The British Museum works with AromaPrime for new exhibition

The British Museum chose AromaPrime to provide scents for its brand-new Silk Roads exhibition!

For this project, we created a bespoke incense scent. The museum team chose their preferred version, along with the scents of balsam and musk, based on samples we prepared.

Each scent is closely tied to objects and information on display. For example, the exhibition shares an incense recipe that includes Himalayan musk.

The project follows the British Museum's Legion exhibition from earlier this year, where AromaPrime's scents were used to illustrate life in the Roman army. For both exhibitions, visitors have been able to access the scents by lifting flaps over our concealed Aroma Blocks. 'Museum smell boxes', as they are sometimes known, have been made by the museum on both occasions, and they are very simple in design, with small holes for sniffing.

In the meantime, the British Library's Medieval Women exhibition features its own bespoke scent by AromaPrime. Coordinated by AVM Curiosities, a hellish scent was created, based on a Medieval account of a meeting with the Devil. The text describes the 'stink' as being 'so vile and so painful'! The outcome is smoky, fetid, and suggestive of gore and excrement.

The interactive smell station features a visual smoke effect to enhance the presence of the scent.