Trying to recreate a 2000 year old perfume

[saudmubarak]

While doing some research, i stumbled upon an old perfume in the Arabian peninsula called "Al-Ghalya", literally translating to "the precious" or "the expensive".
i tried recreating it with some success however there were two problems: 1. The recipe was kept a secret, save for a couple verses from a poem and a dictionary entry i couldnt find a recreatable recipe. 2. Amber, the perfume calls for amber, but is it yellow fossilized resin amber? or ambergris? or labdanum? its never stated, just "amber".

The accounts ive read about it go back over 1500 years ago, and even then it was well known so i can only assume its older than that. Some accounts recall it having oud in it, some say camphor, some say add water lily oil to it, so the recipe is a total mystery to me and rightly so as it was a valuable trade secret if you will to people back in those times, the perfume as the name suggests was expensive and very sought after. In one account a man says "O! Isaac, a little bit of Al-Ghalya is enough and having more is no use, i buy 10 dirhams worth of it every year and its enough, as only a little bit of it can last a long time." (10 silver dirhams are worth about $140 today).
The most comprehensive recipe i've read is quite detailed but seems almost mythical or used to deter people, asking for a pure gold pestle and mortar, fine silk filters, specific types of amber and musk, careful cooling and heating and aging. so I took the safe route.

I formulated the base recipe, the accounts are different but all of them agree that it has 2 parts musk to 1 part amber then its diluted.
The recipe is as follows : 2 parts white musk, 1 part amber(?), and Moringa oil to dilute to the desired dilution.
I followed the above recipe using white musk i bought from morocco, flakey and a little waxy, and labdanum gum to substitute the amber, Dissolved it in a little jojoba oil and ground and mixed it in a steel mortar and pestle. Then transferred to a bottle and topped it up to a 20% dilution to fill a 30ml glass dropper bottle.

It smells amazing thats what i can say, musky of course, animalistic, a hint of leather and wood, a very slight green and vanilla smell. But the main notes are sweet and animalistic. Almost primal. i could never get bored of the smell no matter how much i tried. it only has musk and labdanum bit somehow it smells very complex and deep.

What does Basenotes think? Have you ever heard about it?

 

[Dorje123]

It's trendy to make Ghalia attars these days, every perfumer who makes Arabian style attars seems to offer one or more.

Ingredients that define the genre are deer musk, ambergris, rose and oud.

You can order samples or larger amounts from Ensar Oud, Elixir Attar, Rising Phoenix, Al Shareef and probably a dozen others. Quality examples are very expensive.

 

[Alex F.]

Never heard of the term myself. But here are my thoughts: "White musk" is a generic term, probably a mixture of who knows which synthetic musks. They smell interesting, which is why they're used a lot, but they're a poor substitute for real musk. Labdanum, while great in itself, can't replace real ambergris which is probably what was used in الغالية. I don't doubt that a mixture of labdanum and synthetic musks smells nice, but it'll have little in common with whatever was used centuries ago.

Which sources have you looked at? Do you speak Spanish by any chance? الغالية made it into the Spanish vocabulary as algalia, so some researchers in Spain have looked into it. Here's such a source - Felipe Maíllo Salgado, "Sobre galiya > (al)galia y su contenido". In Estudios filológicos en homenaje a Eugenio de Bustos Tovar, vol. 2, 1992, p. 586-592. PDF.

Edit: I think I found your source, it's al-Nuwayri's encyclopaedia, نهاية الأرب في فنون الأدب - for those who speak German: the part on how to make ghaliya and nadd is translated and annotated here, starting on p. 418.

