Cinnamon Tattoo Meaning

Value, the exotic, secrecy, and the spice that built and guarded empires.

Cinnamon is the precious, exotic spice that built empires and guarded its secret — the fragrant bark from distant lands prized since antiquity for embalming and incense, for funerals of extravagant grief and the sacred anointing of the holy, its true origin hidden for centuries behind tales of monstrous guardians to keep its value high. To carry cinnamon is to carry value, the exotic, and secrecy — the precious fragrant spice from far-off lands for which fortunes were paid and routes fiercely guarded, the spice of embalming, incense, and sacred anointing whose mysterious origin was kept secret for ages.

In ancient Egypt cinnamon was a precious and important spice, valued for both practical and sacred uses, and traded from distant lands at great cost. Among its most significant uses was in embalming: cinnamon's antimicrobial and aromatic properties made it valuable for the preservation of the dead, helping to preserve the body and to mask the odors of decay in the mummification process — the fragrant bark enlisted in Egypt's great art of preparing the dead for eternity. Cinnamon was traded to Egypt, by way of Arabia, by at least 2000 BCE, carried across vast distances to reach the Nile.

Cinnamon was also a sacred spice of temple ritual: it was one of the ingredients of kyphi, the famous Egyptian sacred incense — a complex aromatic compound of some sixteen ingredients, including cinnamon, raisins, honey, wine, and myrrh, which was burned in the temples to honor the gods, especially at sunset. As an embalming spice for the dead and an ingredient of the sacred incense burned for the gods, cinnamon in Egypt was bound up with the most solemn matters of death, preservation, and worship. The Egyptian cinnamon is the precious embalming spice and sacred incense ingredient of ancient Egypt. The Egyptian cinnamon is the embalming spice of Egypt — a precious spice traded to Egypt via Arabia by at least 2000 BCE, valued for embalming (its antimicrobial and aromatic properties preserving the dead and masking decay in mummification, the fragrant bark enlisted in preparing the dead for eternity) and as a sacred temple spice — an ingredient of kyphi, the famous Egyptian sacred incense (a compound of some sixteen ingredients including cinnamon, raisins, and myrrh, burned to honor the gods at sunset) — bound up with death, preservation, and worship.

True cinnamon (Cinnamomum verum) is native to Sri Lanka — the island was known to Arab traders as Serendib (from which 'serendipity' derives, via Horace Walpole's 1754 use of the Persian tale of the Three Princes of Serendip). The Phoenician and Arab bird-nest story about cinnamon's origin is documented by Herodotus (c. 440 BCE), who says the story was told to him but he did not fully believe it. Pliny the Elder (Naturalis Historia XII.85–86) both records the extravagant cinnamon prices and expresses skepticism about the origin stories. The Portuguese reached Sri Lanka in 1505 CE and established the first European monopoly on cinnamon — subsequently captured by the Dutch (1658 CE) and the British (1796 CE). Cinnamon's antimicrobial properties (cinnamaldehyde is the active compound) are documented in modern research — the ancient use in embalming had genuine bactericidal basis. The Sri Lankan cinnamon trade is still active; Sri Lanka produces approximately 80–90% of true cinnamon.

Cinnamon across cultures

Related symbols