A balm used in the mummification of an ancient Egyptian who died 3500 years ago contains ingredients hinting at long-distance trade
and Hatshepsut. Senetnay was buried in the Valley of the Kings near the ancient town of Thebes, the modern-day city of Luxor.at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology in Germany and her colleagues used state-of-the-art analytical technology — such as gas chromatography-mass spectrometry — to unpack the chemical composition of the balm residue found in two of the jars that held Senetnay’s organs during the mummification process.
This is the most complex mummification balm found from this period in ancient Egyptian history, according to Huber, and the scent extracted from it is so sophisticated that she dubbed it “the scent of eternity”. “The dominant smell, I would say, is like this strong pine-like woody scent of the conifers. But then it’s also a little bit intermingled with a sweeter undertone of the
beeswax,” she says. “And then we have this kind of strong smoky scent of the bitumen. It’s a little bit like freshly laid tar on a street.”Keep up with advances in archaeology and evolution with our monthly newsletter.But it’s the tree resins, specifically, that interested Huber’s team. Their analysis suggests the balm probably contained resin from larch trees. It may also have contained resin from pistachio trees, or perhaps a so-called dammar gum.
These three ingredients aren’t naturally found in Egypt, as larches and pistachios mainly grow in the northern Mediterranean, and dammar comes from trees that grow in South-East Asian forests. This suggests that ancient Egyptians were importing goods via far-reaching trade routes at an earlier date than researchers had previously thought. For instance,
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