Fragrances of Ancient Egypt

Posted On May 9, 2025

3-Part Series on Ritual, Identity, and Scent in Ancient Egyptian Life

Written by Anela Abdel-Rahman

Egyptologist, Forensic Psychologist, and Historical Interpreter

Also known in the SCA as Dame Talia bint Al-Athir, OP

🔷Part I: Mapping the Scented World of Ancient Egypt

In ancient Egypt, scent was more than an accessory—it was a fundamental element of existence, woven into the architecture of temples, the rituals of daily life, and the preparation for eternity. Fragrance was the medium through which the sacred entered the world: it structured ritual time, delineated social space, protected the living, and preserved the dead.

To offer incense was not merely symbolic—it was how one nourished the gods. To wear perfume was to proclaim health, beauty, status, and moral refinement. To bury the dead in layers of fragrant balm and floral garlands was to ensure their rebirth in the Field of Reeds. In both practical and theological terms, the Egyptians lived in a world orchestrated by scent.

They had an unusually rich vocabulary for olfaction:

• xnm – to smell
• xnm.w – fragrance
• sTi – scent
• id.t – perfume
• snTr – incense (literally, “to make divine”)

These words appear in love poetry, temple inscriptions, medical papyri, and funerary rituals, where fragrance was always active: blessing, invoking, protecting, seducing, transforming.

Much of this knowledge survives through:

• Textual records such as the Ebers Papyrus, Papyrus Anastasi IV, and Book of the Dead
• Ritual inscriptions at temples like Edfu, Philae, and Dendera
• Greco-Roman commentaries by Pliny the Elder, Dioscorides, and Plutarch
• Experimental archaeology and chemical residue analysis (GC-MS), which have confirmed ingredients such as myrrh, juniper, cedar, and pistacia resin in temple censers and burial jars

Today, through these sources and modern recreations, we are beginning to recover the invisible architecture of scent that shaped ancient Egyptian life. This article explores that world through five key sensory environments—the home, garden, marketplace, temple, and tomb—each one carefully constructed to shape, reflect, and sustain a sacred order.

In retracing these scentscapes, we do not simply revisit Egyptian history—we begin to breathe it.

🏠 The Fragrant Home: Cleanliness, Comfort, and Protection

The ancient Egyptian home was a sanctuary of protection, purification, and healing. To maintain ma’at—the sacred balance of order—Egyptians infused domestic life with fragrance. Scent here was not a luxury but a fundamental component of wellness, ritual safety, and social identity.

The Ebers Papyrus (c. 1550 BCE) contains dozens of recipes for bodily and household care, including deodorants made from natron and herbs, wound dressings perfumed with juniper, myrrh, or lotus, and skin salves made with moringa oil. Fragrance was part of the treatment—meant to calm, cleanse, and protect the patient. These prescriptions reveal how scent intersected with medical, magical, and moral ideas about the body.

At sites like Deir el-Medina and Amarna, archaeologists have recovered incense burners, faience scent flasks, and cosmetic spoons shaped like lotus blooms or swimming girls—used to prepare or apply perfumed ointments. These items weren’t confined to elite households. Simpler versions appear in middle-class contexts, indicating that aromatic hygiene was widespread, if not always extravagant.

Wooden Gilded arm-shaped incense burner – The Egyptian Museum in Cairo

One of the most distinctive symbols in Egyptian art is the perfume unguent cone, frequently shown atop wigs in tomb banquet scenes. For decades, scholars believed these cones were made of perfumed fat that melted slowly, releasing fragrance over the wearer. However, recent discoveries of actual unguent cones in tombs—composed primarily of beeswax—have called this theory into question. Beeswax melts at relatively high temperatures, making it unlikely that these cones liquefied under normal conditions. Their function may have been symbolic or ritualistic—representing a blessing of fragrance, or the presence of divine joy and status, rather than depicting a literal event. Whether worn or offered, they remain powerful icons of Egyptian scent culture.

Fragrance was deeply linked to femininity, beauty, and sensuality. The Chester Beatty Love Songs describe women as “scented with myrrh” or “sweet as incense.” Art and text alike show women preparing oils, perfuming their bodies, or offering aromatic salves in healing or mourning contexts. In this sense, fragrance was also a form of gendered ritual labor—blended, applied, and gifted in moments of birth, seduction, protection, and death.

