Even around 5,000 years after their embalming, Strlič and collaborators described the bodies as smelling “pleasant.” This is largely thanks to the materials applied to the mummies, which included scented waxes, coniferous resins and oils made from pine, cedar, and juniper, as well as gum resins such as frankincense and myrrh.

Researchers who sniffed mummified remains in the name of science were greeted more with a blessing than a curse

Few visitors wandering through the mummy galleries at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo have the opportunity—or perhaps the inclination—to smell the aromas wafting off the gilded sarcophagi and elaborately wrapped bodies of ancient Egyptian elites on display in glass cases.

What do Egyptian mummies smell like? An international team of researchers has a surprising answer: woody, spicy, and sweet (but if you’re inexplicably interested in things that smell like rotting bodies,