London – At first glance, it seems repulsive: sniff the essence of an old corpse.
But researchers who have engaged in their curiosity in the name of science revealed that Well -preserved Egyptian mummies smell really well.
“In films and books, terrible things come to those who smell mummified bodies,” said Cecilia Bembibre, director of research at the Sustainable Heritage Institute of the University College. “We were surprised by their pleasant.”
“Woody”, “Spicy” and “Sweet” were the main descriptions of what looked more like a wine tasting than a mother’s sniff exercise. Floral notes have also been detected, which could come from pine and juniper resins used in embalming.
The study published Thursday in the Journal of the American Chemical Society used both a chemical analysis and a panel of human sniffers to assess the odors of nine mummies as elderly as 5000 years who were storage or exhibited at the Egyptian museum in Cairo .
The researchers wanted to systematically study the smell of mummies because it has long been the subject of fascination for the public and the researchers, said Bembibre, one of the authors of the report.
Archaeologists, historians, conservatives and even fiction writers have devoted pages of their work to the subject – for a good reason.
Perfume was an important consideration in the mummification process that used oils, waxes and balms to preserve the body and its mind for the beyond.
The practice was largely reserved for pharaohs and nobility and pleasant odors were associated with purity and deities while bad odors were signs of corruption and disintegration.
Without sampling the mummies themselves, which would be invasive, researchers from UCL and the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia were able to measure whether aromas came from the archaeological article, pesticides or other products used for Keep the remains, or deterioration due to mold, bacteria or microorganisms.
“We were very worried that we could find notes or advice from decaying organizations, which was not the case,” said Matija Strlič, professor of chemistry at the University of Ljubljana. “We were specifically worried that there could be indications for microbial degradation, but that was not the case, which means that the environment in this museum is in fact quite good in terms of conservation.”
The use of technical instruments to measure and quantify the sarcophagi air molecules to determine the state of conservation without touching mummies was like the Holy Grail, said Strlič.
“It potentially tells us of which social class is a mummy and therefore reveals a lot of information on the mummified body which is relevant not only for the conservatives, but also for the conservatives and archaeologists,” he said. “We believe that this approach is potentially interesting for other types of museum collections.”
Barbara Huber, a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropy in Germany who was not involved in the study, said that the results provide crucial data on compounds that could preserve or degrade mummified remains.
Information could be used to better protect ancient bodies for future generations.
“However, research also highlights a key challenge: the odors detected today are not necessarily those of the time of mummification,” said Huber. “More than thousands of years, evaporation, oxidation and even storage conditions have considerably modified the original perfume profile.”
Huber wrote a study two years ago which analyzed the residues of a pot that contained mummified organs of a noble to identify the embalming ingredients, their origins and what they revealed on the commercial roads.
She then worked with a perfumer to create an interpretation of the embalming perfume, known as “perfume of eternity”, for an exhibition at the Moesgaard museum in Denmark.
Researchers from this study hope to do something similar, using their results to develop “fragrant landscapes” to artificially recreate the perfumes they have detected and improve the experience for future museums.
“The museums were called White Cubes, where you are invited to read, to see, to approach everything at a distance with your eyes,” said Bembibre. “Observation of mummified bodies through a glass case reduces experience because we cannot feel them. We do not know the mummification process in an experiential way, which is one of the ways we understand and we are engaging with the world. »»