Does history have its own scents?
Fragrance forms such a big part of our lives at Jones and Modha - just walking outside into nature at the moment brings all sorts of natural scents from sweet, intoxicating blossom, earthy damp leaves or hemp and hay dry leaves depending on the weather, green, sharp cut grass. In a more built up area, it’s a waft of exhaust, gritty smoky and solid, dry, powder of concrete moving into warm bread, sweet salon shampoo, coffee or beer - stale or appealing depending on the time of day.
Walking past someone shrouded in a cloud of strong perfume can evoke all sorts of emotions - positive or negative depending on your preference and it gives us a snapshot of that person as they hurry past.
The seasons affect the natural scents we encounter - have you walked past a bin on a hot day?! Even the time of day will mean our olfactory experience is different. A bright, early morning, fresh dewy leaves become sweeter and more cloying of a Summer’s evening and our reaction to scent changes - we may not welcome the smell of melting cheese, fish and chips or beer in the morning, for example!
Scents from our own past
We can describe how our environment smells and those around us and it adds such a rich dimension to our world. We know we can cast our minds back to scents of our earlier years, with certain smells (my tadcu’s tomatoes in the greenhouse, the school bleach, old books) transporting us to specific moments in our past, but how about scents from further back in history?
Historic scents
Some moments in history and their scents are clearly catalogued in writing - the First World War trenches for example, we can imagine the stench of putrid water or smoke as we may have read about first hand accounts of letters home from soldiers. We can also imagine some of the scents around at the time of Cleopatra from records that tell us that they used herbs and spices to flavour their food, enhance waters for bathing. But we have to use our imagination and use our current knowledge of scent to create this picture.
So what about scents from history and today that may disappear? The smell of a library and old books, for example - most of us can conjure that up, what what about in the future when libraries and perhaps books no longer exist? Should these odours be captured to preserve our heritage?
Projects to capture and recreate fragrance
That’s something that Smell of Heritage at UCL Institute for Sustainable Heritage is aiming to do by reproducing the smells of the past so that they are not lost. They recognise the impact scent has on us and the way it can alter the way we feel and perceive situations and want to recreate these in history to ensure they can be carried forward to future generations, giving a richer experience of history.
Amsterdam’s Riijksmuseum has also been working on similar projects. One scent that particularly stood out was Napoleon’s Retreat at the Battle of Waterloo, 1815. The scent is a combination of gunpowder, horses, wet earth, anxiety sweat and leather, overlaid with a reconstruction of Napoleon’s perfume, called aqua mirabilis which contained rosemary, bergamot and bitter orange.
Looking at history through the an olfactory lens really brings another dimension to past events. Many of us are so led by our eyes and ears, that using our sense of smell can transform the way we see and experience what’s going on around us.
What event in history would you like to experience in this way?
