Author: Cecilia Bembibre, Lecturer in Sustainable Heritage, UCL

When we see objects in museum display cases, it often doesn’t tell their whole story. One thing that tends to get ignored or even lost in the conservation process is the smell. We lose a lot of valuable information as a result, such as how the object was produced or how it functioned. My field is called sensory heritage, which relates to how we engage with heritage objects with senses other than vision. As part of this, I develop methods to identify and preserve culturally significant smells. For example, I have worked with St Paul’s Cathedral to recreate the scent…