Deities associated with fragrance were often invoked in domestic rituals. Bes protected sleeping children and mothers in labor. Taweret, part hippopotamus and part lioness, watched over fertility and family safety. Hathor, “Mistress of Perfume,” was honored in sweet offerings, music, and floral garlands. Isis, healer and magician, appears in rituals using aromatics to ward off illness or evil spirits. These godforms entered the home not only through statues or amulets—but also through smell.

Dried petals, fresh greens, and medicinal herbs used in temple rituals, cosmetics, and fumigation. This selection reflects the floral notes of home gardens, the healing herbs of shrines, and the sacred florals tied to deities like Hathor and Nefertem (Dora Goldsmith)

Architecturally, many homes were built around open-air courtyards, allowing incense smoke to circulate freely. Storage rooms may have housed jars of dried herbs or scent-infused linen. Gardens attached to wealthier homes often grew henna, mint, and marjoram, harvested for domestic use in salves and incense.

In total, the Egyptian home was not a neutral space. It was a perfumed ecosystem, structured around cycles of protection, healing, joy, and transformation. To dwell in such a space was to be immersed in the divine breath of the living world.

🌿 The Garden: Sacred Bloom and Botanical Sanctuary

A curated selection of vegetables, herbs, legumes, and melons—representing the fresh, green, and sun-warmed fragrances of Nile gardens and cultivated fields. These ingredients formed the olfactory landscape of both temple offerings and daily nourishment. (Dora Goldsmith)

The Egyptian garden was far more than ornamental—it was a sacred landscape, modeled after the paradisiacal Field of Reeds (Aaru) promised in the afterlife. Fragrance was central to its power. The term sTi SA—“garden scent”—appears in funerary texts and love poems, describing both literal floral perfume and symbolic pleasure. Gardens were not just seen—they were breathed.

Paintings in elite tombs, such as that of Nebamun, depict rectangular pools framed by papyrus stands, lotus blossoms, date palms, and pomegranate trees. These were real features of villa and temple gardens, cultivated for beauty, food, shade, and scent. Archaeobotanical studies of Tutankhamun’s tomb garlands and the floral arrangements at Deir el-Bahari have confirmed the use of:

• Blue and white lotus (sacred to Ra and rebirth)
• Henna and mandrake (used in perfumery and medicine)
• Myrtle, persea, and olive leaves
• Cornflower and pomegranate blossoms

Such plants were chosen not only for fragrance, but for color, symbolism, and ritual potency. The lotus, in particular, was associated with solar regeneration. As the flower opened at sunrise and closed at sunset, it mirrored the rebirth of the sun god Ra. To inhale its scent was to participate in the cycle of divine renewal.

The god Nefertem, often depicted as a young man with a lotus emerging from his head, was the divine personification of fragrance. As the son of Ptah and Sekhmet, he bridged healing and creation, embodying the link between perfume, medicine, and cosmic rebirth.

Textual evidence further supports the cultivation of scent gardens in temple settings. The Papyrus Harris I (Ramesside period) describes how Ramesses III endowed temple estates with groves of incense trees—frankincense, myrrh, and sweet-smelling shrubs—to be used in daily rituals. At Karnak, sacred lakes were ringed with fragrant plants, and high-walled garden courts created enclosed scentscapes for ritual preparation.

In love poetry, gardens served as metaphors for erotic delight. The scent of the lover’s body is likened to myrrh and henna, while walks through fragrant groves represent encounters with divine pleasure.

Gardens were also cultivated at death. Many tombs included painted or model gardens, offering the soul a place to rest, blossom, and inhale eternal joy. Some funerary stelae even included the phrase “he breathes the scent of the garden in the West,” linking fragrance with successful transition to the afterlife.

Whether in temple, villa, or tomb, the Egyptian garden was a space of fragrant continuity—where divine presence was not just seen in iconography but embodied in bloom and breath.

🛍️ The Marketplace: Scent, Trade, and Social Identity

To walk through an ancient Egyptian marketplace was to enter a world of overwhelming and deliberate smell. Unlike the sanctified quiet of temples or the floral shade of gardens, the market was a dense olfactory environment—packed with humanity, livestock, hot bread, fermented beer, tanned leather, roasted meat, dried fish, crushed herbs, and incense.

Fragrance in this setting was not abstract or symbolic. It was commerce, craft, and identity—a sensory marker of status, intention, and origin. Markets were both secular and sacred: many were located just outside temple walls, where perfumers and incense vendors could offer goods to pilgrims and priests alike.

