Exhibition promises to make scents of books
Fans of antiquarian books in for a real treat as library reproduces aromas of old books and parchments
An exhibition is to be put on at Oxford University’s Bodleian Library that will delight fans of antiquarian books – by reproducing the mellow aroma of aged bindings and the vanilla-like scent exuded by paper made centuries ago. For the first time, researchers have been able to extract the smell from old books and parchments such as Magna Carta and bottle it. The Institute for Digital Archaeology said people can enjoy “the real smell of the object rather than a fabricated scent”.
AS ANY lover of old books knows, e-readers and Kindles just cannot compete with sticking your nose in the yellowing pages of a leather-bound volume.
Now the experience of smelling the mellow aroma of aged bindings and the vanilla-like scent exuded by paper made centuries ago has been recreated for antiquarian books in an exhibition at a historic library.
For the first time, researchers have been able to extract the smell from books in the collection of Oxford University’s Bodleian Library and bottle it.
The Sensational Books exhibition, due to open next month but now postponed until the autumn, will include scents extracted from the Magna Carta, the great charter of rights originally issued by King John in 1215.
The parchment document was held in Osney Abbey, Oxon, until the dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century, which is where it may have been gnawed on by mice. It is said to have a scent reminiscent of “moist wheat bread and beach sand”. Others compare it to “newly pressed sheets with traces of old socks”.
The evocative aromas have been extracted using carefully non-invasive techniques developed by researchers from the Institute for Digital Archaeology based in Oxford.
The books are placed in a sealed glass cylinder through which air is circulated using a lubricant-free fan. The air passes through three filters of increasing fineness for up to 36 hours.
Any particulates or volatile compounds that carry scents are trapped in the filters. The filters are then sent to a laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where they are analysed through gas chromatography to establish what chemicals have been captured before they are put in an ordinary domestic blender. They are then turned into a paste which is dried and powdered.
Once the compounds have been identified, the smell can be bottled or, if necessary, recreated using a perfumer’s standard palette of scents.
The oldest manuscripts in the exhibition are fragments of Egyptian papyrus found alongside fragments bearing extracts from Homer that were dated to around AD150.
Another book from the Bodleian’s collection is a 14th-century Ethiopian gospel bound in leather, wood and cloth that has become infused with the smell of incense and wood.
The smell of an antiquarian book varies depending on the materials, including ink and paper, that were used at the time it was made. Chemicals released in the ageing process include volatile compounds such as toluene, which imparts a sweet vanillalike odour and almond-like furfural and benzaldehyde. Paper also absorbs
smells. A manuscript written by
CS Lewis, author of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, still smells of his powerful pipe tobacco.
As a light-hearted aside the researchers are also extracting the smell of a privately owned 1597 copy of Romeo and Juliet that William Shakespeare himself might have handled. Molecules from it will be mixed with a scent specially developed by perfumers.
The Bodleian also has a First Folio once owned by the 18th-century Shakespearean scholar Edward Malone. The result is the book has a complex aroma with as many layers as a fine wine, as befits one of the world’s most valuable volumes.
Roger Michel, of the Institute for Digital Archaeology, said: “All the books in the exhibition were sufficiently smelly to use odour we have extracted rather than us having to recreate it, so you are getting the real smell of the object rather than a fabricated scent.”