A Scent for the Ages

The idea of sniffing a 5,000-year-old corpse may be off-putting, but a new study has found that ancient Egyptian mummies don’t smell nearly as bad as one might expect.

Instead of the stench of decay, researchers analyzing the aromas of nine mummies detected scents described as “woody,” “spicy,” and even “sweet.”

“In films and books, terrible things happen to those who smell mummified bodies,” co-author Cecilia Bembibre told the Associated Press. “We were surprised at the pleasantness of them.”

For their research, Bembibre and her team combined chemical analysis with trained human sniffers to evaluate the odors of mummies stored or displayed at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Egypt. The goal was to better understand the materials used in mummification and how the process evolved over time.

“To the ancient Egyptians, mummification was an important mortuary practice aimed at preserving the body and soul for the afterlife,” Ali Abdelhalim, director of the Egyptian Museum and a co-author in the study, explained in a statement. “Identifying different techniques and materials used offers insights into the era, location, and socioeconomic status of the individual being mummified.”

Ancient embalmers used a mix of oils, waxes, and resins, many of which had strong scents associated with purity and divinity. The combination of pine, cedar, juniper, myrrh, frankincense, and other aromatic substances likely explains why the mummies still carry a pleasant fragrance today.

Of course, the scent profile has likely changed over millennia.

“Over thousands of years, evaporation, oxidation, and even storage conditions have significantly altered the original scent,” Barbara Huber, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, who was not involved in the study, told AP.

Researchers also found that modern conservation efforts had not introduced any significant deterioration-related odors, a promising sign for long-term preservation.

But beyond conservation, the findings open up new possibilities for museums and how they can become more engaging for visitors. Bembibre and her team hope to recreate the scent of ancient embalming as a “smellscape” to give museum visitors a more immersive experience.

“Museums have been called white cubes, where you are prompted to read, to see, to approach everything from a distance with your eyes,” she told AP. “Observing the mummified bodies through a glass case reduces the experience because we don’t get to smell them.”