What do Egyptian mummies smell like? Surprisingly pleasant.

Most people know what an ancient Egyptian mummy looks like, but they probably can’t tell you about how they smell. You don’t have to wait to get up-close-and-personal to one in a museum to find out, though. Researchers at the University College London collaborated with the Egyptian Museum in Cairo to scientifically analyze those very scents—and the answer is a mostly pleasant mix of earthy waxes, oils, and resins.

But learning a mummy’s olfactory details wasn’t just for curiosity’s sake—the team’s results, published February 13 in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, could help preserve the relics.

Ancient Egyptian mummification techniques almost always focused on ensuring the best preservation possible. These methods developed over hundreds of years, and reflected different societal factors at those points in time.

“Mummification was an important mortuary practice aimed at preserving the body and soul for the afterlife through a detailed ritual of embalming of the deceased using oils, waxes and balms,” Ali Abdelhalim, director of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and study co-author, explained in an accompanying statement on Thursday. “The practice evolved over time, and identifying different techniques and materials used offers insights into the era, location and socioeconomic status of the individual being mummified.”

But apart from preservation itself, scent was also a major part of mummification. Ancient Egyptians associated pleasant odors not only with cleanliness and purity, but the bodies of deities themselves. Much like today, noxious smells were also reminders of bodily decay. This combination of olfactory focus and advanced mummification processes was so strong that, even today, a mummy’s aromas can recall the past.

“The smell of mummified bodies has for years attracted significant interest from experts and the general public, but no combined chemical and perceptual scientific study has been conducted until now,” added Matija Strlič, study lead author and a professor at UCL Bartlett School of Environment, Energy, and Resources.

To catalog these scents, Strlič and colleagues visited Egypt to work with Abdelhalim and nine of the museum’s mummies. Their approach merged both traditional human sensory experience and scientific analysis. In one phase, a “panel of trained human ‘sniffers’” applied their keen olfactory abilities to help describe mummy aromas based on intensity, quality, and pleasantness. In another step, researchers used a gas chromatograph and a mass spectrometer to identify the origins of each scent.

While some come from the bodies themselves, many other chemical molecules arose from archeological objects like the sarcophaguses and mummification fabric. Others stemmed from more modern additions like pesticides and other conservation products. Once categorized, the team was then able to describe the smell of each mummy in detail.

Even around 5,000 years after their embalming, Strlič and collaborators described the bodies as smelling “pleasant.” This is largely thanks to the materials applied to the mummies, which included scented waxes, coniferous resins and oils made from pine, cedar, and juniper, as well as gum resins such as frankincense and myrrh.

Strlič added that in addition to expanding our knowledge of ancient Egyptian embalming processes, the findings may help improve conservation techniques to guard the mummifies against further deterioration or damage. Looking towards the future, the information may also help with the creation of new museum exhibit opportunities around the world through the use of “smellscapes” in addition to the millennia-old visual components.

The post What do Egyptian mummies smell like? Surprisingly pleasant. appeared first on Popular Science.