Читать книгу The Completely Useless Guide to Christmas - Martin Pullen - Страница 10
ОглавлениеTHERE is no mention of three wise men in the Bible. There is also no mention of a cat. But there is, however, mention of a car: it says that Moses came down the mountain in his Triumph. They say the old jokes are the best.
The Gospel of Matthew states that ‘wise men came from the East’ to visit the newly born baby Jesus. Although the Bible fails to record how many they were, it has been assumed there were three as they brought with them three gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh.
Gold
Around 2600 BC, the Egyptian King Tushratta claimed that gold was more common than earth. In a land of sand, the King may well have been right.
With the metal in abundance, the Aztecs described gold as ‘the excrement of the gods’, placing more value on feathers and turquoise.
Since the ancient Egyptians wrote of gold in their hieroglyphs, around 168,000 tonnes of the precious metal have been mined – enough gold bars to build a second Great Pyramid of Giza.
Rolled out with a giant rolling pin, this would be enough gold leaf to cover the entire British Isles.
The amount of new gold mined each year would just about fill a double-decker bus or – rolled into gold leaf – cover the county of Norfolk.
During the fourteenth century, drinking molten gold and crushed emeralds was used as a treatment for bubonic plague.
A number of Native American tribes thought eating gold would give them the ability to levitate.
An estimated 15,000 tonnes of gold is suspended in the Earth’s oceans, although, with only 10 parts per quadrillion, no one has yet found an economical way to extract it.
Resistant to corrosion, alloyed with copper or silver, gold is well suited for use in coins. The Romans minted their coins in the temple of Juno Moneta, in the hills of Rome. It was from Juno Moneta that we get the word ‘money’.
Frankincense
A sweet-smelling gum resin, frankincense begins as a thick milky sap, extracted from the Boswellia sacra, a tough old boot of a tree that survives in the dry and rocky soil of Oman and Somalia. To say it survives may be putting it strongly, as recent studies have shown that the population of the tree is in decline, due to a combination of over-tapping, cattle grazing and attacks by the longhorn beetle.
Once worth its weight in gold, frankincense could again prove invaluable, as studies are being carried out into the long-term effects of its use in the treatment of inflammatory bowel diseases.
Were you to be spending Christmas in a hot, wet climate, burning frankincense will keep mosquitoes at arm’s length, in turn lowering the chances of contracting malaria.
In ancient times, frankincense enemas were used to treat leprosy.
The Egyptians burned frankincense and ground the remains into a powder, which they used as black eyeliner.
Mostly now used in perfumery and aromatherapy, frankincense scent is thought to represent life, a fitting gift for the baby Jesus.
Myrrh
According to Greek mythology, Myrrha fell in love with her father, fooling him into an incestuous relationship. To save her from her father’s rage, the gods turned her into a tree – the myrrh tree – where she shed tears of myrrh.
With its roots on somewhat firmer ground, myrrh is the congealed gum resin from the Commiphora guidottii tree, widely found in Somalia and eastern parts of Ethiopia.
The third of the Wise Men of the East’s gifts to the baby Jesus, at the time of the newborn king’s birth, myrrh was as valuable as gold.
Ancient Egyptians used myrrh in the embalming of mummies.
As well as being used to relieve rheumatism, arthritis, haemorrhoids and menopausal pain, in Chinese medicine myrrh is thought to have beneficial effects on the invisible meridian channels to the heart, liver and spleen.
In modern medicine myrrh is used to treat tonsillitis, gum disease and sore throats, and is found in antiseptic mouthwashes and toothpastes, soaps, lip balms and many cosmetics.
Most popular in perfumes and as incense, you may well find some myrrh in your Christmas stocking.
