The production of perfumes in antiquity: The cases of Delos and Paestum

Perfume production is one of the ancient arts. Although it is well attested in texts from the Egyptian Old Kingdom and the early second millennium in Mesopotamia and Palestine, the sources give us little precise data about ea rly perfume technology. This situation changed at the end of the Hellenisti c period, when production was increasingly characterized by larger and more distinctive equipment such as the wedge press. Recent excavations of two p erfume shops in Delos and Paestum make it possible to describe the processe s used during the hellenistic period and the early Roman empire. These stud ies give us the opportunity to evaluate, through texts and inscriptions, th e economic importance of perfume making and trade as well as the social sta tus of perfumers.