Scientists Reveal What Pompeii Smelled Like 2,000 Years Ago

For all modern life’s disappointments and sorrows, there is at least one brilliant and deeply satisfying consolation.

Thanks to the efforts of thousands of scientists, humanity can now look farther into the Universe, and further into cells, than at any previous point in history.

We can also investigate our shared past, learning even how the world may have smelled to our distant ancestors.

Through a field anthropologists call sensory archaeology, scientists are able to recreate ancient "smellscapes".

One example comes from Pompeii: the homes of its wealthier residents are now thought to have carried woody, earthy aromas with a citrus note.

A European research team established this remarkably precise detail by examining ancient incense burners dating back 2,000 years.

Pompeii incense burners and household worship

The study examined two terracotta incense burners, also known as censers, excavated decades earlier at Pompeii and in the neighbouring town of Boscoreale.

One vessel was recovered from a building being turned into an inn when Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD 79. The other remained inside a domestic shrine in a rural villa, together with other objects used in ritual.

Their form, ornamentation and archaeological setting all indicated the same use: they had held aromatic offerings burned in household religious rites.

Researchers already knew these rituals took place from Roman writings. Incense, wine, flowers, fruit and grain were routinely offered to household deities called the Lares and Penates.

For instance, in Book Four of The Elegies, the Roman poet Propertius wrote: "Give me soft costmary, and offerings of lovely incense."

Costumary is a herb frequently valued for its fragrance as well as its medicinal uses.

Until recently, however, archaeologists had little direct material evidence showing exactly what people burned.

Diagram showing how biomolecular data can recreate ancient experience, behaviour and society. (Huber et al. Nature Human Behavior, 2022.)

How researchers reconstructed the ancient smellscape

To address this gap, the researchers used an extensive set of chemical techniques. They took minute samples from both the centre and rim of each censer, steering clear of the surface to limit modern contamination, before carrying out three complementary analyses.

One test examined microscopic mineral residues produced by burning plants. A second sought phytoliths: tiny silica structures made by plants that can endure long after the plants themselves are gone.

Lastly, gas chromatography and mass spectrometry were used to detect the molecular signatures of ancient resins, oils and other organic substances.

The first unexpected result was an absence. Neither incense burner showed signs that dried animal dung had served as fuel, despite this being common in other parts of the ancient world.

Instead, both containers yielded abundant microscopic evidence that woody plants had been burned.

The phytolith evidence points to a blend of plants, likely including oak, laurel and members of the stone-fruit family, as well as a range of grasses. These materials may have fuelled the incense, although some could also have been offerings themselves.

Altar of the Lares in Pompeii’s House of the Vettii. As part of daily observance of guardian spirits, incense would have been burned in a suitable bowl placed on the altar ledge. (Vanni Archive/The Image Bank Unreleased/Getty Images)

Many of these plants would have been available locally around Pompeii. This accords with earlier finds of charred figs, pine nuts and other botanical offerings in Pompeian shrines, supporting the view that ordinary vegetation was significant in domestic religious observance.

Imported resin reveals Pompeii’s trade links

Just one censer retained chemical evidence of a distinctive resin, yet the finding is important both because its scent remains known today and because it reveals the reach of trade networks in ancient Rome.

The team found that this resin belonged to the same botanical family as frankincense, although it was probably elemi, obtained from the farthest connections of trade routes linked to the Roman empire.

This imported material offers a further indication of Pompeii’s role within an immense ancient commercial network.

The authors propose that fragrant resins from Arabia, tropical Africa and Asia travelled northward via the Red Sea, then moved through Alexandria and onwards to Italy, ultimately arriving in homes such as those at Pompeii.

Although written records document the practice well, this is the first direct archaeological evidence that imported aromatic resins were burned in Pompeian domestic worship. The effort involved in acquiring a particular aroma demonstrates its importance.

The same censer also produced possible chemical traces of grape-derived products, potentially wine or vinegar. The authors emphasise that these findings require caution, since modern contamination cannot be ruled out; if they are genuine, though, they would align strikingly closely with Roman religious practice.

Ancient writings describe preliminary sacrifices in which worshippers poured wine while burning incense at the same time. This raises the possibility that these modest ash layers have retained chemical remains from rituals performed nearly 2,000 years ago.

That an intangible thing such as a smoky fragrance mattered so much to Pompeii’s people, and can now be reconstructed, may be about as close as we can come to a real-life time machine.

Research appeared in the journal Antiquity.

This article was fact-checked by Rachel Garner and edited by Peter Dockrill. Although we take pride in our process, we are only human. If you notice an error, please let us know.