The Papyrus Anastasi IV lists among its trade items imported aromatics such as frankincense, cinnamon, mastic, storax, galbanum, and juniper berries, obtained through land and sea trade with Punt, Levantine ports, and Byblos. These were high-value goods, often measured by the deben (a unit of weight), and listed in tax documents, shipment records, and temple receipts.

Archaeological evidence supports this economic framework. Excavations at Amarna, Memphis, and Elephantine have uncovered perfume amphorae labeled with oil types and places of origin. Some jars contained residues of sesame oil, castor oil, and pistacia resin, suggesting both local production and regional sourcing of base materials. Their shapes and inscriptions indicate that perfumes were branded and possibly mass-distributed—an early form of scent marketing.

In elite and foreign correspondence, fragrance functioned as diplomacy. The Amarna Letters—a cache of cuneiform tablets from the court of Akhenaten—include references to perfumes and aromatics exchanged as diplomatic gifts. These were sent between the courts of Egypt, Mitanni, Hatti, and Babylon, reinforcing political alliances through olfactory tribute.

The perfumes themselves were diverse and formulaic. Later Greek and Roman authors preserved the names and descriptions of several prominent Egyptian blends:

• Susinum – derived from white lily (susinon in Greek) with moringa oil and cinnamon. It was a luxurious, floral perfume often associated with femininity, sensuality, and divine beauty.
• Mendesian – a powerful perfume of myrrh and cinnamon in balanos oil, known for its richness and staying power. Pliny the Elder remarks that Mendesian garments retained their scent even after repeated washings (Natural History, XIII.2).
• Metopion – a sharp, medicinal blend possibly used by priests or healers, made from galbanum, cassia, and balsam.
• Cyprinum – a green, clean scent made from henna leaves and cinnamon, likely used for anointing or purification.

These perfumes weren’t casually applied—they were chosen with purpose. Fragrance signaled one’s social role, class, emotional state, and even religious alignment. To smell of Mendesian in court was a mark of refinement; to wear Metopion in ritual was a signal of sacred function. Perfumes were classified, intentional, and tied to cultural codes.

Vendors in the marketplace may have offered ready-made blends or measured raw aromatics. We do not yet know the layout of these stalls, but references in the Wilbour Papyrus and economic ostraca from Deir el-Medina suggest that fragrance and resin merchants operated as a defined group, with regulated weights and set pricing overseen by scribes.

Fragrance also marked gender in public life. Women were expected to smell sweet, particularly during festivals. Men wore stronger, sharper scents like cinnamon or myrrh. This gendered olfactory coding appears in art, where male and female figures are often shown being anointed with different oils.

Religious festivals often blended temple and marketplace scent. During celebrations of Hathor, Bastet, or Amun, scent use spilled into public space: floral garlands were worn, perfumes sold, and incense burned in open-air shrines. Vendors likely capitalized on demand, linking public devotion to economic opportunity.

Just as incense structured temple time, scent in the marketplace structured status, gender, and community participation. It functioned as a kind of aromatic grammar—defining who you were, where you came from, and how you wished to be received.

Deities of Marketplace Fragrance:

• Thoth – god of commerce, contracts, and scribes; presided over fair measurement and transaction
• Hathor – goddess of joy, music, and sensuality; invoked in the sale and use of perfumes and floral garlands
• Min – fertility god often associated with myrrh and incense offerings, honored during market festivals

🛕 The Temple: Divine Scent and Ritual Structure

In ancient Egypt, the temple was not merely a house of worship—it was a cosmic engine, a place where scent created space and time. Incense and fragrance were not background elements of ritual. They were its very architecture. Temples were orchestrated in scent, with each aroma marking a specific divine moment, action, or transition.

Ritual offerings began before sunrise. The first light of day was greeted not only with chants and water libations, but with a rising column of frankincense smoke, offered to Ra, the solar creator god. By midday, the second offering included cedar, cinnamon, or sandalwood, aligning with the strength and clarity of Horus. The third offering, made at dusk to honor Osiris, the god of death and regeneration, featured myrrh, labdanum, juniper, and calamus—dark, grounding scents associated with burial and rebirth.

A colourful mural from the tomb Inkherkhau (TT359) on the West Bank of Nile – Thebes, Luxor, Egypt, depicting funerary rituals performed for the deceased and his wife – censing and libation

Temple inscriptions at Edfu, Philae, and Dendera record these rituals in detail, often alongside hymns and invocations. Scent was not just present—it activated the divine presence. The gods were said to “live by breath,” and only properly scented breath—delivered through incense—could sustain them.

