Scientists from Munich and Tübingen report in Nature today that they analysed embalming material from 1500BC, found at Deir-el-Bahari in Egypt. They identified compounds found in cedar oil. But cedar oil is difficult to extract and some Egyptologists have argued that Pliny got it wrong when he wrote, in the 1st century AD, about "cedar juice". Herodotus, five centuries earlier, also described liquid cedar for preserving flesh. But the Egyptians, said the experts, would have used juniper.
But the German team report that oils and tars from juniper trees contain substances confusingly called cedrol and cedrene - and neither of these was in the embalming material. The Egyptians would have rubbed the precious cedar resin on the body - and into the body cavities - to act as an insecticide and antimicrobial.