Scientists recreate Europe’s ‘smell of hell’ from historical records

Vivid depictions of various scents in the olden days, including the ominous ‘smell of hell,’ have been the topic of numerous contemporary writings and recently, researchers have managed to recreate it – among other notable historical scents.

Indeed, as part of a research initiative called ODEUROPA, scientists have merged the expertise of multiple disciplines with artificial intelligence (AI) tools to document, reconstruct, and preserve Europe’s historical scents, per a report published by Phys.org on June 28.

Recreating the ‘smell of hell’

Specifically, the project ran from 2021 to 2023 and led to the establishment of the ODEUROPA Smell Explorer, a searchable database of historical smells that has covered over 2.4 million individual instances or mentions of different odors, including the famous smell of the Biblical inferno.

The database has helped British researcher Dr. William Tullett to faithfully recreate the foul odor that people in the olden days believed was the smell of hell. According to Dr. Tullett, an expert on the history of smell and senior lecturer at the University of York in the UK, it helps people connect with history:

“Hell and its symbolism play a major role in European and Christian culture. (…) Smell allows people to have a tangible, authentic, and real engagement with the past.”

Notably, this scientist collected relevant references from the 16th and 17th-century sermons, ranging from the usual sulfur and brimstone to the more spectacular depictions like “a million dead dogs,” to recreate this scent and present it at the 2025 World Expo’s European pavilion in Japan.

The ODEUROPA team has also created an Olfactory Heritage Toolkit with a list of olfactory practices, odors, and “fragrant places” to assist heritage researchers and policymakers in acknowledging and safeguarding smells and smellscapes – scents characterizing a place, environment, or moment in time.

Furthermore, the researchers have developed a self-guided tour of Amsterdam with scratch-and-sniff maps and an Olfactory Storytelling Toolkit, a how-to guide for experts working with smells in museums and heritage sites. They’ve even helped create a scent-based tour at the Museum Ulm in Germany.

Role of AI

Bringing this project to fruition involved reliance on AI models, which the researchers trained on around 43,000 images and 167,000 historical texts in six languages. This way, AI models identified scent references in texts and images from the 16th to the early 20th century, producing relevant knowledge graphs.

Elsewhere, a research team at the Institute of Science Tokyo has created a generative AI model that uses mass spectrometry profiles of essential oils and corresponding odor descriptors to generate essential oil blends for new aromas, automating the process of designing new scents in perfume, food, and home product industries.