If you are a fan of fragrance history, you may be familiar with the Egyptian god Nefertem. He is the personification of the Cosmic Lotus in the Egyptian creation myth. Nefertem is the protector of dawn and patron of Egypt’s beloved blue lotuses. Nefertem rises from the river at daybreak each morning with his flowers…
Category: Middle East
Tappūtī-Bēlet-ekallim: The First Perfumer?
If you Google Tappūtī-Bēlet-ekallim, you will find dozens of articles praising her as the first perfumer. Online, Tappūtī-Bēlet-ekallim is presented as a feminist, a scientist, and an entrepreneur. Yet, those concepts would have been utterly foreign to her lived experience. Images accompanying these stories feature Babylonian goddesses, Sumerian queens, and Urukian tablets. They’re a…
Disasters, Mysteries, and Perfume: Unearthing the Philistines
In this post, we explore what we know and what we don’t about Philistine culture, thier death practices and how perfume may have played a role in their cosmology.
The Death Scent Project 