Researchers Sniff Ancient Egyptian Remains, Make Surprising Discovery
But researchers who indulged their curiosity in the name of science found that well-preserved Egyptian mummies actually smell pretty good.
'In films and books, terrible things happen to those who smell mummified bodies,' said Cecilia Bembibre, director of research at University College London's Institute for Sustainable Heritage. 'We were surprised at the pleasantness of them.'
'Woody,' 'spicy' and 'sweet' were the leading descriptions from what sounded more like a wine tasting than a mummy-sniffing exercise. Floral notes were also detected, which could be from pine and juniper resins used in embalming.
The study published Thursday in the Journal of the American Chemical Society used both chemical analysis and a panel of human sniffers to evaluate the odors from nine mummies as old as 5,000 years that had been either in storage or on display at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
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