, Gli Atti e Monumenti de’ fratelli Arvali, p. 639), but is frequent only in ecclesiastical Latin. Compare the classical suffimentum and suffitus from suffio. For “incense” Ulfila (Luke i. 10, 11) has retained the Greek θυμίαμα (thymiama); all the Teutonic names (Ger. Weihrauch; Old Saxon Wîrôc; Icel. Reykelsi; Dan. Rögelse) seem to belong to the Christian period (Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, i. 50).
[2] The etymological affinities of θύω, θύος, thus, fuffio, funus, and the Sans. dhuma are well known. See Max Müller, Chips, i. 99.
[3] Classical Latin has but one word (thus or tus) for all sorts of incense. Libanus, for frankincense, occurs only in the Vulgate. Even the “ground frankincense” or “ground pine” (Ajuga chamaepitys) was known to the Romans as Tus terrae (Pliny), although they called some plant, from its smelling like frankincense, Libanotis, and a kind of Thasian wine, also from its fragrance, Libanios. The Latino-barbaric word Olibanum (quasi Oleum Libani), the common name for frankincense in modern commerce, is used in a bull of Pope Benedict IX. (1033). It may here be remarked that the name “European frankincense” is applied to Pinus Taeda, and to the resinous exudation (“Burgundy pitch”) of the Norwegian spruce firs (Abies excelsa). The “incense tree” of America is the Icica guianensis, and the “incense wood” of the same continent I. heptaphylla.
[4] Brugsch, Egypt under the Pharaohs, i. 77-81, 414-419.
[5] Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride, c. 52. In Parthey’s edition (Berlin, 1850) other recipes for the manufacture of kuphi, by Galen and Dioscorides, are given; also some results of the editor’s own experiments.
[6] Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians, i. 493; ii. 49, 398-400, 414-416.
[7] Brugsch, Egypt under the Pharaohs, i. 303-312.
[8] See Lane, Mod. Egyptians, pp. 34, 41, 139, 187, 438 (ed. 1860).
[9] See Wellhausen, Gesch. Israels, i. 70 sqq., who from philological and other data infers the late date of the introduction of incense into the Jewish ritual.