Ethnoarchaeology of the Incense Trade in Tigray, northern highland Ethiopia
Date
2022-01-20
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Since ancient times, frankincense and myrrh have been traded across Northeast Africa, the Near East and circulated through the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, and Mediterranean Sea. The incense trade is almost invisible, and little is known of how incense was produced, distributed, and consumed within ancient states and how incense was integrated into local and regional political economies. This dissertation is an ethnoarchaeological investigation of the political economy of the contemporary incense trade in the Central and Northwestern Zones of Tigray Regional State, northern highland Ethiopia. Significantly, there are both elite and non-elite incense trades in this region. The elite trade of frankincense is controlled by government sanctioned international and parastatal companies that use non-mechanized production, processing, and distribution practices. Frankincense is targeted for international consumers but also supplies the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church within the country. Women form the largest labor sector processing frankincense, but they also trade, produce, distribute, and consume non-elite luxury aromatic plant materials for daily household rituals using different incense burners than those found in the church. While the contemporary and ancient incense trades cannot be considered as identical, the contemporary trade provides insights into how incense production and trade are integrated into the regional political economy and how the trade reproduces class and gender inequities that have deep historic roots. Anthropologists must consider international incense trade more broadly, including at the levels of local production and consumption, and by considering the role of this trade in the production and reproduction of social inequalities and power structures at all social scales. The study also provides a cost-effective method for African researchers to identify incense residue.
Description
Keywords
ethnoarchaeology, political economy, incense trade, Tigray, Ethiopia
Citation
Nigus, G. M. (2022). Ethnoarchaeology of the Incense Trade in Tigray, northern highland Ethiopia (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.