It may not come as a surprise that Egyptians used many different ways to enhance their beauty and not just for aesthetic purposes, but for religion as well and of course, perfume is not ruled out.
It is believed that ancient Egyptians first used perfumes as a tribute to the gods, mainly by burning aromatic powders; however, later it became common among the nobles for its “sacred virtues” and its ability to purify the body.
Now, after the discovery of perfume bottles in ancient Egyptian ruins, scientists are trying to recreate Cleopatra’s, the female pharaoh who ruled Egypt between 51 and 30 B.C.E, perfume.
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According to archeologists, in Cleopatra’s day, the perfume was better known as Mendesian concoction, in honor of the city in which it originated, Mendes. The mix, scientists believe, included ingredients like desert date oil, myrrh, cinnamon, and pine resin, a recipe that got to be popular in ancient Greece and Rome as well.
Now, researchers are trying to recreate the very same Cleopatra used using paleobotany to identify the ingredients in the mix they have named “Eau de Cleopatra”, according to a paper published in 2021 in the journal Near Eastern Archaeology.
Scientists claim that this perfume was very pleasant to the nose and had a strong and spicy base of freshly ground myrrh and cinnamon and last longer than traditional western perfumes.
In a separate and unrelated study by lead scientist Jacopo La Nasa from the University of Pisa in Italy, researchers studied different vessels, jars, cups, and bits of organic material from the tomb of an ancient Egyptian architect and his wife and concluded that their perfumes must have contained different oils or even beeswax as a scentless base for perfumes.
Despite scientists’ attempts to recreate the very same scent Cleopatra and other ancient Egyptians used, it is most likely we will never have a true and certain answer since most of the ingredients in the written recipes are uncertain or unclear and researchers haven’t been able to identify all of them in the traces left behind.