What are frankincense and myrrh?

You might recognize frankincense and myrrh from the Biblical story of Jesus, but have you ever wondered exactly what they are? Tune in to get the skinny on frankincense and myrrh in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to brain Stuff from how stuff works dot com
where smart happens. Hi and Marshall brain with today's question,
what are frankincense and Mr? Frankinsense and murr are both

(00:20):
resins or dried tree sap that come from trees, which
are common to Somalia. The way that people collect the
sap is similar to the way people collect rubber tree
sap or pine tree sap. Cutting the tree's bark causes
the sap to ooze out of the cut. The sap
used to create both frankinsense and mur comes slowly and

(00:42):
it's allowed to dry on the tree. The hardened sap
is then chipped off and collected and used as frankinsense
and mur Both. In the time of the Three Wise
Men and today, frankinsense and murr are commonly used to
create incense. You mix frankinsense with things like spices, seeds,

(01:02):
and roots to create different aromas. Traditionally, you burn the
powdered incense with a piece of charcoal in a sense
or or on a small stand. Do you have any
ideas or suggestions for this podcast? If so, please send
me an email at podcast at how stuff works dot
com for more on this and thousands of other topics,

(01:23):
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