Every year, the University of Ljubljana selects ten most prominent research achievements among the proposals received from its faculties, based on aspects including impact, comprehensiveness, and applicability. This year, our research on ancient Egyptian mummified bodies: an interdisciplinary analysis of their smell was selected as one of them.

The aim of our research was to assess whether contemporary odours reflect the materials used for mummification and what information could be useful for interpreting and preserving the collection. Sensory analyses based on panels were combined with gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry and olfactometric detection (GC-MS-O), microbiological analysis, and archaeological and conservation-restoration research.

The sensory analyses highlighted “woody”, “spicy”, and “sweet” as the main olfactory descriptors, while chemical analysis identified four categories of emitted volatile compounds according to their origin. These results align with the pleasant smell described by the museum staff, and showed that it is still possible to detect traces of mummification products applied thousands of years ago.

The research was published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, where it also became the most accessed article of all time according to Altmetrics data of this journal. The article was also the first research article in the frame of PhD Thesis research of Emma Paolin.

Read more in the article “Ancient Egyptian Mummified Bodies: Cross-Disciplinary Analysis of Their Smell”, published in collaboration between the University of Ljubljana, Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Krakow University of Economics, Ain Shams University, and UCL Institute for Sustainable Heritage.

In the featured photo are, from left to right: Dr Ida Kraševec, Emma Paolin and Prof Dr Irena Kralj Cigić (credit: Nebojša Tejič/STA).