The scent of antiquity, “Rodo” (Rose) has the feel of a primitive scented oil and is among the exhibits in the National Archaeological Museum’s temporary exhibition hall in Athens, adding another facet to a never-ending search.
The scent was created in the context of “Countless Aspects of Beauty,” the museum’s latest major temporary exhibition and the last installment in a trilogy of shows to celebrate the museum’s 150th anniversary. The exhibition opened to the public on Saturday, May 26.
The “optimistic” exhibition, as the museum’s director, Dr Maria Lagogianni-Georgakarakos calls it, explores the archaeology of the senses, revealing a diversity that is underpinned by something universal. There are many expressions of beauty that have been preserved to this day and the exhibition covers a period from the Neolithic to Late Antiquity through 340 artifacts from the museum’s collections.
The star of the exhibition is that multifaceted expert in love and beauty, the goddess Aphrodite, who “welcomes” visitors half nude, draped in a himation (a type of ancient Greek garment) and escorted by a sleeping Eros. All around her, a host of artworks shed light on diverse aspects of beauty, including grooming and fashion through the ages, among others. But no historical find – not even the exhibition’s ancient stirrup jars that were once used to store perfumes – carries a trace of the scents of antiquity.
The idea to create “ancient perfumes” in an attempt to approach antiquity through the sense of olfaction came from Lagogianni. Researchers from the R&D arm of the Korres cosmetics company took on the task of creating three scented oils using the same raw materials and methodologies as ancient perfumers did.
The two sides started discussing the project in January of 2017. “Certainly the scent operates as a means of communication – we fall in love through sight, but also possibly through scent,” Lagogianni says, adding that the attempt to recreate an ancient perfume for the exhibition was part of an effort to “restore forgotten sensory experiences of the ancient world and to offer an original experience.”
Read full story at ekathimerini.com
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Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons Copyright: Thomas Wolf License: CC-BY-SA
