There are lots of things to see in museums. Some museums even have things you can touch or hear. But not many museums have things you can smell. Smells from museum artifacts can provide a lot of information. They can tell us what artifacts are made of, how they are preserved, and what condition they are in. We wanted to know what ancient Egyptian mummified bodies smelled like. We analyzed air samples from nine ancient Egyptian mummified bodies. We used trained volunteers and chemical analyses to identify smells. We found that mummified bodies smell “woody”, “spicy”, and “sweet”. Smells were more intense for mummified bodies in display cases. We also saw similarities between mummified bodies from the Late Period (664–332 BCE). We can use this technique to help us conserve and preserve museum artifacts in the future.
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