When visiting an exhibition focused on mummies, you might have wondered what it would be like to smell those remnants of the past. And you probably assumed they would have an unpleasant odour. However, new research has shown that, on the contrary, a well-preserved mummy smells rather pleasant.
“In films and books, terrible things happen to those who smell mummified bodies,” Dr Bembibre, one of the researchers involved in the study, explained BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “We were surprised at the pleasantness of them.”
A total of nine mummies from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, dated between 1,500 BC and 500 AD, were examined, with their scents described as spicy, woody, and sweet. These aromas can be explained by the fact that bodies were adorned with oils, waxes, and balms during the mummification process to prepare the spirit for the afterlife.
The results of the study were published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. For their research, scientists from University College London (UCL) and the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia had to retrieve odours from inside sarcophagi without disturbing the mummies. Small tubes and pumps were used to collect odour samples, which were then sniffed by eight trained experts and classified according to 13 different scent categories.
“Just the idea that you can put your nose to that little tube and smell a mummified body with 3,500 years of history and then, the most surprising thing, still get a whiff of something so incredibly familiar as tea. That was surprising, because some smells were really familiar,” Dr. Bembibre, one of the smellers, said.
Afterwards, a technology called gas chromatography-mass spectrometry-olfactometry was used to identify the different volatile compounds present in the odour samples. However, the specific aroma of the mummies did not always align precisely with the chemical components detected, as factors such as materials, microbes, pesticides, repellents, and plant oils influenced the overall scent.
The methods employed in the study will be pertinent in two ways. On one hand, they will enable museum visitors to gain an experience they have never had before. “We want to share the experience we had smelling the mummified bodies, so we’re reconstructing the smell to be presented in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo,” said Dr. Bembibre.
On the other hand, thanks to the results, the findings will allow scientists to more easily estimate a mummy’s condition based on the odours it emits.
“From the viewpoint of the heritage scientists working with historic materials, not touching an object and analysing it is really like [the] holy grail,”said co-author Prof Matija Strlič. “The other motivation to do this research is to provide curators with [a] synthetic mummy smell, synthetic smell of mummified bodies that they can then use to engage audiences.”
