Smell mummies 5,000 years ago

Why are roses red? What is the meaning of life? Is the potato tortilla better with or without onion? What does an Egyptian mummy smell of 5,000 years ago? The answer to some of them is not clear (The tortilla with onion, of course), but if Your particular Roman Empire It is thinking about the aroma of rot and mortuary processes of ancient Egypt, you should know that you are not alone.

In fact, a group of researchers has been smelling mummies for months. Now they want anyone to do it.

Eau de Mummy. “We were surprised how pleasant his smell was,” commented Cecilia Bembibre a few days ago to BBC Radio 4, just at the same time that a study of the University College of London in which They analyzed The reasons after the interest in knowing how the mummies smelled. And it is curious, especially when it comes to a body that has been macrating thousands of years in a sarcophagus and that both cinema and literature (and a little common sense) have encouraged us to never smell a mummy if we had the opportunity .

But, if we stop to think about it, it is not so far -fetched that a mummy smells “good.” In the end, the mummification process was carried out to preserve the body and soul in order to enter the other life, so not only the deceased was accompanied by its trousseau, but the body was treated with oils and balms.

“Sweet” Ok, surely you think they simply opened sarcophagi and bring their nose closer. It would be little hygienic, as little, but no. The researchers of both the UCL and the University of Liubliana of Slovenia inserted a tiny tube to measure the gases. In this way, they get the method not to be invasive when you do not need to take samples.

The device can be seen in the image that we leave below:

Separating odors. It is always difficult to describe odors, but researchers comment that, although they are intense, they can say that they have touches of wood, spices and that the background is something sweet. Wow, quite the opposite of what we could imagine. They also noticed odors related to the decomposition of animal fat used during the embalming processwhich tells them that the body would be beginning to deteriorate.

This olfactory analysis was not like that of a wine taster, but through a process in which, through gas chromatography, they separated the different odors captured inside the sarcophagus. Subsequently, a program analyzes them, compares with markers of other odors, combine and is how the aromas are formed.

The data of the nine mummies were compared to see which markers coincided with family odors

It makes sense. All this has a double purpose. On the one hand, “intervene practically” in the conservation of mummies. Knowing what aromas and substances were used at the time they embalmed it, researchers have a new way of storing them and wrapping the bodies in a much closer way to the original. Also of knowing the age of the mummy more accurately, since the techniques and oils evolved over time.

On the other, the nose is powerful: smells transport us to other times and places without moving from the site. It is something that creates a strong emotional reaction and Ally Louks, supervisor of English literature at the University of Cambridge, told BBC that it is an “innovative” way to communicate history.

Also, like Comment Ali Abdelhalim, co -author of the study and director of the Egyptian Museum of Cairo, the smells were key to society during the mummification process, since the pleasant ones associated with the deities and the “dirty” to body corruption and decline.

Sensory experience. In fact, from the research team it was affirmed that it can be “an approach of great interest to museum collections.” That is, if you visit a museum with a collection of ancient Egypt that exposes a mummy, you could live a more complete sensory experience if, in addition to observing it, you could taste the aroma that would be lived during the embalming process.

When separating odors and recombing them through these chromatography techniques, substances that smell similarly to permeate the room in which the mummy is exposed can be generated. Therefore, these discoveries have a double purpose: to approach that point in our history and, above all, allow the past to be better.

Images | ACS, Abdelrazek Elnaggar

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