The official responsible for this sacred duty was the kherep snTr, or “Master of Incense.” This priest held specialized knowledge in aromatic preparation, measurement, and offering sequence. Temple walls depict these men grinding resins, straining wine-soaked herbs, and reading incantations over the mixture—all performed in consecrated “incense laboratories” (per-wedja), whose rooms appear in reliefs as early as the New Kingdom.

No incense was more revered than kyphi (kapet in Egyptian), the crown jewel of temple offerings. Kyphi was a complex incense compound, made from over a dozen ingredients and prepared over several days. The Temple of Edfu, in its Hall of Offerings (Chambers 3 and 6), preserves one of the most complete versions of its recipe, which includes:

• Wine-soaked raisins
• Frankincense, myrrh, juniper, mastic, labdanum
• Cinnamon, calamus, sedge, and honey

Kyphi was not simply mixed—it was fermented. It required the careful blending of dry and wet ingredients, timed aging, and ritual chanting. The priest-preparer would recite hymns to Thoth or Nefertem as he worked. Some texts describe how kyphi was stored in sealed clay jars to cure, much like a vintage wine.

Plutarch, writing in the 1st century CE (Isis and Osiris, Moralia 80–83), describes kyphi as an incense that “lulls anxiety, induces sleep, and aligns the soul with the divine.” While his descriptions reflect a Greco-Roman theological filter, they reinforce the idea that kyphi functioned across boundaries: as temple incense, household fumigant, and medicine for the body and spirit.

Pomegranate, grapes, figs, dates, olives, and aromatic pods—a composition evoking sacred orchards, vineyard festivals, and ritual abundance. These fruits were offered in temples, consumed in feasts, and encoded in divine scent symbolism. (Dora Goldsmith)

Recent residue analysis (GC-MS) of temple censers and offering tables—especially at Karnak, Abydos, and Medinet Habu—has confirmed the presence of ingredients such as juniper, mastic, pistacia resin, and cedarwood. In one instance at Saqqara, a ritual container was found to still contain traces of wine-infused resins, possibly used in kyphi fermentation. These findings powerfully align with textual records, providing rare convergence between the poetic, the prescribed, and the preserved.

Temples were also scented architectures. They contained multiple zones of olfactory experience—from the outer forecourt, where public offerings may have included floral garlands and open incense burning, to the dark inner sanctum (naos), where sacred oils were used to anoint divine statues. Only high priests could enter these spaces, often barefoot and ritually pure, carrying trays of scented offerings into the hidden heart of the temple.

These spaces were carefully ventilated through shafts and clerestory windows, which may have helped control the airflow of incense—not only for smoke release, but perhaps to carry scent upward toward the heavens. Some temples even preserved aromatic building materials—stone vessels for oil absorption, or scent-infused wood—used in shrine doors and divine barques.

Deities of Temple Scent:

• Ra – solar creator honored with bright, clarifying resins at dawn
• Horus – associated with mid-day vigor, often offered cedar or cinnamon
• Osiris – reborn at dusk through myrrh and earthy scent
• Amun – hidden god of breath and potential, worshipped in secret and scent
• Thoth – patron of measured ritual and incantation, invoked in incense timing
• Nefertem – god of perfume, healing, and temple medicine

The Egyptian temple was a sensorial calendar, marked in scent. Incense did not merely sanctify space—it structured ritual, invoked deity, and inscribed memory in smoke. In a world where seeing a god was rare, smelling their presence was real.

Reliefs Depicting Incense Offerings at Dendera Temple

Temple reliefs illustrating the ritual of incense offerings, integral to sacred ceremonies (Alamy)

⚱️ The Tomb: Fragrance, Transformation, and the Eternal Body

The tomb was not simply a burial chamber. It was a ritual vessel—a body made of stone to receive a body made divine. Within it, fragrance played a critical role in preserving, protecting, and transforming the deceased. In ancient Egyptian theology, to die without scent was to risk fading into oblivion. To die perfumed was to become akh—transfigured, effective, eternal.

Fragrance began its work before death. Embalming rituals—recorded in sources like the Ebers Papyrus, the Papyrus Louvre-Carlsberg, and the Ritual of Embalming from the Ptolemaic temple at Akhmim—involved repeated anointing of the corpse with oils and resins. The recipes included:

• Cedar oil to dissolve internal tissue
• Myrrh for purification and preservation
• Pistacia resin and labdanum for sealing the skin
• Beeswax, natron, and bitumen to stabilize and protect

Some of these ingredients were heated and poured into the body cavities during the process of excerebration and evisceration, while others were applied to the outer body between layers of linen wrappings.

