As part of the XXXI Summer School of Classical Studies: Olive, Vine, Laurel in the Cultural Landscape of the Ancient World, Sean Coughlin presents a public lecture on “Past Scents of the Perfumer’s Garden”.

Abstract

At this workshop, we will talk about the myths and stories of scented materials in the Ancient Mediterranean by plunging into one of the first cross-cultural perfumes of the Greco-Egyptian world: the Metopion. You will smell, touch and taste the difference between the raw ingredients used in the past and the ingredients of perfumery today: bitter almond, cardamom, galbanum, myrrh, calamus, and, of course, the olive.