In Tappūtī’s Workshop: Scent, Evidence, and Everyday Life in Ancient Assyria is a proposal for a portable public-history outreach program that will introduce students (ages12+) and their teachers to ancient Assyria through the surviving evidence for Tappūtī-bēlat-ekalle, a woman associated with the preparation of aromatic substances more than three thousand years ago. Developed as an educational component of the larger Tappūtī Project, the program will transform specialized historical and archaeological scholarship into an accessible, participatory experience built around primary sources, material culture, historical fiction, maps, and historically informed sensory interpretation.
Two questions will guide the program: “How do we know what we think we know about the past?” and “What happens when historical evidence becomes a story?” Rather than simply learning about Tappūtī, participants will investigate how historians, public historians, and historical novelists construct different kinds of narratives from fragmentary evidence.
At the center of the program will be an exploration of the relationship between historical evidence and historical storytelling. In preparation, participants will read selected passages from the first five chapters of the historical novel The Perfumer of Ashur (TPA). During the program, they will encounter the Middle Assyrian cuneiform text KAR 220 (VAT 10165), its modern translations and interpretations, images and reproductions of Assyrian material culture, maps, and evidence concerning aromatic ingredients, trade, labor, and everyday life. Working in small groups, students will compare the world constructed in TPA with the surviving historical evidence, investigating what the evidence supports and where the novelist must rely upon inference or imagination. Safe samples of historically appropriate aromatic materials will add a sensory dimension, not as attempts to reproduce the past with false certainty, but as interpretive tools for considering both the possibilities and limitations of historical reconstruction.
The program will culminate in an exercise asking students to classify elements of Tappūtī’s story as “We Know,” “We Can Reasonably Infer,” or “We Are Imagining.” By making uncertainty visible, the program will model responsible public-history practice while demonstrating how historians and historical novelists may begin with similar evidence but use it differently.
The requested $2,000 grant will support reusable outreach kits containing primary-source reproductions, maps and interpretive materials, aromatic samples and safe sampling containers, activity cards, teacher resources, accessible materials, and portable storage. The project will also confront the ethical and legal responsibilities involved in interpreting history for public audiences, particularly the reproduction of copyrightedmodern translations, photographs, and illustrations of ancient sources. Permissions or licenses will be obtained where necessary, with public-domain or openly licensed alternatives used when appropriate. The project developer is also the author of The Perfumer of Ashur; consequently, the novel will be used not as historical evidence or promotional material, but as a case study through which students can examine the different roles of evidence, inference, and imagination in historical scholarship and historical fiction. Selected excerpts will be provided to participating schools without charge so that access to the program does not depend upon purchasing the novel.
In Tappūtī’s Workshop will use the story of one little-known ancient woman to open a larger window onto Assyrian society, including skilled labor, women’s experiences, technology, trade, writing, material culture, and sensory life. Just as importantly, students will participate in historical interpretation rather than passively receive a finished narrative. Scholarship in sensory history demonstrates the potential of smell as a means of historical inquiry, while public-history and object-based learning scholarship emphasizes participation, questioning, and engagement with evidence.¹ The program therefore treats scent not as an attraction added to history, but as one interpretive tool among many. By asking students to examine the evidence behind a historical narrative and determine where documentation gives way to reconstruction, In Tappūtī’s Workshop will make the process of historical interpretation visible. Through a memorable, accessible, and reusable public-history experience, students will encounter both the richness of the ancient past and the responsibility involved in representing people whose lives survive only in fragments.
Additional Resources
Project development will draw upon scholarly editions and interpretations of KAR 220; research on Middle Assyrian society, aromatic production, material culture, trade, and women’s labor; scholarship in sensory and olfactory history; and research concerning participatory public history and object-based museum learning. Mark M. Smith’s Sensing the Past, the American Historical Review project “Knowing by Sensing,” Thomas Cauvin’s Public History: A Textbook of Practice, and scholarship on participatory and object-based museum interpretation will provide methodological foundations for transforming specialist research into responsible public engagement.² Together, these resources will help ensure that the program remains historically rigorous, publicly accessible, and transparent about the boundaries among evidence, inference, and imagination.
Notes
- Mark M. Smith, Sensing the Past: Seeing, Hearing, Smelling, Tasting, and Touching in History(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007); Inger Leemans et al., “Knowing by Sensing: How to Teach the History of Smell,” American Historical Review 128, no. 3 (2023): 1251–64; Thomas Cauvin, Public History: A Textbook of Practice, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2022).
- Smith, Sensing the Past; Leemans et al., “Knowing by Sensing”; Cauvin, Public History; Nina Simon, The Participatory Museum (Santa Cruz, CA: Museum 2.0, 2010); Tirsa de Kluis, Sanne Romp, and Anne M. Land-Zandstra, “Science Museum Educators’ Views on Object-Based Learning: The Perceived Importance of Authenticity and Touch,” Public Understanding of Science 33, no. 3 (2024).
Bibliography
Cauvin, Thomas. Public History: A Textbook of Practice. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2022.
de Kluis, Tirsa, Sanne Romp, and Anne M. Land-Zandstra. “Science Museum Educators’ Views on Object-Based Learning: The Perceived Importance of Authenticity and Touch.” Public Understanding of Science 33, no. 3 (2024).
Leemans, Inger, William Tullett, Caro Verbeek, Sofia Collette Ehrich, Kate McLean, Cecilia Bembibre, and Victoria-Anne Michel. “Knowing by Sensing: How to Teach the History of Smell.” American Historical Review 128, no. 3 (2023): 1251–64.
Simon, Nina. The Participatory Museum. Santa Cruz, CA: Museum 2.0, 2010.
Smith, Mark M. Sensing the Past: Seeing, Hearing, Smelling, Tasting, and Touching in History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007.