Museums incorporate “scent of the afterlife” into Egyptian exhibits

His team’s analysis of the residue samples included waxes, plant oils, animal fats, bitumen and resins from coniferous trees such as pine and larch, as well as vanilla-scented coumarins (found in cinnamon and pea plants) and benzoic acid (scented resins derived from trees and shrubs and common in gums). According to Huber, the resulting aroma combined “the strong piney woody smell of conifer” with “a sweet aroma of beeswax” and “the sharp smoky scent of bitumen”.

Huber’s latest paper, published in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology, outlines an efficient workflow process for museums to add scent to their exhibits. First, he and his co-authors identified connections between scientific data and perfumery practice. He then worked with perfumer Carol Calvez, who created a scent tailored to the museum’s ambiance.

“The real challenge is in visualizing the smell as a whole,” Calves said, emphasizing that the task is much more than mere replication. “Biomolecular data provide essential clues, but the perfume maker must translate the chemical information into a complete and coherent olfactory experience that highlights the complexity of the base material rather than just its individual components.”

The team also developed two formats for incorporating those scents into museums. One approach was a portable scent card, deployed as part of guided tours highlighting relevant artefacts in the Museum August Kestner in Hanover, Germany. The second was the creation of a fixed scent station in the Moesgaard Museum in Aarhus, Denmark. “The Fragrance Station changed the way visitors understood emphysema,” said Stefan Terp Laursen, curator of the Moesgaard Museum. “Scent added an emotional and sensory depth that text labels alone could never provide.”

Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology, 2026. DOI: 10.3389/fierce.2025.1736875 (About DOI)

W Zhao et al, Journal of Archaeological Science, 2026. DOI: 10.1016/j.jas.2026.106490