The history of women in science goes around 6,000 years back to ancient empires in Mesopotamia, often described as the cradle of civilization. Although many of these women’s names have since been lost in time, one of the first women on the field that we have come to know belongs to that of a Babylonian chemist, named Tapputi-Belatekallim, who along with her colleague known only as Ninu, developed formulas, techniques and tools for preparing perfume in Assur, one of the cities in Mesopotamia. According to Cosmos Magazine, a science magazine published in Adelaide, South Australia, Archaeologists have discovered a Bronze Age tablet from ancient Mesopotamia, dated to around 1200 BC, written in cuneiform and carved into damp clay, depicting the details about the life, work and reputation of those two female chemists, perfume makers in the court of the Babylonian King. As a royal perfume-maker, Tapputi was an authority in her field and the official overseer of perfumery in the royal palace.

In ancient Babylon, perfumes were not just cosmetic scents used for beauty purposes, they were required for medicinal purposes and also most commonly used in religious ceremonies as an important symbolic significance, with the belief that the sweet scent of perfume and burning incense would be pleasing to the gods.

Apart from that, a variety of perfumes were needed for the afterlife preparation of the mortal bodies.

However, the makers of the perfumes needed to have a profound knowledge of chemistry, including the processes of distillation and an understanding of the technicalities of extraction and sublimation for making a pleasant perfume, which Tapputi and her colleague wielded well over a millennia ago. It is assumed that Tapputi and Ninu probably have used a wide variety of ingredients, including specially prepared oils, different types of scented flowers and aromatic resins, which were skillfully mixed, pressed and carefully filtered to make a desired fragrant, sweet scents that would fresh the body and mind and also stand the test of time. In addition, she also worked with tinctures, scent extraction and cold enfleurage and developed a technique for using solvents like distilled water and grain alcohol to make the scents lighter, brighter and longer lasting than any other perfume oils, even wrote the first treatise on perfume making, which is now lost. Unfortunately, only one of their surviving recipes, the details of a perfume salve specifically prepared for the use of the Babylonian King made from flowers, oil, and calamus, was found engraved on the clay tablet discovered by the scholars.

Although we know little of Tapputi’s background or personal life beyond the ancient tablet, her skill and performance drew her lots of attention in the royal court, she was well paid and according to the tablet, she was entitled Belatekallilm, which stands for overseer, the official overseer of perfumery in the royal palace.

In the fascinating relic found by the Archaeologists she depicted the necessary steps to be taken one by one to prepare a royal perfume salve, evidencing her claim to be one of the earliest chemical engineers of the world.

It may sound strange, but the equipments used by Tapputi and Ninu to prepare perfumes seems to be co-opted straight from a Babylonian kitchen or modified from everyday utensils and cookware, which suggest that they were the earliest adopters and innovators of equipments required for chemical experiments.

Their lives and activities reveal that probably during those early days, women held high places in STEM fields, the four closely connected areas of study, namely science, technology, engineering and mathematics, as well as in the society. In fact, despite the Mesopotamian society restricted women’s rights only in certain defined fields, many have been recorded as being professional beer and perfume makers, tavern keepers and midwives.