Gli aromi della sepoltura di Gesù: uno sguardo sui Vangeli

Some Gospels narrate that after Jesus' death, some women – or a man – brought spices to the tomb. The evangelists Mark and Luke do not specify what type of spices they were, while John mentions myrrh and aloe. One wonders what was the point of mentioning such spices, whether they could have been part of the Jewish burial ritual or they were intended to perform some practices to honour the dead; how they were materially used; whether the aloe was a juice or a wood, and finally, the extent of the historical plausibility of such narrations. It is likely that this tradition fits – at least in part – into the apparent process of progressive ennoblement of Jesus' burial stories.