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.

Ancient Egyptian mummification techniques almost always focused on ensuring the best preservation possible. These methods developed over hundreds of years, and reflected different societal factors at those points in time.

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,

We know what they look like, and even sound like, but there’s one question you might not have pondered: what do ancient Egyptian mummies smell like? Whether you wanted to know or not, scientists have now given us an answer.