Babylonian perfume-maker, considered to be the world's first recorded chemist
Tapputi, also referred to as Tapputi-Belatekallim ("Belatekallim" refers to a female overseer of a palace),[1] is one of the world's first recorded chemists, a perfume-maker mentioned in a cuneiform tablet dated around 1200 BC in BabylonianMesopotamia.[2] She used flowers, oil, and calamus along with cyperus, myrrh, and balsam. She added water or other solvents then distilled and filtered several times.[3] This is also the oldest referenced still.
She also was an overseer at the Royal Palace, and worked with a researcher named (—)-ninu (the first part of her name has been lost).[4]
Work
Tapputi used the first recorded still and wrote the first known treatise on perfume making, which is preserved on a clay tablet. She developed a technique using solvents in order to make scents lighter and longer lasting.[5][better source needed]
In popular culture
Tapputi is one of the main characters of the animated webseries Super Science Friends
^Levey, Martin (1973). Early Arabic Pharmacology: An Introduction Based on Ancient and Medieval Sources. Brill Archive. p. 9. ISBN90-04-03796-9.
^Rayner-Canham, Marelene, and Geoffrey Rayner-Canham. Women in Chemistry: Their Changing Roles from Alchemical Times to the Mid-Twentieth Century. First edition. Chemical Heritage Foundation, 9 June 2005. 1. Print.
