From tree bark to dhow sails, Omani Frankincense carries the scent of heritage to the world.

Every day, thousands of frankincense trees witness a new sunrise on the lands of a protected sanctuary: the Wadi Dawkah UNESCO World Heritage Site. For centuries, they have been absorbing the light, the colours and the natural scents of the region. They preserve the story of Oman’s heritage, but also of how their essence has soaked into the trails of world history. Since 2000, the Land of Frankincense is inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, which requires the Sultanate to take responsibility to protect and preserve the site’s biodiversity. Wadi Dawkah is located 40 kilometres north of Salalah, in Oman’s historical Dhofar region, in the heart of the Land of Frankincense. It is home to more than 4000 frankincense trees. Frankincense was traded as a luxury good since the 3rd millennium BCE – the beginning of written history. Westwards, the Incense Route connected Southern Arabia to the Mediterranean, but the frankincense trade expanded well beyond these regions. Facing East, it reached India, and even China, where the resin became known as “milky fragrance”, because of the characteristic white sap secreted by the tree after being tapped. The golden age of the Incense Route is considered to be the period spanning from 300 BCE to 300 CE. However, the precious tears of the hardened resin continued to be exchanged as a rare commodity in the Indian Ocean for many more centuries, constituting a common thread in the commercial, diplomatic and