Today, Tapputi is believed to be the first recorded chemist in history. She was born in the middle of the 12th century B.C. and was an important chemist in the field of perfumery in Babylon. Her name shows the importance she had in her time, probably making perfumes for the royal court, as "Belatekallim" means "Head of Household".
Records of the perfumer were found through excavations in present-day Iraq (ancient Babylon), and cuneiform tablets from the 2nd millennium B.C. with the name Tapputi were found. In this clay tablet dated 1200 B.C., Taputti is described as a housewife. At that time in Mesopotamia, the role of women was mainly cooking, making drinks, cleaning and taking care of the house. As such, it is believed that Taputti began her journey into chemistry and perfumery with cooking utensils, mixing numerous ingredients and discovering the chemistry behind their actions.
“A clay tablet filled with cuneiform writing and dated to around 1200 BCE reports that she adapted cooking equipment and used different plants to create a range of aromatic essences." (CORDEIRO, 2018)
Perfumery may often not seem like something chemical, but the process of creating perfumes and the technique of making the perfume's scent last a long time involves a lot of study and chemical processes. It is believed that Tapputi's perfumes, unlike those of other chemists of the time, were made with an alcohol base instead of a fat base, since when applied to the person, the alcohol would evaporate and leave only the fragrance, making the scent last longer. This technique is very modern and is still used today in the making of perfumes. It is also believed that Taputti was one of the pioneers in the distillation process, since she was one of the only people to use alcohol in the making of perfumes, she needed to distill her own alcohol.
Distillation, illustrated in the picture on the side, is a chemical process to separate liquids of different boiling points. The liquid with the lower boiling temperature evaporates, and as it travels down the tube, the vapor of the substance passes through a portion of the tube surrounded by water and condenses, separating the liquids.
The perfumes were used in religious rituals and for perfuming oneself, but it is believed that numerous perfumes made by Taputti had medicinal purposes.
The tablet found says that Taputti worked with another woman whose beginning of her name is not visible, but the end of the name is -ninu. One of Taputti and Ninu's recipes was visible and has survived time. This recipe was a perfume for the king and some of the ingredients used were: Myrrh, oil, flowers and calamus - a plant with medicinal purposes used mainly for digestive problems, but can also be used for its fragrance.
Taputti and Ninu serve as an inspiration because they are women chemists, but also because Taputti was the head of the house. So we see that women are always actively finding their way into science, whether it is by adapting household utensils to develop the distillation process, or exporting plants around the world, as Hatshepsut did. And besides all this, Taputti and Ninu were not the only female chemists of the time. Many of the chemical devices of the time, as described in the book: “Babylonian Chemistry: A Study of Arabic and Second Millenium B.C. Perfumery”, exemplify that there were not only Taputti and Ninu as chemists at that time, as the devices appear to be adapted household and cooking utensils. Therefore, because most women were engaged in housework and cooking, it is believed that there were more women chemists at the time, something we will unfortunately never know for sure. (“Babylonian Chemistry: A Study of Arabic and Second Millenium B.C. Perfumery on JSTOR,” 2022 pg.7).
Fontes:
SCISHOW. Tapputi-Belatekallim: The First Chemical Engineer | Great MindsYouTube, 8 jan. 2021. Disponível em: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baHU3GL2J-Y>.
Tapputi- Belatekallim. Disponível em: <http://mulheresnaciencia-mc.blogspot.com/2013/10/tapputi-belatekallim.html>.
CORDEIRO, T. Mulheres que mudaram a história: Tapputi. Disponível em: <https://super.abril.com.br/mundo-estranho/mulheres-que-marcaram-a-historia-tapputi/>.
HELMENSTINE, A. Who Was the First Chemist? A Woman Named Tapputi. Disponível em: <https://sciencenotes.org/who-was-the-first-chemist/>.
ZING TSJENG. Don’t forget Tapputi-Belatekallim. Disponível em: <https://cosmosmagazine.com/history/forgotten-women-in-science-tapputi-belatekallim/>.
TUA SAÚDE. Cálamo. Disponível em: <https://www.tuasaude.com/calamo/>.
Levey, Martin. “Babylonian Chemistry: A Study of Arabic and Second Millenium B.C. Perfumery.” Osiris 12 (1956): 376–89. Disponível em: <https://www.jstor.org/stable/301716?read-now=1&seq=7#metadata_info_tab_contents>.
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