Pottery shards, coins, and bones can survive for millennia beneath the soil, but the scents of antiquity typically escape archaeological recovery. Now, for the first time, an interdisciplinary team of researchers has comprehensively analyzed the production, technology, and contents of 51 ceramic oil vessels from the Phoenician settlement of Motya, located on an island off the coast of Sicily. Their findings reveal the central role of scent in shaping identity, memory, and cross-cultural exchange in the Mediterranean region during the Iron Age. Researchers from the University of Tübingen and the Complutense University of Madrid led the study. It has been published in the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory . The vessels examined – plain, small ceramic bottles measuring between
