Her name was Tapputi-Belatekallim. The second part of her name means ‘Lady who serves the palace.’ She lived in the Middle Assyrian period 3200 years ago. She was not a queen or a princess or a goddess. She was a servant. However, she was a very skilled servant. She was in charge of the still room, from whence beer was brewed, herbal medicines were made, and perfumes were blended for the royal family. She was not the first alchemist nor the last to grace the halls of this kingdom. Tapputi just happened to write a formula on a tablet which was baked, burned, broken, and finally unearthed in 1903. We only have a fragment of this tablet with notes on ingredients such as Grass, Horseradish, Myrrh, and Cinnamon.
She has lived in my imagination for years though, and I wanted to create something that might be similar to the brew she was concocting on this tablet. My tribute to her contains ingredients I think would have been available to her such as Frankincense, Myrrh, Green Fig, and Cinnamon. This blend is spicy and resinous. It is very unlike anything I’ve ever created before. Travel back to an ancient civilization and see how you feel when you wear The Alchemist of Babylon.
