Review: Sacred Scents in Early Christianity and Islam, by Mary Thurlkill

The historiography of late antiquity has awakened to the senses. Recent studies have elucidated the power of sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch for delineating religious experience and social boundaries throughout the late antique world. Susan Harvey's Scenting Salvation: Ancient Christianity and the Olfactory Imagination (University of California Press, 2006) deserves special note here, alongside studies by Béatrice Caseau, Georgia Frank, Deborah Green, Rachel Neis, and many others. Mary Thurlkill's intervention in this growing bibliography compares the role of “sacred scent” in the religions of late antiquity and the Islamic world. The book's scope is highly ambitious, ranging from the role of incense in Roman sacrifice to the spice-infused purity rituals...