The Problem With Research

If one is to undertake a project that requires documentation in the form of academic research then one needs to have access to aforementioned academic research. This is easy enough if you are affiliated with an academic institution.

Unfortunately, I am not.

I'm just little ol' independent teacher and amateur researcher me.

With no JSTOR account.

Thankfully, I was able to find the Research Gate website and was granted access, by the author, to an academic paper that will help me begin my own research. I hope that this will continue to be the case as I compile my research.

However, if any of you academicians have any advice on accessing research I would be most obliged if you would share it!

Now if I can just remember the proper form for citations and sources...

A Journey Begins

2 months ago I sat in my kitchen, putting together my Winter Herb School class on Frankincense and Myrrh. I watched mesmerized as the frankincense slowly burned in my marble mortar. The scent was ancient and intoxicating.

Since that day I have become obsessed with makeup, perfumery, ancient resins, and those who produced and traded them.

I've devoured articles on makeup, perfumery, ancient culture.
I've scoured the websites and YouTube videos of European perfume houses that specialize in Middle Eastern resins and ancient scents.
I've watched so many documentaries that my poor eyes are hurting. (I finally had to drag myself to the eye doctor to have my prescriptions updated!)
I've taken courses on makeup and beauty.
I've turned my kitchen into a cosmetics laboratory.
I've jammed so much information inside my head these last two months that some days it just swims with all the new information.

All of this research has led me to the ancient Incense Route and the plants and their products that made the journey along that ancient route. We hear over and over about frankincense on the Incense route, we even hear of myrrh.

But these are not the only plants that made the journey and I'm curious to know more about the lesser known plants that were a part of the Incense Route. Some of which we still use today and some which are extinct, having possibly been exterminated by those who once cultivated them.

With this blog I hope to further research these plants and their stories and eventually undertake part of that journey myself by visiting Jordan, Israel and possibly more depending on the socio-poitical climate. I can't promise regular posts. I am not an archaeobotanist. My academic research skills are pretty rusty. But I can promise information about these plants, their history, cultivation and uses. Join me on the trail of the Plants of the Incense Route, will you?