The present-day discipline of chemistry dates back to the 17th or 18th century,
but the methods chemists use are actually a lot older than that.
And one of the earliest mentions of chemical techniques comes from
Ancient Babylon, in a tablet written about a woman
named Tapputi-Belatekallim -- making her possibly history’s first recorded chemist.
Now because she lived so long ago,
records of her life are a little sparse, but we do know a few things.
We know that she was a Babylonian noblewoman who lived sometime around 1200 BCE.
She worked as a perfumer, and was known for making perfumes of exceptional quality.
Perfume doesn’t seem scientific at first glance,
but making good perfumes is a very technical process. In Ancient Babylon,
perfumes and other fragrant substances were held in very high regard.
At the time, perfumes had four main uses. They were used for cosmetics,
just as they are today, but they were also for ritual and magical purposes.
And they were also used as medicine.
The Babylonians used essential oils and salves to treat infections,
so an early perfumer would also have been kind of like a pharmacist.
This means that a good perfumer would be highly prized, and from Tapputi’s name,
we can tell that she was well-regarded in society.
The name Belatekallim means ‘overseer’ or ‘head of household’, and historians say
that this name means that Tapputi was likely in charge of perfumery in the royal court.
And her importance likely derived from the quality of her perfumes.
At the time, ancient perfume makers usually made their perfumes by adding fragrances to
oils and fats. These were heavy salves that often didn’t hold their scent for very long.
The perfumers of ancient Babylon, however, combined multiple scents into one perfume
and used solvents to create the final product. This meant that her perfumes were probably
alcohol-based, and once applied, the solvent would evaporate, leaving only the scent behind.
If that sounds familiar to you, it’s because this is very similar to modern perfumes,
which are mostly ethyl alcohol with essential oils as fragrances.
In fact, Tapputi may have had to distill her own alcohol to make her perfumes.
Records of her life are also the first historical references to the process of distillation.
Distillation, a chemical procedure used to separate liquids that have two different
boiling points, uses a device called a still. This can be used to purify alcohol,
which is why distilled spirits are stronger than wine or beer.
But it can also be used to separate other solutions.
During distillation, a solution of multiple liquids is heated until it starts to boil.
Because the liquids have different boiling points,
the vapors are mostly made up of the compound with the lowest boiling point.
These vapors travel through a condenser, which is cooled with water,
and the vapors condense back into liquid. The liquid is collected, and the distillation step
can be repeated as necessary to purify whatever it is you’re trying to purify.
Distillation is one of the most basic chemistry techniques, and it is still used a lot.
The fact that we know Tapputi developed her own chemical methods, and used equipment like a still,
in 1200 BCE makes her the first recorded chemical engineer.
But distillation isn’t all it takes to make perfume. That gives you alcohol for
the solvent, but you still need the smelly parts.
Tapputi used a technique called cold enfleurage to extract scents, which is where a fat,
like lard or tallow, is infused with a scent from fragrant plants over the course of a few days.
Fragrant compounds are often soluble in oils, so they would diffuse
from the plant into the fat and remain there after the plant material was removed.
Archaeologists believe the Babylonians may also have used sublimation to create their perfumes.
That’s a chemical process where fragrant compounds were extracted
from their source by converting them from solid form into a gas.
The gaseous compounds were then condensed into a purified liquid,
which lets you keep all the fragrant parts while throwing away the other, non-fragrant compounds.
This was a long, involved process,
with recipes taking at least a week to complete, and possibly longer.
This means that ancient perfumers would have needed considerable technical expertise.
One of the records Tapputi left behind is a recipe for a salve she made for the Babylonian king,
an ointment that contained water, flowers, oil, and calamus. The ointment was probably scented
using techniques like these.
It’s worth noting that Tapputi wasn’t the only woman in her field at the time.
The texts mention another woman in the field, also considered an authority on perfuming.
We know her as Ninu, though that was only part of her name. Unfortunately,
because the record is fragmentary, her full name is lost to history.
We can’t really know what life was like for someone who lived so long ago,
and calling Tapputi “the first chemical engineer” is ultimately a modern interpretation.
But we know that Tapputi and Ninu were two women working in a highly technical field,
using methods and equipment still relevant today, and that Tapputi herself
was considered a leading figure in her profession.
And the fact that their work is remembered nearly three and a half
millennia later makes them chemists worth talking about.
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