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For those who have lived in the Gulf, the smell of Arabian incense often evokes the olfactory memory of the perfumes and handicrafts that have been part of the collective soul of local communities for millennia. Over the past decade, since completing my doctoral dissertation on small incense burners form the Iron Age (first millennium BC), I have sought to document the many forms and functions of small, hand-made incense burners from the Arabian Peninsula. Beginning in the southernmost region of the Sultanate of Oman, my mission to map the legacy of incense burners has taken me to the mountainous emirate of Ras Al Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where incense burners are distinguished by their intricate designs and elaborate sizes and shapes.

Incense Burners in Ras Al Khaimah: Origin and Community Awareness

Incense burners today are a touchstone of Khaleeji culture. As a handicraft, they are traditionally made from clay and designed by communities of men and women dependent upon talented artisans. In Ras Al Khaimah and the Musandam Peninsula, a particular form was made unique. Known as al madkhan or al majmarah in Arabic, these rounded-circular clay forms were crafted on a small, hand-turned wheel made of either wood or clay. Significant care was devoted to replicating these forms and designs in exactitude. As traditional Julfar-ware incense burners, they were designed by pressing geometric designs into clay using small, handheld wooden tools. The finished artifact was an incense burner designed to fumigate the body as well as the home, often used in hospitality rituals to welcome visitors, create good smells, and remove malodors from the surrounding air.

Despite being an ancient craft, the making of traditional ceramics such as incense burners is alive and well in Ras Al Khaimah. Recently, I attended the inauguration of a new kiln at the Shamal Heritage Association which organized a series of heritage activities, including demonstrations on making traditional ceramics by a younger generation of Emiratis who are learning and sustaining this craft. A new kiln was fired up at the event and the entire community was in attendance, including Mr. Ahmed Obaid Al Tenaiji, the General Director of Antiquities and Museums at Ras Al Khaimah, and Mr. Abdullah Ibrahim Muhammad Al Suroomi, the President of the Shamal Folk Art and Theatre Society, who shared with me their passion and vision to revitalize the handicraft industry. At the event, I learned first-hand of the pride of place of incense burners for every Emirati household alongside the famed jerz (axe) in Ras Al Khaimah, designed to be used daily in the home and away when traveling seasonally deeper into the mountains. Traditionally, both objects were made and used by families in the same households.

Documenting Culture: The Creation of a Digital Heritage Library of Incense

As part of my work to document the cultural heritage of Ras Al Khaimah and the UAE, I have established a heritage library at New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) for the study of Arabian perfumes and traditional handicrafts for burning incense. As a searchable digital library, titled Ra’eha رائحة: The Digital Heritage Library of Arabian Incense, Ancient Aromatics, Perfumes and Fine Fragrances, my team and I aim to support the resurgence of handicrafts as an intangible living heritage in Ras Al Khaimah. Supported by the Al Qasimi Foundation, we were further able to scan the traditional incense burners that had been given to the National Museum of Ras Al Khaimah by the Royal Family. Our work on this research project includes preserving forms of incense burners in high resolution, recording videos on the intangible ways of making the crafts, and interviewing members of the community. Moreover, we have been digitizing artifacts in the many local museums for future study, community posterity, collective memory, and heritage identity. We will replicate our scans by 3D printing the incense burners, which is an innovative method to model heritage with applications that are broad reaching for other sectors, including tourism and marketing. We also hope that our work serves as an inspiration for the sponsorship of additional training sessions to make these crafts by hand in traditional ways. From our scans, photographs, and ethnographic videos, we aim to preserve both contemporary, traditional, and archaeological handicrafts.

Once available as an open-access digital library, international and local scholars will be able to study Emirati heritage from high-resolution 3D scans and photographs taken from the archaeological records, museum storage rooms, and video field interviews of craftspeople making their heritage. Moreover, residents and citizens will be able to learn about varieties of bukhoor (traditional smells and Arabian perfumes locally-made), dukhoon (traditional fine fragrances also made locally), new Emirati luxury perfumes, and traditional ceramic incense burners and branded bottles. Last but not least, we hope that this digital library will allow us to engage with our local students and create more opportunities to study and raise cultural awareness of the value of such legacy crafts in enriching the lives of community members.