ABSTRACT
Mastic, the resinous exudate of the evergreen shrub Pistacia lentiscus, is frequently discussed as one of the ingredients used for embalming in ancient Egypt. We show the identification of mastic in ancient Egyptian embalming resins by an unambiguous assignment of the mastic triterpenoid fingerprint consisting of moronic acid, oleanonic acid, isomasticadienonic and masticadienonic acid through the consolidation of NMR and GC/MS analysis. Differences in the observed triterpenoid fingerprints between mummy specimens suggest that more than one plant species served as the triterpenoid resin source. Analysis of the triterpenoid acids of ancient embalming resin samples in the form of their methyl- and trimethylsilyl esters is compared. In addition we show a simple way to differentiate between residues of mastic from its use as incense during embalming or from direct mastic application in the embalming resin.
Subject(s)
Embalming/history , Mummies/history , Pistacia/chemistry , Resins, Plant/chemistry , Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid , Egypt , Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry , History, 15th Century , History, 17th Century , Molecular Structure , Resins, Plant/historyABSTRACT
A new method using phase optimized LC (POPLC) for the analysis of steroids is described. The retention factors and the theoretical plate numbers of different steroids were determined for four different stationary phases. Based on these values, an optimal stationary phase composition and the resultant chromatogram have been calculated by an optimization software and compared to the measured data. It is demonstrated that these predicted data show only little differences to the experimental results. Furthermore, it is shown that the overall selectivity of the optimal stationary phase composition is much better than the selectivity of any individual stationary phase.
