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Tapputi
Tapputi
Tapputi
The history of women in science doesn’t just go back to tales of female scientists and
philosophers such as Hypatia of Alexandria; it also extends some 6,000 years back to
ancient empires in Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization. Many of these women’s
names have since been lost in time and all that remains of them are depictions of their
likenesses in stone carvings. But one of the first known chemist was a women: Tapputi
(c.1200 BCE).
In ancient Babylon, perfumes were not just cosmetic scents for beauty purposes: they
were fragranced substances that were required for medicinal purposes and religious
rituals i.e., perfume and burning incense was considered to form a bridge between gods
and men, and offered the possibility of communing with the divine. In addition, it was
believed that sweet scents were pleasing to the gods, and so bodies prepared for the
afterlife needed to be treated with a variety of perfumes.
She describes the process of refining the ingredients in her ‘still’: a chemical apparatus
for distilling and filtering liquids. Advanced versions of such equipment remain in use in
labs today, but Tapputi’s reference to a still is the oldest in human history. That makes
her one of the earliest chemical engineers that we know of.
As any modern day perfumer will tell you, the creation of perfumes, even for cosmetic
reasons alone doesn’t just entail mixing up scents to see what smells nicest. It requires
an intimate knowledge of chemistry and an understanding of technical processes such
as extraction and sublimation. Tapputi wielded these skills well over a millennia ago.
She is genuinely an inspirational icons for female perfumers, scent chemists and the
weirdo little girls that dream of becoming perfumers and chemists.