Archaeologists working at the ancient city of Oxyrhynchus in Egypt have unearthed a mummy with a passage from Homer’s “Iliad” ...

Ancient Egyptian mummified bodies smell 'woody,' 'spicy' and 'sweet', finds a new study led by researchers from UCL and the University of Ljubljana, revealing new details about mummification practices ...

Archaeologists had previously uncovered Greek papyri in mummies, but this discovery marks the first time a literary text has ...

Many centuries later, Roman-era embalmers in the Egyptian desert took those same verses and tucked them inside the gut of a ...

Archaeologists have found a papyrus copy of Homer’s Iliad in the gut of an ancient Egyptian mummy, the first time ever that a ...

In a recent study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, Wanyue Zhao and her colleagues used volatile organic compounds (VOCs) to analyze the composition of scents given off by mummies ...

The mummy had been buried during the Roman period in Oxyrhynchus about 1,600 years ago. It is the first time a Greek literary ...

Unknown artist, “Mesu Smelling a Lotus” (c. 1525–1504 BCE), New Kingdom, Thebes, Egypt (image via Metropolitan Museum of Art) What did ancient mummies smell like? What types of scents, perfumes, and ...

In 2023, scientists identified the compounds in the balms used to mummify the organs of an ancient Egyptian noblewoman, suggesting that the recipes were unusually complex and used ingredients not ...

A new, first-of-its-kind analysis of the scents of nine mummies detected woody, spicy, herbal and rancid notes, among other odors Sarah Everts - Author, The Joy of Sweat: The Strange Science of ...

Archaeologists have found a copy of Homer’s Iliad stuffed inside an ancient Egyptian mummy buried in a 1,600-year-old tomb.