The practice of aromatherapy is believed to date back several millennia to the Egyptians and Babylonians, who often took baths with aromatic herbs and other substances for hygienic and medicinal purposes. For instance, Egyptian queen Cleopatra was known to bathe regularly with rose petals.

In Azerbaijan as well, aromatherapy was once considered to be part of mainstream medicine. Medieval Azerbaijani doctors regularly prescribed essential oils and other fragrances for their patients. For example, a bath that smelled of roses - such as Cleopatra used to take - would have been prescribed for someone who was feeling melancholic or who had a headache.

What is aromatherapy?

Today, this term usually refers to treatment with essential oils. These fragrant extracts come from flowers, fruits and herbs - such as rose, violet, thyme, lavender and marjoram - and are usually breathed in or applied to the skin. Although the term "aromatherapy" was only coined in 1937 by René-Mauricé Gattefossé, a French cosmetic chemist, the technique itself is thousands of years old.

Ancient Beliefs
In the ancient kingdoms of Manna (9th-7th centuries BC) and Atropatena (4th-1st centuries BC) - now situated in Southern Azerbaijan (Iran) - people believed that they had to be clean and beautiful in order to attain a higher spirituality. For these purposes, ancient Azerbaijanis used aromatic oils such as frankincense, myrrh, galbanum, rosemary, hyssop, cassia, cinnamon and spikenard.

Some fragrant herbs and trees served a religious purpose. For example, the cypress, with its fragrant needles, was known as the tree of the prophet Zarathustra (Zoroaster). The dispersion of oils was also thought to purify the air and provide protection from evil spirits.

According to ancient Turkic beliefs, all fragrant flowers were created by Tangry, the Supreme God of the Blue Sky. The Goddess of Grasses and Trees, Oleng, was his wife. Oleng was also considered to be the patroness of physicians. Each year, at the beginning of spring, the Turkic peoples held solemn festivals in honor of this goddess and burned fragrant herbs such as wormwood.

Ancient Turkic legends tell that the souls of all children arise inside flowers and are then moved to their mothers' bodies. In a 7th-century legend, the elder named Gorgud says: "I was created inside a flower...moved to my mother's body, and born with the assistance of the gray-eyed Angel."

Azerbaijanis treated diseases and injuries with aromatic substances. One scene describing such an occasion comes from the ancient Azerbaijani epic "Dada Gorgud" (Grandfather Gorgud), a compilation of legends that were set down in writing during the 11th century but contain stories that can be traced back to the 6th and 7th centuries. One of the scenes depicts how fragrant flowers were used to heal a lad who had been wounded: "Forty shapely girls ran, gathered flowers from the mountains, mixed them with mother's milk, rubbed this mixture on the wounds of the youth and left him with the healers." The flowers may have been spearmint and chamomile, which are known to have antiseptic and healing properties.