# Onycha and stacte

**Known today as.** Ingredients of the Temple incense (Exodus 30:34). Onycha is probably the operculum of a sea snail; stacte, probably liquid myrrh.

Kind: Sacramental

## What did Canale use it for?

Named in the blessing of the ingredients of the oil, “which together with Onycha you once composed into the sacred incense” (Treatise Two).

## What does modern science say?

Their identification is still debated; they appear here through Scripture, not the apothecary.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **benzoic and cinnamic acids**: if the onycha was benzoin, as many hold
- **the operculum of a sea snail**: *Strombus* or *Murex*, if onycha was the shell
- **myrrh’s furanosesquiterpenes**: stacte is usually taken as the liquid myrrh

**Mechanism.** Two ingredients of the Temple incense (Exodus 30:34) whose identity is disputed: stacte as a flowing myrrh or storax, onycha as a mollusc operculum (which smells of burnt horn and nothing better) or benzoin. Either way the pharmacology is a scented smoke; the mollusc operculum is still an incense ingredient in Yemen and India.

**Dose.** None.

**Standing.** A matter for the philologist; the incense of the Temple is not reconstructed with confidence.

## Sources

- Abrahams, H. J. (1979). “Onycha, ingredient of the ancient Jewish incense: an attempt at identification.” *Economic Botany* 33.

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*Onycha and stacte.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-09-25. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/onycha-and-stacte

Historical description, not medical advice.