A resin in a Carthaginian tomb, identified as labdanum (6th–5th century BC)

The label is "probable", not "documented": the review that reports it says that no direct documentation supports the identification.

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The record

Each field carries its evidence: open a chip for the source, the quoted words and the confidence. A field with nothing behind it says so and stays empty.

Date

6th–5th century BC (century)

documented

A resinous archeological sample from a tomb in Carthago (6th–5th century BC), housed in the Fragonard Museum (Grasse, France), was identified as labdanum, resin of the Cistus species, although no direct documentation supported this identification

CIS-1 · Gago C, Bakchiche B, Djekhioua T, da Graça Miguel M · read 2026-09-30

confidence B

Label

probable (likely, but the source itself hedges)

house label

the house’s own reading, labelled as such

one of the four labels the site gives a reconstruction, chosen from what the cited source itself says

confidence B

Kind

archaeology

house classification

the house’s own reading, labelled as such

the house’s grouping of events for the timeline

confidence B

What happened

A resinous sample from a tomb in Carthage, now in the Fragonard Museum in Grasse, was identified as labdanum, though no direct documentation supports the identification.

documented

A resinous archeological sample from a tomb in Carthago (6th–5th century BC), housed in the Fragonard Museum (Grasse, France), was identified as labdanum, resin of the Cistus species, although no direct documentation supported this identification

CIS-1 · Gago C, Bakchiche B, Djekhioua T, da Graça Miguel M · read 2026-09-30

confidence B

Place

Carthage (the sample is in the Fragonard Museum, Grasse)

documented

A resinous archeological sample from a tomb in Carthago (6th–5th century BC), housed in the Fragonard Museum (Grasse, France), was identified as labdanum, resin of the Cistus species, although no direct documentation supported this identification

CIS-1 · Gago C, Bakchiche B, Djekhioua T, da Graça Miguel M · read 2026-09-30

confidence B

Materials

• labdanum absolute

Botanicals

• Cistus ladanifer L.

Teaching accords

• An amber (the perfumer’s, not the resin)

Sources

1. CIS-1 · Gago C, Bakchiche B, Djekhioua T, da Graça Miguel M. Cistus ladanifer L.: Essential Oils, Volatiles, By-Products, and Their Biological Properties. Molecules. 2025;30(22):4425. doi.org/10.3390/molecules30224425 · read 2026-09-30 · CC BY 4.0

Our text and structure are CC BY 4.0; quoted source text stays under its owners’ terms.

this record as data: /data/event/carthage-labdanum-sample.json · version 2 · updated 2026-09-30 · confidence C