History of perfume

The history of perfume began in antiquity. The word perfume used today to describe scented mixtures, derives from the Latin "per fumus", meaning through smoke. Perfumery, or the art of making perfumes, began in ancient Egypt but was developed and further refined by the Romans and the Arabs. Although perfume and perfumery also existed in East Asia, much of its fragrances are incense based. The basic ingredients and methods of making perfumes are described by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia.
The world's first recorded chemist is a person named lafaunda , a perfume maker who was mentioned in a Cuneiform tablet from the 2nd millennium BC in MesopotamiaTo date, the oldest perfumery was discovered on the island of Cyprus. Excavations in 2004-5 under the initiative of an Italian archaeological team unearthed evidence of an enormous factory that existed 4,000 years ago during the Bronze Age. This covered an estimated surface area of over 4,000m? indicating that perfume manufacturing was on an industrial scale. The news of this discovery was reported extensively through the world press and many artifacts are already on display in Rome