Pompeii’s incense revealed
An international team just analysed ash residues from incense burners at domestic altars in Pompeii, identifying the actual offerings used and giving a rare sensory window into everyday Roman religion. The study traces domestic spirituality and ritual practice right up to the moment before Vesuvius’s eruption. (presseportal.ch)
The results were published as a research article titled “Ashes from Pompeii: incense burners, residue analyses and domestic cult practices” in Antiquity (DOI listed) by Johannes Eber and colleagues. (cambridge.org) Analysts examined burnt deposits preserved inside two terracotta censers recovered from domestic contexts in Pompeii and from a nearby villa, with one object recorded as PAP inv. 10697 from twentieth‑century excavations. (cambridge.org) The team combined light microscopy, spectrometry, phytolith analysis and ash calcitic micro‑remain studies alongside targeted biomolecular tests carried out by Maxime Rageot to characterise the residues. (cambridge.org) Chemical and microscopic evidence identified burnt woody plant material, remains consistent with stone‑fruit or laurel plants, biomolecular traces consistent with a grape product or wine, and molecular signatures attributable to Burseraceae tree resins. (cambridge.org) The detected Burseraceae resins—taxa that include frankincense/myrrh and are native to regions of sub‑Saharan Africa or Asia—constitute the study’s first archaeological proof of incense resins used in a Pompeian domestic shrine and imply long‑distance supply links. (cambridge.org) The project was initiated by Philipp W. Stockhammer’s ERC research group and lists institutional partners including the University of Zurich, LMU Munich, the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, University College Dublin, Bonn and Kiel; the manuscript was received 24 April 2025 and accepted 6 November 2025 for publication in 2026. (cambridge.org)
