Кіфі

Name and origin

The name kyphi is the Latin version of the Greek transcription of the Egyptian word kapet. The Egyptian root kap means to perfume, to cense, to heat, to burn or to ignite. The word is thought to have first meant any substance used to clean and perfume the air, and only later to have become a specific type of incense. Kyphi was one of the most popular types of temple incense in Ancient Egypt.

Ingredients

Four complete recipes are known, two of them in Greek and from later periods. Kyphi is best considered a type of incense rather than a specific recipe, since the ingredients named in ancient sources vary and only a few appear in every recipe. The Egyptian recipes have sixteen ingredients each, while Dioscorides gives ten, Plutarch sixteen and Galen fifteen. The ten ingredients of Dioscorides are honey, wine, raisins, myrrh, juniper berries, cyperus, turpentine, aspalathus, calamus and rush. Galen's list includes cassia, cinnamon, saffron, bdellium and spikenard, and cardamom may substitute for cinnamon. The Edfu recipe includes raisins, wine, honey, frankincense, myrrh, mastic, pine resin, sweet flag, mint, juniper berries and cinnamon. Some ingredients remain obscure. Scholars do not agree on the identity of aspalathus, a plant named in Greek recipes. Plutarch implies a mathematical significance to the number of sixteen ingredients.

Use

Kyphi was used as both incense and medicament during a very long period in ancient Egypt. It was also used as a remedy for a number of ailments. According to Rufus, as reported by Damocrates, the mixture was used to purify the temple and as a remedy for snakebite. Dioscorides states that kyphi was primarily used to purify the temple and was also made into a drink taken as a remedy for asthma. Galen records that it was drunk as a medicine for liver and lung ailments. The Ebers Papyrus recipe was intended to purify the home and give clothes and breath a pleasant aroma.

Modern reconstruction and testing

Kyphi blends in other ground ingredients such as frankincense, cinnamon and myrrh, rolls the dough into small pellets and dries them before burning. In laboratory fumigation experiments with freshly made kyphi containing all 16 ingredients, smoke had a clear direct effect on micro-organisms that appeared stronger with kyphi than with pure smoke. The effect of kyphi on yeasts was mostly greater than on bacteria and cocci.

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