1. Working under the banner Odeuropa, a group of chemists and historians have spent more than two years isolating and reproducing key scents associated with significant moments and locations.

2. We want to see a multisensory approach,” said Cecilia Bembibre, a lecturer in sustainable heritage at University College London (UCL).

3. The wider project, funded by a €2.8m grant from the EU’s Horizon programme in 2020, aims to establish the science of olfactory history by drawing on visual and written evidence to put together the key smells generated by outdated trades, habits and diets.

4. By exposing digital search tools to a succession of similar images, researchers can create an algorithm that recognises gestures in other illustrations.

5. Eventually this work will allow the collection of an encyclopedia of historic smells, a side element of the project being led by Dr William Tullett at Anglia Ruskin.

6. Olfactory cues, the researchers argue, should also be saved for posterity, not just visual, physical and written ones.

7. Odeuropa is also researching the smell of incense and its historical and cultural significance.