Smell like an Egyptian: researchers sniff ancient mummies to study preservation

Scientists hope that smell could be a non-invasive way to judge how well-preserved a mummy is. Spicy, woody and sweet: it sounds like a description of a fancy air freshener. But researchers say the mix of aromas arise from something rather different: mummies. Researchers have used both human noses and scientific instruments to probe how ancient Egyptian mummies smell today, and to what extent the odours reflect the materials used during the mummification process.

The idea, they say, is that smell could offer a non-invasive way to judge how well-preserved a mummy is, thereby removing the need to take samples from the mummy itself. “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 Prof Matija Strlič, the co-author of the research from the University of Ljubljana and University College London (UCL).

“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,” he said. Writing in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Strlič and colleagues reported how they studied nine mummies stored at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, dating from the New Kingdom to the Roman period, a timeframe ranging from about 1500BC to about AD500. While some were wrapped, others were not, with some mummies housed in stone, wooden or terracotta sarcophagi.

The team used small tubes and pumps to extract air from around each mummy. Each sample was sniffed from a bag by eight trained experts, who rated them for the intensity of 13 different types of odour. While the aromas varied between the mummies, they were generally judged to smell pleasant. Among other results, seven of the nine mummies were deemed to have a “woody” component to their smell, six had a “spicy” component, five had a “sweet” aspect, and three were deemed to have “incense-like” notes. However some were judged to have a “stale, rancid” component or even a mouldy odour.

The team then used a system known as gas chromatography-mass spectrometry-olfactometry to identify the different individual volatile compounds within samples. Once isolated, these substances were also sniffed by trained experts. The team found the overall aroma of the mummies did not necessary align with those expected from these substances, highlighting the complex nature of human odour perception.

They added that these individual components came from four main sources: materials used during the mummification process, substances given off by microbes, synthetic pesticides and repellants, and plant oils used in conservation. While exhibited mummies showed a greater range and higher concentration of substances than those in storage, possibly because they were housed in display cases, there were no consistent differences based on the age of the mummies or how well-preserved they were.

Strlič said one difficulty is that some of the plant oils used in conservation were also used for mummification. He added it would now be interesting to carry out analyses on mummies that have not been treated for conservation, noting these would be expected to differ in smell based on the quality of their mummification. Sign up to First Edition. Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters.

after newsletter promotion. Dr Cecilia Bembibre, another co-author of the work from UCL and one of the trained sniffers, said it was both exciting and a privilege to smell the past. “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,” she said.

Barbara Huber of the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, who was not involved in the work, welcomed the research but stressed the smells detected today are not the same as those present when the body was first mummified. Huber and colleagues have previously identified and recreated the scent of balms used in the mummification of an ancient Egyptian noblewoman called Senetnay, who lived around 1450BC.