A European street today may smell like coffee, fresh-baked bread and cigarettes. ? Historians and scientists across Europe have now gotten together with perfumers (香水制造者) and museums for a unique project called "Odeuropa"—to capture what Europe smelled like between the 16th and early 20th centuries.
To successfully finish this three-year-long project, the researchers need to find all the old scents of Europe-and even recreate some of this ancient smellscape. To do this, they will first build artificial intelligence that will be trained to scan historical texts, written in seven different languages, for any descriptions of smells. .
The "Encyclopedia (百科全书) of Smell Heritage" will include the meaning of certain scents and will trace the stories behind scents, places and olfactory (嗅觉的) practices. , enabling future generations to access and learn about the scented past.
, such as doctors. In the past, herbs were often used by European doctors to heal the sick. They smell special and their scents should be included in the encyclopedia. But just as history is filled with interesting and pleasant smells, it's also filled with stinky (非常难闻的) ones.
"I find it particularly interesting to make the audience know about a whole range of scents such as a stinky canal," said Caro Verbeek, a scent historian and member of the Odeuropa team. "It will make us more aware of how we relate to smell today and how differently smells were appreciated in the past. With current technology, almost every scent can be produced. . People haven't always talked or written about them."
A. It expressed a longing for the countryside life
B. But what did it smell like hundreds of years ago
C. Why is it filled with interesting and pleasant smells
D. It will become a record for the smell heritage of Europe
E. The more difficult part of the project will be to find descriptions of scents
F. The encyclopedia will also include descriptions of people for whom smell was important
G. The team will then use the information to create an encyclopedia of smells from Europe's past