 

[Solua Botanica]

It sure is a mythical perfume and it will probably be hard to reproduce with today's ingredients, if you can even know what they are.
What you are trying to recreate is a real mystery, we're not talking old school, we're talking ancient.
The term 'Amber' can mean so many things. It is more of a class of materials in my opinion.
Yes there is fossilized amber oil, but that's a very special note in itself.
As mentioned by Dorje123, there are a few houses that make this style of ancient perfume. Maybe it's a good idea to invest in a quality example, so you can have a reference.
As Alex says, the ingredient 'white musk' is not a real thing, it is just a term to describe a type of musk smell.
There are so many fake things in the world of aroma materials, that anything goes... Be careful where you source.
If I could recommend something, you should use a different carrier oil. Moringa has a smell and is prone to rancidity.
You'll have a better result with Jojoba or Fractionated coconut for making an Attar style perfume.
Good luck on your mystical quest !

 

[saudmubarak]

It's trendy to make Ghalia attars these days, every perfumer who makes Arabian style attars seems to offer one or more.

Thanks Dorej, i've checked the perfumes you mentioned (i've seen them before) but almost all of them have a longer ingredient list with rose oil, saffron, oud, sandlewood, and other ingredients i've never seen in historical recipes. They're more like modernised versions of Alghalya

Never heard of the term myself. But here are my thoughts: "White musk" is a generic term, probably a mixture of who knows which synthetic musks. They smell interesting, which is why they're used a lot, but they're a poor substitute for real musk. Labdanum, while great in itself, can't replace real ambergris which is probably what was used in الغالية. I don't doubt that a mixture of labdanum and synthetic musks smells nice, but it'll have little in common with whatever was used centuries ago.

Which sources have you looked at? Do you speak Spanish by any chance? الغالية made it into the Spanish vocabulary as algalia, so some researchers in Spain have looked into it. Here's such a source - Felipe Maíllo Salgado, "Sobre galiya > (al)galia y su contenido". In Estudios filológicos en homenaje a Eugenio de Bustos Tovar, vol. 2, 1992, p. 586-592. PDF.

Edit: I think I found your source, it's al-Nuwayri's encyclopaedia, نهاية الأرب في فنون الأدب - for those who speak German: the part on how to make ghaliya and nadd is translated and annotated here, starting on p. 418.

Hi Alex, I dont speak Spanish, just Arabic and English and a little Turkish and French. The musk is most likely a synthetic mixed with a stabaliser like wax, it wasn't that expensive but it smells just like what i'd expect musk to smell. I hope i can get my hands one day on real musk. As for the labdanum, i've read somewhere (might've been here on basenotes) that the "amber" mentioned in old perfumes referred to labdanum as ambergris was too expensive for most people and too inconsistent. The sources i used are Al-kafi dictionary ( الكافي) and Majma' Al Bahrain (مجمع البحرين), Nahj Al Balaghah (نهج البلاغة) as well as multiple poems from the 6-8th century and a few stories from those times.

It sure is a mythical perfume and it will probably be hard to reproduce with today's ingredients, if you can even know what they are.
What you are trying to recreate is a real mystery, we're not talking old school, we're talking ancient.
The term 'Amber' can mean so many things. It is more of a class of materials in my opinion.
Yes there is fossilized amber oil, but that's a very special note in itself.
As mentioned by Dorje123, there are a few houses that make this style of ancient perfume. Maybe it's a good idea to invest in a quality example, so you can have a reference.
As Alex says, the ingredient 'white musk' is not a real thing, it is just a term to describe a type of musk smell.
There are so many fake things in the world of aroma materials, that anything goes... Be careful where you source.
If I could recommend something, you should use a different carrier oil. Moringa has a smell and is prone to rancidity.
You'll have a better result with Jojoba or Fractionated coconut for making an Attar style perfume.
Good luck on your mystical quest !

As mentioned above i've read that the term "amber" most of the time referred to labdanum or its extract, i'm not sure about the accuracy of that claim but it has come up many times. I've bought a couple of lumps of ambergris and im in the process of learning how to make a tincture out of it to use in making a more accurate Ghalya, i'll make sure to keep basenotes updated. I dont have moringa oil so i used jojoba oil which was on hand, so good call! and Thanks for the advice and good luck wishes.