Renowned Perfumer Leads Aromatic Journey Along Silk Road

Thursday, January 14 4:35 pm

Renowned perfumer Mandy Aftel, the nose behind Aftelier perfumes, will lead visitors on an aromatic journey at the Museum’s January 20 Adventures in the Global Kitchen: Aromatics Along the Silk Road. She recently answered some questions about the upcoming talk, discussing the fascinating world of fragrances.

How has the human sense of smell evolved?

It’s the root sense. Processed in the amygdala, the primordial part of the brain, the sense is humans at our most primitive. The ability to smell well was key to survival for the individual and the species. But while the transition from all fours to upright was a giant step for mankind, it was a big step backward for our sense of smell. The primacy of the olfactory system has faded. An ever-more artificially scented world has dulled and overwhelmed our ability to smell with nuance and sophistication.

In what ways have fragrances and perfumes impacted world history? How important were aromatics to the trade along the legendary Silk Road?

From earliest times, people have taken pleasure in rubbing fragrant substances into their skin. Timeless and universal, scent has been a powerful force in ritual, medicine, myth, and colonial conquest. Aromatics were highly prized articles of luxury and refinement in the ancient world, and trade routes developed in part around the relentless pursuit of perfume ingredients. From remote civilizations, caravans and ships brought cinnamon from Africa, spikenard and cardamom from India, ginger, nutmeg, saffron, and cloves from Indonesia.

What makes smell such a powerful sense?

Smell is the only sense that connects directly to the limbic system of the brain, the center of taste, emotion, and memory. This direct link gives scent its emotional power, and it is why we form strong attachments to things that smell or taste good. We have all had memories like the narrator of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, who is brought back to his childhood by the taste of crumbs of madeleine mixed with tea. Scent links us to our memories, it is a direct connection to our emotional life. Read more »

The Museum in Pictures

9:05 am

A dinosaur tail hauled to the exhibit hall, a teeth-cleaning for a killer whale replica, and a restorer swinging in the jaws of a prehistoric shark: these are just three amazing images from the rich photographic record of education and exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History available in the online collection Picturing the Museum.

“Anyone who loves the Museum will be completely entranced by this website. My father used to bring me to the Museum when I was a kid, and this is where I discovered the joy of intellectual discovery,” says Museum Archivist Barbara Mathé, head of Special Collections at the Museum’s Research Library.

Picturing the Museum features nearly a thousand historic images, including photographs of the Museum’s world-famous dioramas, behind-the-scenes glimpses at exhibition preparation, and educational programs. The Research Library began the project after receiving a digitization grant from the Metropolitan New York Library Council and continues to scan additional photos, with the ultimate goal of creating an image database documenting the Museum’s work worldwide.

“Every time I look, I find a new favorite,” says the Library’s Acting Director Tom Baione.

To find out more about the Research Library’s collections, visit the library’s website.

Ray De Lucia and Matt Kalmenoff working on Killer Whale Group, Hall of Ocean Life in 1927 © AMNH/H.S. Rice

This photo was taken while the fossil jaws of a prehistoric shark, or Carcharodon megalodon, underwent restoration in 1927 © AMNH/H.S. Rice

Museum staff move the colossal Apatosaurus tail in 1938 © AMNH/C. Coles

A Look at One Step Beyond

Wednesday, January 13 10:06 am

The American Museum of Natural History’s One Step Beyond kicked off 2010 with DJs Fischerspooner and Animal Collective playing to a sold-out crowd inside the Rose Center for Earth and Space. Presented with The Fader magazine, One Step Beyond is a new 21-or-older monthly series featuring live bands, DJs, and VJs presenting the hottest music and projected dynamic visuals while guests drink and dance the night away.

Check out photos from this month’s event.

Author Tom Standage Talks Food on the Silk Road

Wednesday, January 06 1:41 pm

Tom Standage, author of An Edible History of Humanity, will be one of the featured speakers at the Museum’s January 14 panel Curry Economics: Food as a Driving Force of Economic Development. He recently answered some questions about the upcoming talk, discussing food’s effect on industrialization, the “green revolution” and the Silk Road.

Food trade routes such as the ancient Silk Road have always been important networks for the transmission of ideas, science, and culture. What are some of foods that have spurred international trade?

The classical example is spices. The term generally refers to non-perishable foodstuffs, found only in some parts of the world, that have a high value-to-weight ratio: pepper, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg and so on. The fact that they are non-perishable and very valuable means they can be traded over long distances. Their value stems from their scarcity and from their mysterious origins — spices were thought to have magical properties. The network of spice-trading routes, including the Silk Road, was the largest trade network in the ancient world. Europeans, motivated by a desire to find the sources of the spices and cut out the Arab middlemen, revealed the true geography of the world, opening up sea routes to the Americas and around the tip of Africa to the Indian Ocean.

Is there a contemporary example?

Countries including Argentina and New Zealand have industrialized on the back of food exports to other countries, and Kenya does a roaring trade exporting exotic vegetables to Europe. Fans of “local food” oppose this, of course. But restricting food trade is tantamount to denying opportunities for economic development to many countries.

You’re speaking at the Museum on January 14 as part of a panel on “Curry Economics: Food as a Driving Force of Economic Development.” Can you give an example of how food has driven industrialization?

Britain was the first country to industrialize, and food played a crucial role. Agricultural productivity increased in the 18th century, liberating people from the land to work in small-scale manufacturing. New farming techniques and crops also led to a population boom. This in turn prompted the clearance of coppice land so that it could be used to produce food rather than wood for fuel. Britain could do this because it had abundant coal. The need to pump water out of coal mines led to the development of the steam engine, which was then put to work in manufacturing. Voilá: industrial revolution.

Read more »

Provost Michael Novacek Discusses Deforestation on Worldfocus

Tuesday, January 05 10:56 am

In a recent appearance on the nightly broadcast program Worldfocus, the Museum’s Provost of Science Michael J. Novacek discussed threats posed to climate and biodiversity by intensive deforestation around the world.

“There’s just too much forest being lost,” said Novacek, whose books include The Biodiversity Crisis: Losing What Counts and Terra: Our 100 Million-Year-Old Ecosystem—and the Threats That Now Put It at Risk. “There’s millions of species working together in ecosystems, and they’re not only important for driving the functions of the natural world, but they’re also the sources of food, medicine, and natural resources. By cutting away these forests,
we’re really losing species.”

Watch the full interview below.