Dr. Cheryl Ward on “God's Breath and Nefertiti's Secret: Ancient Perfumes and their Shipwrecked Ingredients.”

 

Wednesday, February 19, 2025 at 6pm CT on Zoom 

As always, this event is free and open to the public, but please pre-register via our partner, the University of St Thomas Department of Art History  

(scroll down to Events, the event will be posted in February)

 

Lecture Summary: Just as people use the finest ingredients available to manufacture perfumes and aromatic substances today, exotic resins and oils from plant flowers and stems created a wealth of scents in ancient times. Pharaonic voyages to Punt on the Red Sea sought frankincense and myrrh. Ancient Egyptian poetry from the time of the pharaoh Tutankhamen opens a window into perceptions of perfumes and their power, and a ship that wrecked off the southern coast of Turkey offers up physical evidence of the importance of trade in aromatics at that time. Mycenaean palace bookkeepers, the writings of ancient naturalists, and even Egyptian love poetry bring us into the ancient world world, where simple techniques still practiced in the finest perfumeries transformed plants and plant products into gateways to paradise.

About the speaker: Cheryl Ward is Director of the Center for Archaeology and Anthropology, and Associate Professor and Marine Archaeologist with Coastal Carolina University’s Department of History.  She holds an M.A. and  Ph.D. in Anthropology from Texas A&M University, and an M.S. in Bioarchaeology from the University of London’s Institute of Archaeology.  Professor Ward specializes in maritime archaeology, ancient Egyptain ships, and archaeobotany.  She has done fieldwork in Turkey (Uluburun and Cilicia), Egypt (Sadana Island, Lisht, Abydos, Wadi Gawasis), and in the Black Sea, Mediterranean, Red Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and Indian Ocean.  Her recent publications include “Pharonic ship remains at Mersa/Wadi Gawasis” (International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 39.1, 2010).

Short bibliography:
1993 C. [Ward] Haldane, "Direct evidence for organic cargoes in the Late Bronze Age," World Archaeology 24: 348-60.
1990 C. [Ward] Haldane, "Shipwrecked plant remains," Biblical Archaeologist 53:55-60