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From olfactory archaeology of 3,000-year-old mummies to MOF-based electronic noses for healthcare and safety
What if a visit to a museum didn’t end with simply looking at an ancient Egyptian mummy, but also let you directly experience the smells that people back then would have encountered? In recent years, museums have begun making scientific attempts to reconstruct historical smells so that visitors can actually smell the past. At one ancient Egypt exhibition in Denmark, reconstructed fragrances were provided on cards and in cartridges placed around the gallery, allowing visitors to experience the scents firsthand.

The science of smell does more than restore the past. Technologies for “electronic noses” that detect odors like the human nose and analyze their patterns using artificial intelligence (AI) are also advancing. How does science resurrect and interpret smells that are invisible and easily vanish?

● What did a 3,000-year-old mummy smell like?

Research in “olfactory archaeology,” which lets people directly smell the past in museums, is flourishing. A team led by Barbara Huber, a postdoctoral researcher in archaeochemistry at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Geoanthropology in Germany, chemically analyzed residues of embalming agents taken from a canopic jar from ancient Egypt dating to around 1450 BCE, and reconstructed the ancient fragrance. Huber described this work as a “time machine for the nose.”

Over the past decade or so, archaeologists have shifted their focus from artifacts’ appearance alone to the full sensory environment of the past—touch, sound and smell—through what is known as the “archaeology of the senses.” The aim is to move beyond a purely visual approach and more broadly re-create the sensory world that people at the time experienced. As biochemical techniques such as organic residue analysis have advanced, olfactory archaeology has emerged as a distinct field that identifies and reconstructs aromatic components preserved in ancient objects.

The research team detected multiple aromatic components in the mummy embalming residues, including beeswax, resins from coniferous trees, and coumarin—a crystalline compound with a vanilla-like scent. They then collaborated with perfumers to re-create the fragrance using modern olfactory materials that people could safely smell, based on the analytical results. The reconstructed scent was described as a warm, honey-like aroma mixed with earthy and spicy notes.
The reconstructed smell is already being used in actual exhibitions. At the ancient Egyptian exhibition in Denmark, fragrance cards and ceramic containers holding scent cartridges were placed in the gallery so visitors could smell them directly. The JORVIK Viking Centre in York, UK, has for many years recreated the smells of a Viking Age town, and there have even been attempts to simulate the breath odor of Tyrannosaurus rex, based on fossil evidence and consultation with paleontologists.

Recent reconstructions of smell differ from earlier, purely experiential displays in that they are grounded in chemical analysis, documentary research, and collaboration among experts from multiple disciplines. A team led by Cecilia Bembibre at the UCL Institute for Sustainable Heritage also reconstructed and exhibited the smells of the library at St Paul’s Cathedral and the interior of a Rover P5B once used by Queen Elizabeth II. To revive the smell of the car, they drew on historical research, chemical analysis of the air inside the vehicle, and interviews with classic car collectors.

Bembibre explains that using smell as a way to understand heritage allows us to move beyond vision-centered interpretations and pose new questions about the past. Huber is likewise pursuing a new project to reconstruct the characteristic scents of various regions in the Roman Empire.

● From restoring past smells to AI that “reads” odor

Scientists are not only working to reconstruct vanished smells; they are also developing technologies that enable machines to sense and distinguish the odors that surround us today.

A research team led by Professor Hyuk-Jun Kwon of the Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering at DGIST (Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology) has outlined future directions for an “artificial olfactory system” that detects smells like the human nose and analyzes them with AI, using metal–organic frameworks (MOFs). The team systematically organized the core research trends in electronic nose technology—from MOF material design and sensor implementation to AI-based odor pattern recognition. The results were published in June 2026 in the international journal Progress in Materials Science.

Electronic noses are evolving beyond simple odor detection toward distinguishing patterns of smell by using AI to analyze the chemical information received by sensors. The team predicts that MOF-based electronic nose technology could expand into diverse fields, including disease diagnosis and broader healthcare, air quality and industrial safety monitoring, smart agriculture, and chemical environment sensing for autonomous vehicles and robots.

● Invisible “smell” becomes scientific information

Smells are invisible and fade over time. Yet by analyzing chemical substances preserved in artifacts, we can reconstruct the fragrances that people smelled thousands of years ago, and by using sensors and AI, we can read the odor patterns that exist around us today.
Olfactory archaeology, which revives the smells of the past, and electronic noses, which detect and analyze present-day odors, may appear to belong to different domains, but they share a common premise: treating smell as a form of “information.” A time is approaching when we will experience history by directly smelling the past in museums, and machines will discriminate odors on our behalf to detect disease or danger signals. The realm of science and technology, once limited to seeing with our eyes and hearing with our ears, is now expanding into the domain of “smell experience.”