The word perfume is derived from the Latin perfumare, meaning "to smoke through".[3] Perfumery, as the art of making perfumes, began in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley civilization and possibly Ancient China.[4] It was further refined by the Romans and the Muslims.
The world's first-recorded chemist is considered to be a woman named Tapputi, a perfume maker mentioned in a cuneiform tablet from the 2nd millennium BC in Mesopotamia.[5] She distilled flowers, oil, and calamus with other aromatics, then filtered and put them back in the still several times.[6]
On the Indian subcontinent, perfume and perfumery existed in the Indus civilization (3300 BC – 1300 BC).[7]
