Notes from the lab bench — formulas, materials and the craft of perfumery.
October 4, 2026
Ancient Greek perfumery: from Mycenaean tablets through Theophrastus's treatise to the Delos excavations, where a workshop was long taken for an inn.
Read article →July 15, 2026
Ancient Egyptian perfumery: the embalming workshop at Saqqara, the recipe for sacred kyphi incense, and Hatshepsut's expedition to the mysterious land of Punt.
Read article →July 12, 2026
Ancient perfumery in Mesopotamia: three centuries before Tappūtī, the Babylonian city of Larsa already ran an established scent economy with merchants and price tiers.
Read article →July 6, 2026
Around 1230 BC, a woman named Tappūtī-Bēlet-ekallim recorded a perfume formula that got pressed into clay — the oldest surviving written record naming a chemist. This is what the tablet actually says.
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