To preserve their mummies, the ancient Egyptians imported resins from Southeast Asia. An early example of globalisation, argue German and Egyptian researchers in Nature.

They base their argument on a workshop from the 26th dynasty, around 600 BC, rediscovered in 2016 in the necropolis of Sakkara. There were more than a hundred jars and bowls, some intact, with inscriptions indicating the name of the contents and their role in the embalming process of the time. Think of mixtures ‘for the head’, ‘for the wrapping’ or ‘for a pleasant smell’.

Such finds are no longer allowed to leave Egypt, but Maxime Rageot, Philipp Stockhammer and colleagues from Tübingen and Munich managed to arrange a collaboration with a laboratory in Cairo that has the equipment and expertise to analyse residues in pottery using gas chromatography and mass spectrometry. The focus was on terpenoids, organic compounds whose molecular structure is often so specific to a particular plant species that their origin can be determined with a high degree of certainty.