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Perfume began in Mesopotamia as incense offered to the gods to sweeten the smell of animal flesh burned as offerings, and it was used in exorcisms, to heal the sick, and after sexual intercourse. The word’s Latin etymology tells us how it worked: per = through + fumar to smoke. Tossed onto a fire, incense would fill the sky with a smoke otherworldly and magical, which stung the nostrils as if clamorous spirits were clawing their way into the body. Perfumed smoke began with the things of this earth but climbed quickly into the realm of the gods. Atop the famous ziggurat-shaped Tower of Babel, which stretched closer to the gods than mortals could reach, priests lit pyres of incense.
— Diane Ackerman, ‘Smell: An Offering to the Gods’ A Natural History of the Senses