Ever smelt a mummy? Experts sniff out secrets from Egyptian pyramids, literally

What if your nose could unlock the secrets of the past? But that’s exactly what researchers in Egypt have been doing, using their sense of smell to unravel mysteries hidden in the ancient mummies of the pyramids.

In an experiment that sounds straight out of an Indiana Jones movie, scientists actually sucked the air from around sealed mummies inside Egyptian pyramids to get a sniff of history. The goal? To study the smells and see if they could tell us more about how mummies were made thousands of years ago. Experts with trained noses catalogued the aromas they sniffed – woody, spicy, sweet, and even stale. According to the researchers, it was a non-invasive way to learn more about these ancient remains without disturbing them.

The experiment didn’t give the clear answers they were hoping for. The smells didn’t always match what they expected based on the materials known to be used in mummification. Still, the results were interesting. The mummies gave off a mix of scents, ranging from "woody" and "spicy" to "sweet" and, well, a bit "stale" or "mouldy." Some even had incense-like notes.

But this odd experiment might not be a total flop. Archeologists are now thinking of turning these ancient scents into something a little more marketable. Imagine taking a trip to Egypt and paying to smell centuries-old mummy aromas.

The researchers studied nine mummies stored at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, dating from 1500 BC to AD 500. Some were wrapped, some weren’t, and they were kept in different types of tombs, including stone, wooden, and terracotta ones. To gather the air samples, the team used small pumps and tubes, pulling air from around the mummies and having trained experts sniff the samples. They rated the intensity of different scents and found that, for the most part, the mummies gave off relatively pleasant smells.

However, the scents were a mix of both expected and unexpected components, which included materials from the mummification process, microbes, plant oils, and even synthetic pesticides.

While they didn’t unlock all the answers, researchers are still hopeful. Maybe in the future, smell could be used as a tool to figure out how well-preserved these mummies really are. It’s a weird and fascinating step toward preserving history.