When he became Egypt’s king in 1145 B.C., Ramses VI faced a smelly challenge. The new pharaoh’s first job was to rid the land of a swampy stench. At least, that was the instruction in a hymn, or ceremonial song, written for the king’s rise to the throne. It begged the royal to remove the reek of fish and birds around the Nile River.
Those weren’t the only smells those ancients talked about. Texts that have survived until today mention whiffs of sweat and disease. Also, cooked meat, trees, flowers and incense. That last substance produces a sweet aroma when burned. And Egypt’s hot weather meant that people would have clamored for perfumed oils and ointments. Those substances could cloak their bodies in pleasant smells.
Maybe it’s no surprise that ancient Egyptians encountered a wide range of odors. “Written sources demonstrate that ancient Egyptians lived in a rich [scented] world,” says Dora Goldsmith. Goldsmith works at the Free University Berlin in Germany. There, she studies ancient Egypt. To fully understand its culture, she says, researchers need to really examine how pharaohs and their subjects experienced their worlds’ smells. No such study had ever been conducted.
Archaeologists usually study visible objects to understand how people lived in the ancient past. For example, researchers have learned what buildings looked like based on excavated remains. And they’ve gotten hints to how people lived by analyzing tools, accessories and other objects.
Rare projects have tried to re-create sounds from thousands of years ago. But ancient landscapes of scents — or smellscapes — have received even less attention. Ancient cities in Egypt and elsewhere have been described as “colorful and monumental, but odorless and sterile,” Goldsmith says.
Now change is in the air. Some archaeologists are sniffing out odor molecules from artifacts. Others are poring over ancient texts. From these, they hope to unlock perfume recipes and re-create their aromas. Such research aims to unveil the scents that permeated lives in the ancient world. And that may help us understand how people back then thought about their world.
A nose for molecules
Chemical analyses are allowing researchers to identify molecules that made ancient aromas. Molecular clues to scent have been plucked from cooking pots, debris from garbage pits and even mummies’ bodies.
Take the incense burner. Finding an ancient one indicates only that something was burned. But charred residues in them can reveal exactly what was burned, says Barbara Huber. Incense may have included blends of scented substances such as frankincense (FRANK-en-sense) and myrrh (Murr). Those spicy-smelling resins come from shrubs and trees. Figuring out what molecules made up an incense can help to reconstruct its fragrance, Huber says. An archaeologist, she works at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. It’s in Jena, Germany.
Huber was part of a team that did this sort of detective work on the Middle East city of Tamya. It’s in what’s now Saudi Arabia. The ancient walled city is thought to be a mere pit stop on the Incense Route. Traders traversed that network of pathways carrying frankincense and myrrh. But maybe Tayma was more than just a place for trade caravans to refuel.
Huber’s team has found that residents of Tamya had their own interest in scented plants. The people of Tamya purchased them for their own uses during much of the settlement’s history, her team found. The work analyzed charred resins there. Near the town wall, cone-shaped burners had smoldered with myrrh. Cube-shaped devices once burned frankincense in an area full of homes. And another aroma wafted from incense burners near a large public building. Those fragrances likely had special meanings that permeated Tamya. Huber’s group reported its findings in 2018. The team shared them at a conference in Munich, Germany.
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