The Production of Perfumes in Antiquity: The Cases of Delos and Paestum

Abstract

Perfume production is one of the ancient arts. Although it is well attested in texts from the Egyptian Old Kingdom and the early second millennium in Mesopotamia and Palestine, the sources give us little precise data about early perfume technology. This situation changed at the end of the Hellenistic period, when production was increasingly characterized by larger and more distinctive equipment such as the wedge press. Recent excavations of two perfume shops in Delos and Paestum make it possible to describe the processes used during the Hellenistic period and the early Roman empire. These studies give us the opportunity to evaluate, through texts and inscriptions, the economic importance of perfume making and trade as well as the social status of perfumers.

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