What would an ancient Egyptian corpse have smelled like? Pine, balsam and bitumen – if you were nobility
In 1900 – some 22 times before he discovered the grave of Tutankhamen – British archaeologist Howard Carter opened another grave in the Valley of the lords. In grave KV42, Carter set up the remains of a ancient Egyptian lady called Senetnay, who failed around 1450 BCE. further than a century latterly, a French perfumer has recreated one of the scents used in Senetnay’s mummification. And the link between these two events is our exploration, published moment in Scientific Reports, which delves into the constituents of this ancient Egyptian attar form. Recreating the smells of a disappeared world Our platoon drew upon cutting- edge technologies in chemistry to reconstruct ancient scents from jars of Senetnay set up in the ancient Egyptian grave. We used three variations of chromatographic and mass spectrometric ways, which work by breaking samples down ...