After thousands of years in the afterlife you might expect to stink like a moldy old scrotum, but as it turns out, ancient Egyptian mummies are still surprisingly easy on the nose. A credit to their embalmers,

Ancient Egyptian mummified bodies smell ‘woody, spicy and sweet’, a study has found. It is the first time that the odour of mummified bodies have been systematically explored.The research, led by scientists from University College London and the University of Ljubljana,

Ancient Egyptian mummified bodies preserved for 5,000 years smell “woody”, “spicy” and “sweet”, according to scientists who used their own senses and electronic noses to examine them. Human “sniffers” were recited to describe the scent in terms of quality, intensity and pleasantness.

The team’s approach could inspire museums to entertain visitors with odorous features such as smellscapes. In fact, the researchers now plan to reconstruct the smell of ancient mummified bodies in order to share this nontraditional approach to studying Egyptian mummies, as well as highlight an ancient olfactory heritage.

We know what they look like, and even sound like, but there’s one question you might not have pondered: what do ancient Egyptian mummies smell like? Whether you wanted to know or not, scientists have now given us an answer.

Learn how unpacking olfactory elements helps researchers understand mummy preservation techniques, and how you could one day smell a mummy yourself.

Even around 5,000 years after their embalming, Strlič and collaborators described the bodies as smelling “pleasant.” This is largely thanks to the materials applied to the mummies, which included scented waxes, coniferous resins and oils made from pine, cedar, and juniper, as well as gum resins such as frankincense and myrrh.

Researchers who sniffed mummified remains in the name of science were greeted more with a blessing than a curse

Scientists sniffed ancient Egyptian mummified bodies for a new study published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.