CT scans of 21st Dynasty mummies, such as those in the Cairo Museum and Manchester Museum, have revealed alternating bands of linen and aromatic resins, designed not only to preserve, but to release fragrance slowly—possibly for ritual performance, or as a sensory bridge during mourning.

The scent of the tomb itself was carefully curated. Fragrance would have accompanied the burial party through incense censers and scented oil jars placed in the tomb or applied directly to the coffin and sarcophagus. Tomb walls often depict mourners with scent cones and garlands, releasing myrrh-sweet prayers into the air.

Jars of unguents found in elite burials, especially in KV62 (Tutankhamun’s tomb), still contained perfumed mixtures at the time of their discovery in 1922. Chemical analysis (GC-MS) of these materials has confirmed the presence of:

• Labdanum – a sticky, dark resin from the rockrose plant
• Elemi – a citrusy resin with antimicrobial properties
• Pistacia resin – fragrant and sealing
• Animal fats, likely from cattle or goat, used as carriers
• Frankincense and cedarwood – used for both anointing and fumigation

Frankincense, myrrh, cinnamon, juniper, and bitumen—classic components of kyphi and temple incense. Combined with wine, honey, and herbs, these aromatics filled sanctuaries with layered fragrance during offerings and funerary rites. (Dora Goldsmith)

Some of these oils were placed near the body in alabaster jars. Others were left as offerings on offering tables or inside canopic chests. In Tutankhamun’s case, at least one jar was still aromatic three millennia after burial.

Floral scent was also present. Garlands found on the mummies of Tutankhamun, Yuya and Thuya, and other nobles included:

• Blue and white lotus
• Cornflower
• Persea and olive leaves
• Myrtle, mandrake, pomegranate blossoms

These garlands were not symbolic alone. They released scent in real time, surrounding the body in a cloud of ritual memory.

Olfactory phrases also appear in funerary texts. In Spell 125 of the Book of the Dead, the deceased proclaims:

“I am pure. I am pure. I am pure. I breathe the sweet breath of the gods.”

This was more than metaphor. In Egyptian belief, the soul (ba) had to breathe in the afterlife. Scent enabled this metaphysical respiration. The presence of incense and perfume ensured the soul could “breathe correctly” and be accepted into the eternal fields.

Tomb cones, labels, and offering formulas frequently list items like “oil of the sacred tree,” “resin of white frankincense,” or “unguent of myrrh.” These named substances were part of formal provisioning lists that had to be fulfilled regularly by priests or family members, making scent part of the ongoing economic and ritual care of the dead.

Just as the living entered the temple in scent, the dead entered eternity through it.

Deities of Funerary Fragrance:

• Osiris – god of death and rebirth, “fragrant of myrrh” in funerary hymns
• Anubis – god of embalming, often invoked through myrrh, cedar, and incense
• Nephthys – mourner and protector of the liminal; honored with perfumed laments
• Isis – powerful resurrection magician, associated with healing oils and protection spells

The tomb was a sealed perfumery of transformation. Its walls contained scent, memory, and magic. Fragrance became the last gift of the living and the first breath of the dead.

🌺 Conclusion: Breathing with the Ancients

To explore ancient Egypt through scent is to enter a world structured by invisible forces—by fragrance, by breath, by memory. The Egyptians lived in a multisensory cosmos in which scent was sacred infrastructure. It defined time in the temple, encoded gender and status in public, offered healing and protection in the home, and marked the transition from body to spirit in death.

Each environment had its own olfactory signature:

• The home smelled of sweet unguents, healing herbs, and protective incense
• The garden bloomed with sacred florals and perfumed renewal
• The marketplace hummed with the sharp tang of trade, spice, and seduction
• The temple moved in scentful rhythm—morning, noon, and night marked by rising smoke
• The tomb sealed the soul in scent, preserving identity beyond the veil

These were not passive sensory backdrops—they were active ritual technologies. To smell was to know. To offer scent was to align with ma’at. To be without scent was to risk disorder, illness, or exclusion from the divine.

