What does Europe smell like?
This is the interesting question that scientists have sought to document answers to in what is described as the first international research project to explore the scents of the past and the present.
In his report published in the British newspaper "The Independent", writer Tom Batchelor said that a selection of European smells will be reconfigured and preserved and the team's results will be published in the "Encyclopedia of Scent Heritage" on the Internet.
A group of researchers known as the Odeuropa consortium plans to document familiar scents such as tobacco and uncommon like dung flakes and smelling salts (ammonia) dating back to the 18th century, by borrowing expertise from the worlds of history, art, computational linguistics and chemistry.
It is noteworthy that the project, which was announced last Tuesday, is funded by a grant of 2.8 million euros from the European program "Horizon 2020".
The European Union made it clear that it would seek to discover the main scents and aromatic spaces that shaped European cultures, and how societies dealt with difficult or dangerous odors, using artificial intelligence techniques.
The newly formed database will become an archive of European scents through the ages, from the motor oil and ozone found in texts written by Italian Futurists to the fragrant tobacco used by perfumers.
Tobacco is a central scent in European history and heritage (Getty Images)
According to the research team, "Our sense of smell is directly related to our feelings and memories more than any other sense."
Inger Lymans, the lead author of the research, said her team "will dive into digital heritage collections to discover key scents from Europe and bring them back to the memory of the nose."
William Tollett, of Anglia Ruskin University, was quoted by the writer as saying, "For me, tobacco is a central scent in European history and heritage. It is a spicy, pungent and smoky smell, but of course it is not the only scent at all, because perfumers, tobacco merchants, and grocery stores have tried scented tobacco in various ways." Roads. "
"As a historian, it is also very interesting to me because it is linked to social history, trade and colonialism, as well as health," he said.
Professor Matija Strlich, University College London, believes that "ancient odors, or the smells of things, tell us a lot about how these things degrade, how they can be preserved, and how they can be preserved as well."
The Odeuropa project will be led by a team of researchers from all over the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, France and Slovenia.
The writer pointed out that Horizon 2020 is a European Union research and innovation program with a budget of 80 billion euros and will continue over a period of 7 years. It aims to achieve scientific achievements through the development and commercialization of ideas created in the laboratory.