Gizmodo Science Fair: An Experiment to Recreate the Smell of Ancient Mummies

A research team from the University of Ljubljana and the Egyptian Museum of Cairo is a winner of the 2025 Gizmodo Science Fair for reproducing the smell of mummies, offering a new window into Ancient Egyptian life, beliefs, and funerary customs.

The question

What did mummies smell like during the embalming process, and what can these aromas tell us about Ancient Egyptian customs?

The result

The recreated aroma blends notes of aged linen, pine resin, and citrus oils, with hints of natural pest repellents. Surprisingly, the overall effect is warm and calming—a remarkably pleasant fragrance for a funerary ritual dating back thousands of years.

The team characterized the smells in two ways. First, some of the molecules were brought to the lab and analyzed with gas chromatography. The researchers found a wide array of volatiles, most associated with materials known to be used in mummification, such as plant oils or resin. Others were likely linked to more natural processes, such as the wooden material of the sarcophagus or the products of decomposed bodies. They also identified molecules that could be traced to pest repellents and preservatives used by archaeologists and museum conservators.

The team also brought in a panel of trained “sniffers†to describe the smells directly, using only their noses. The list included descriptors like “woody,†“spicy,†“sweet,†and “sour.†Each sniffer had slightly different ideas of what the smells represented, but all of them noted the woodiness of the mummies.

Why they did it

Smell is ephemeral. Chemically speaking, the molecular structures that cause things to smell eventually decompose. For ancient artifacts, even if the smell is preserved, it’s often overwritten by the various preservatives used to keep the object intact.

How problematic this is really depends on what’s being examined. But it’s certainly an issue for some artifacts or practices “whose purpose was mainly to have a smell, like a perfume flask or incense burner,†said Emma Paolin, a postdoctoral student at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia specializing in the smell of heritage objects.

Smell is also known to be closely linked to the parts of our brains that manage our memories and emotions, she added. And so, Paolin and her colleagues—analytical chemists, anthropologists, and museum conservators from Europe and Egypt—set out to get a whiff of an ancient Egyptian process famous for its emphasis on smell: mummification.

Their results, which successfully replicated the volatile molecules around nine mummified bodies from different Egyptian eras, were published earlier this year in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Why they’re a winner

The most remarkable thing about this work was the way the researchers conducted their science. Scientists were already aware that mummification involved many fragrances. This unique practice fascinated countless researchers—as demonstrated by the rich body of academic work on mummification—yet few had ventured to see if the distinct smell could be replicated at all.

This was in part due to technological shortcomings and ethical concerns, explained Matija StrliÄ, study senior author and an analytical chemist at the University of Ljubljana. Any scientist hoping to collect samples would have to justify touching and potentially tampering with human remains.

“Our take on the subject was a little bit different,†StrliÄ said. “In our particular case, we wanted to test whether it’s possible to obtain the same quality of data using simply the human nose instead of an analytical instrument.â€

“It’s really important nowadays that we move towards a non-destructive, non-invasive way of getting information,†Paolin explained.

As it turned out, this was totally doable. The team sampled the air around the body and used gas chromatography to create a profile for each molecule.

Another caveat was that the research had to be carried out alongside local scholars and be in full compliance with their requirements, he added. The team worked closely with the Egyptian Museum in Cairo for the project. About three-quarters of the panel that characterized the smells were archaeologists and heritage scientists from Egypt.

“We were really eager to learn whether they have had any prior experience with smells emanating from mummified remains—and of course, they did,†StrliÄ said. What’s more, the lab-tested molecules mirrored the smell profiles of what the local researchers were familiar with.

“This indicates that in the daily process of handling mummified bodies in a museum, it is possible to rely on the human nose,†he added. “But maybe it is also possible to identify those mummified bodies that may be decaying, and that’s always an unwanted process in a museum.â€

What’s next

The team wants to make it possible for you to grab a bottle of mummy perfume from the Egyptian Museum—and they’re extremely close.

“I think we should have that available at some point in the autumn,†declared StrliÄ. On the research side, he mentioned that the team has a “shed-load†of proposals for further research on these chemical compounds.

“What we’ve been doing in the past four or five months was to perfect the process of smell reproduction on the basis of the analytical results that we got during our study in Cairo,†he added. “On the surface, this seems very, very easy, because you understand what chemicals are contained in a smell. You just mix them together, and pop! You get the smell. But it’s not that easy.â€

“I’m really happy that this research has reached so many people, because it had a lot of impact,†Paolin said. The team is currently under discussion with multiple museums about a potential, olfactory-centered exhibition on mummies.

The project’s foundation was filling in a knowledge gap in how we understand the past. So the primary focus will always be to bring the smell to a larger audience, she added.

The team

The research team included Emma Paolin, Matija StrliÄ, Abdelrazek Elnaggar, Randa Deraz, Fabiana Di Gianvincenzo, Ida KraÅ¡evec, and Irena Kralj Cigić from the University of Ljubljana; Ahmed Abdellah, Ali Abdelhalim, and Asmaa Ahmed from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo; Cecilia Bembibre from University College London; and Julio Cesar Torres-Elguera and Tomasz Sawoszczuk from Krakow University of Economics.

Click here to see all of the winners of the 2025 Gizmodo Science Fair.