Texts like the Ebers Papyrus, the Book of the Dead, and the kyphi inscriptions at Edfu remind us that scent was as codified and intentional as any architectural plan or royal title. Archaeological finds—perfume jars, garlands, censers, and unguent cones—anchor this knowledge in material reality. The use of GC-MS residue analysis has given us chemical echoes of these lost aromas, allowing us to reconstruct not only what the Egyptians said about scent—but what they actually smelled.

Rebuilding Egypt’s scentscapes is not an act of nostalgia—it is an act of sensory scholarship. Through reconstructed kyphi, lotus oil, Mendesian perfume, or even floral garlands, we access what might be the most human connection to the past: the breath.

As we recover these invisible histories, we restore the sensory dimension of Egyptian ritual and daily life—what was once inhaled, remembered, and made sacred.

“I breathe the sweet breath of the gods.”
The words remain. And now, so does the scent.

About the Author

Anela Abdel-Rahman is a forensic psychologist, Egyptologist, and cultural historian specializing in the intersection of sensory experience, ritual practice, and daily life in ancient Egypt. She teaches widely within the Society for Creative Anachronism as Dame Talia bint Al-Athir, OP, and is known for her work on historical fragrance reconstruction, ancient textiles, and women’s lifeways in antiquity. Anela is committed to public scholarship, experimental archaeology, and expanding inclusive narratives within historical interpretation.

Endnotes

1. Ebers Papyrus (c. 1550 BCE), preserved at the University of Leipzig and Uppsala University.
2. Papyrus Anastasi IV, trans. in Alan H. Gardiner, Egyptian Hieratic Texts (London: British Museum, 1911).
3. Chester Beatty Papyrus I, British Museum EA10682.
4. Papyrus Harris I, in Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, Vol. IV.
5. Book of the Dead, Spell 125, trans. Raymond Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000).
6. Temple of Edfu Inscriptions, Chambers 3 and 6, translated in Dieter Kurth, The Temple of Edfu: A Guide (Cairo: AUC Press, 2004).
7. Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, in Moralia, Sections 80–83, trans. Frank Cole Babbitt (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1936).
8. Dioscorides, De Materia Medica, trans. Lily Y. Beck (Hildesheim: Olms-Weidmann, 2005).
9. Pliny the Elder, Natural History, trans. H. Rackham (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1938).
10. CT scan findings in Salima Ikram, Death and Burial in Ancient Egypt (London: Longman, 2003).
11. Residue analysis in Marina Escolano-Poveda, “The Making of Incense: Kyphi and Its Preparation,” JEA 98 (2012): 153–168.
12. Lise Manniche, Sacred Luxuries: Fragrance, Aromatherapy, and Cosmetics in Ancient Egypt (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999).

Bibliography

• Escolano-Poveda, Marina. “The Making of Incense: Kyphi and Its Preparation.” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology98 (2012): 153–168.
• Goldsmith, Dora. “The Archaeology of Smell in Ancient Egypt.” PhD diss., Freie Universität Berlin (in progress).
• Ikram, Salima. Death and Burial in Ancient Egypt. London: Longman, 2003.
• Kurth, Dieter. The Temple of Edfu: A Guide. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2004.
• Manniche, Lise. Sacred Luxuries: Fragrance, Aromatherapy, and Cosmetics in Ancient Egypt. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999.
• Pliny the Elder. Natural History. Translated by H. Rackham. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1938.
• Plutarch. Moralia, Volume V: Isis and Osiris. Translated by Frank Cole Babbitt. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1936.
• Dioscorides. De Materia Medica. Translated by Lily Y. Beck. Hildesheim: Olms-Weidmann, 2005.
• Wilkinson, Richard H. The Complete Temples of Ancient Egypt. London: Thames & Hudson, 2000.
• Friedman, Renée, and Barbara Adams. The Followers of Horus: Studies Dedicated to Michael Allen Hoffman. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 1992.

Suggested Further Reading

• Andrews, Carol. Ancient Egyptian Jewellery. London: British Museum Press, 1990.
• Manniche, Lise. An Ancient Egyptian Herbal. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989.
• O’Connell, Elisabeth. “Smell and Social Identity in the Roman Egyptian House.” In A Companion to the Archaeology of Religion in the Ancient World, edited by Rubina Raja and Jörg Rüpke, 367–382. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015.
• Sauneron, Serge. The Priests of Ancient Egypt. Translated by David Lorton. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000.
• Watterson, Barbara. Women in Ancient Egypt. Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1991.

Continue on to the next part of the series: 🔗🔷Part II- Perfumes of the Pharaohs