MYRR
Myrr in Jung, The Philosophical Tree
Mystic myrtle, p. 314…
Myrrha - see: Greek Magical Papyri for various mentions of myrrh water, myrrh ink, etc.
p. 395 - Byblos = City of Myrrha.
Myrrha - Graves, W.G. p. 395.
Are the Myrrh Tree and Myrrh Incense one and the same? If so - then we have a remarkable co-incidence - of Plant or Tree symbolism - because Venus and Adonis are both connected to Myrrh.
Kerenyi writes:
"The story of the lord and loved one of the great Goddess of Love was connected - amongst us, presumably also in the eastern countries where it was adopted, in Syria, Cyprus and Asia Minor - with the story of a tree, of that Arabian sbrub whose strongly fragant gum the peoples of antiquity prized most of all their congealed saps. The gum was called "myrrh" or "smyrna." p. 74ff.
The Phoenix and MYRRH.
This suggests that Adonis and the Phoenix may have something in common as well. On the outer surface, we see the similarity of the words for Phoenix and Phoenician, which have been the subject of much academic discussion.
Here we have another example of what I call environmental co-incidence - Phoenix, Phoenician, Adonis and Venus - all relate to a certain part of the coastline of Phoenicia, or present day Lebanon.
[See Frazer, The Golden Bough for a description of the actual site.]
Tree-born Adonis is born from the MYRRH Tree.
See: Plate in Tree book
Figure in Neumann, Mother.
Naturally, incense is an aspect of Venus - the Beauty of the Sense of Smell, and it is natural, that Myrrh as incense, and Myrtle as a wreath should appear in the same scenes, e.g. in Lorenzo Lotto and Titan, Sacred and Profane. They both point to magical operations, in which the atmosphere for invoking the Goddess of Love is prepared with her Signatures form the Plant and Mineral world.
MYRRHA - is a tree that was the Mother of Adonis! See: Lempriere, Graves, Yates p. 123 etc.
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Lucas, A. Cosmetics, Perfumes and Incense in Ancient Egypt, JEA, Vol. 16, 1930, PP. 41-53.xeroxed.
"Myrrh, like frankincense, is a fragrant gum-resin and is obtained from the same countries as frankincense, namely, Somaliland and southern Arabia. It is derives from various species of Balsamodendron and Commiphora, and occurs in the form of yellowish-red masses of agglutinated tears, often covered with its own fine dust; it is never white or green and so it cannot be either the white or green incense referred to in the ancient records. In Brested's translation of these records it is stated that myrrh was obtained from Punt ( Fifth, Eleventh, Eighteenth, Twentieth and Twenty-fifth Dynasties) and from Genebteyew (Eighteenth Dynasty), which is in agreement with its known origin. Even the receipt of myrrh from Retenu in western Asia (Eighteenth Dynasty) is not impossible, since it might readily have reached Retenu from Arabia.
Theophrastus and Pliny have already been quoted for the statements that myrrh entered into the composition of certain Egyptian unguents, and Plutrach mentions the use of myrrh as incense in Egypt.
Myrrh has been identified by Reutter in ancient Egyptian perfumes (undated), and specimens of gum-resin from certain royal and priestly mummies ofthe Eighteenth, Nineteenth, Twentieth and Twenty-first Dynasties respectively examined by the writer were probably myrrh."