Essentially "woody," "spicy" and "sweet," with occasional floral or incense notes. Are these perfume descriptions? Not at all. These adjectives refer to a series of Egyptian mummies whose smells have been analyzed by an international team of researchers. The results were published on Friday, February 14, in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

There were many reasons for undertaking such a study. First and foremost, curiosity, as Matija Strlic, a professor at the University of Ljubljana and University College London, who supervised the work, explained in a press release: "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." For the researchers, the aim was above all to learn more about mummification and embalming methods in ancient Egypt, and in particular about the products used to prepare the deceased for their final journey.

In Pharaonic times, the preservation of the body was crucial to the soul's successful passage to the afterlife. As the authors of the study wrote, smells were "indicators of the state of purity or corruption of the body." It was important to prevent putrefaction and the body had to smell good in order to appear before Osiris. It was therefore emptied of its organs, dried out and adorned with a whole range of products with antibacterial, antifungal and odoriferous properties: resinous oils (pine, cedar, juniper), myrrh, frankincense, herbs, flowers, spices, animal fats, waxes, bitumen and so on.

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