What Did Ancient Pompeians Burn as Offerings to Their Gods? New Research Reveals the Surprising Answer

An analysis of incense burners discovered in the doomed city identified traces of resin imported from sub-Saharan Africa or Asia, testifying to Pompeii’s extensive trade networks

Meilan Solly | Senior Associate Digital Editor, History

April 1, 2026

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Some 2,000 years ago, an ancient Roman left a burnt offering at a household shrine in Boscoreale, a town just north of Pompeii, at the foot of Mount Vesuvius. The ritual produced an ashy residue that was still present in the 1980s, when archaeologists found it in a censer, or incense burner, at a country villa. Now, researchers have published the first analysis of the censer’s contents, identifying the offering as resin that likely originated in sub-Saharan Africa or an Asian rainforest.

The findings, published in the journal Antiquity, offer additional archaeological evidence of rituals described in ancient literature and art. These sources note that the Romans “burnt aromatic substances such as frankincense, as well as various plants and herbs, on their altars as offerings to the gods,” says lead author Johannes Eber, an archaeologist at the University of Zurich, in an Antiquity statement.

This study is the first to “pinpoint which fragrances were actually burned in Pompeian domestic cult practices,” Eber says in a separate statement from the University of Bonn in Germany. “Alongside regional plants, we found traces of imported resins—an indicator of Pompeii’s far-reaching trade connections.”

For the study, an international team of researchers examined a pair of incense burners unearthed in Pompeii and its environs. The first—a “goblet-like terracotta vessel composed of two parts: a conical foot and a shallow bowl,” according to the study—was found in 1954 in a residence that was undergoing conversion into an inn at the time of Vesuvius’ eruption in 79 C.E.

This censer held remnants of woody plants, including oak and laurel, that might have been used as fuel for a sacrifice. Alternatively, the archaeologists suggest that the charcoal-rich material could be residue left behind by incense or a plant burned as an offering.

The second incense burner—a bowl decorated with sculptures of three women who were probably “deceased individuals venerated after their death,” per the study—yielded a more readily identifiable sample.

In addition to traces of woody plants, the censer contained residue from a type of resin never previously recorded in Pompeii. Derived from Canarium, a genus of trees native to tropical regions in Africa and Asia, particularly India, elemi is distinct from frankincense, which comes from trees in East Africa and on the Arabian Peninsula.

“The Egyptians used elemi in the mummification process, but this is the first time we’ve ever found this resin in a Roman context,” Eber tells IFLScience’s Benjamin Taub.

Also present in the second censer were fat and grape biomarkers associated with wine. Viewed alongside the traces of imported resin, the biomarkers indicate that the vessel might have been used to offer the gods incense and wine simultaneously, in a ritual known as the praefatio.

“You can imagine the smoke from the incense rising as the wine on the altar vaporizes, creating a visual connection to the realm of the deities,” Eber tells IFLScience. “So it’s an invitation to the gods and it’s also kind of a purification because of the smell and the smoke.”

The new research also testifies to Pompeii’s links to civilizations far beyond its borders. Archaeologists have previously unearthed evidence of the city’s extensive trade networks, including the butchered remains of a giraffe from North Africa and an ivory statue crafted in India.

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The ancient Romans “imported much more than we thought from those countries,” study co-author Philipp Wolfgang Stockhammer, an archaeologist at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, tells Haaretz’s Ariel David. “There was very intensive trade with India, but it was very much about spices, incense and other things that are basically invisible to us until we get a chance to do something like residue analysis.”

In the University of Bonn statement, Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, emphasizes the significance of studies like the newly published one.

“Without Pompeii, our knowledge of the Roman world would be poorer,” he says. “Yet it holds a wealth of data and insights that only contemporary archaeological practices can properly access. Thanks to interdisciplinary collaboration with other sciences, we can still discover many things about life in the ancient city.”

Meilan Solly | | Read More

Meilan Solly is a senior associate digital editor at Smithsonian magazine, where she oversees the online history section. Solly’s specialties are Tudor England, medieval Europe and World War II.