'Scent and the City:' Smelling an exhibition in Istanbul

It's hard to imagine that scent takes the crown as the most powerful of the five senses, while most often the other four are given credit in various narratives from arts and literature to history and travel. A recent exhibition by Koç University's Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations (ANAMED) will hopefully help restore smellscape as a distinctive space for historical and cultural debate.

Following on the success of its previous exhibition "Everyday Sounds: Exploring Sound through Daily Life," which offered a unique sensory experience on the soundscapes of urban life, ANAMED now takes its craft one step further with the "Scent and the City" exhibition, which asks visitors to discover four millennia of civilizations through their noses.

From historically significant scents such as saffron, frankincense and agarwood to contemporary scents such as cologne, linden trees and burning coal, more than 50 scents are on exhibit and can be visited until June 8 at ANAMED Gallery in Istanbul's Beyo?lu district. The scents are drawn from literature, rituals, traditions and the economy, spanning a period of 3,500 years, from the Hittite, Ancient Greek and Roman civilizations to the Byzantine and Ottoman empires.

"There are many continuities between past and present smellscapes," said Lauren Nicole Davis, curator of the exhibition and a PhD candidate and teaching assistant at the Department of Archaeology and History of Art at Koç University, to Hürriyet Daily News. "Smells have long been associated with religious rituals and continue to be so. Recipes and cuisines have been developed and passed down over centuries and generations."

Bringing together smellscapes

"There are so many differences between the smellscapes of today...