Aromatic Oman

Catherine Marshall follows the path of the Three Wise Men to track down frankincense, gold and myrrh in Oman.

- Catherine Marshall

Oman’s southern coastline is smothered in clouds of frankincense. It curls from open windows as women perfume their abayas and men dip the tassels of their dishdashas (traditional Omani dress) into its enchanting scent. It wafts over the frankincense souk in the city of Salalah, and radiates from the sap hardening like amber on the branches of the frankincense trees.

“See? This is where it comes from,” says my guide, Raya Al Alwy, scratching the flaking skin of a tree that grows all alone in a parched and stony valley close to Oman’s border with Yemen. Beads of white fluid bubble on the branch and immediately begin to firm; over time, they will harden into the resin which, when burned, releases its intoxicating perfume.

It might well have been this valley in Dhofar from which the Three Wise Men procured their frankincense (gold and myrrh is also available nearby), for eons ago – between the third century BC and the fifth century AD – this region was the centre of the world’s frankincense trade.

Located in Oman’s remote southwest around an hour’s flight from the capital, Muscat, Dhofar offers perfect conditions for frankincense production: it’s wedged between the luminescent waters of the Gulf of Oman and the parched Jabal Qara range, and is refreshed periodically with fog and monsoonal rain. The trees grow slowly here, but the resin they produce is thought to be the best in the world.