The ancient Egyptians placed great importance on smelling good. Unguents and perfumed oils played a role in their daily and spiritual life. Resins and flora macerated and steeped in wine, animal fat, or vegetable oil were rubbed onto the skin.1 Homes were censed with kyphi (myrrh, juniper berries, incense, cypress, and camphor wood mixed with resin and aromatics) to purify the air.2 Perfumes were worn to mask bad odors.
Unguents and perfumes were stored in jars. Vessels with slightly tapered bodies closely resemble the bas-jar hieroglyph used in the ancient Egyptian words for unguent and ointment.3 Upon death, these items were placed in small wooden caskets and buried with the dead for their eternal use.
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Goldsmith, Dora. 2022. “Smellscapes in Ancient Egypt.” In The Routledge Handbook of the Senses in the Ancient Near East, edited by Kiersten Neumann and Allison Thomason, 636–662. London; New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429280207-36. ↩︎
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Grapow, H. 1958. Grundriss der Medizin der alten Ägypter, Band V: Die medizinischen Texte in hieroglyphischer Umschreibung. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag., P. Ebers 852. ↩︎
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Gardiner, Alan. 1988. Egyptian grammar being an introduction to the study of hieroglyphs, 3rd rev. ed. Oxford: Griffith Institute, Ashmolean Museum., W 1–2; Freed, Rita E., ed. 1982. Egypt’s Golden Age: The Art of Living in the New Kingdom, 1558-1085 B.C.; Catalogue of the Exhibition. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts. ↩︎
Bibliography
- Freed 1982
- Freed, Rita E., ed. 1982. Egypt’s Golden Age: The Art of Living in the New Kingdom, 1558-1085 B.C.; Catalogue of the Exhibition. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts.
- Gardiner 1988
- Gardiner, Alan. 1988. Egyptian grammar being an introduction to the study of hieroglyphs, 3rd rev. ed. Oxford: Griffith Institute, Ashmolean Museum.
- Goldsmith 2022
- Goldsmith, Dora. 2022. “Smellscapes in Ancient Egypt.” In The Routledge Handbook of the Senses in the Ancient Near East, edited by Kiersten Neumann and Allison Thomason, 636–662. London; New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429280207-36
- Grapow 1958
- Grapow, H. 1958. Grundriss der Medizin der alten Ägypter, Band V: Die medizinischen Texte in hieroglyphischer Umschreibung. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.