Tapputi is considered to be the world’s first recorded chemist, a perfume-maker mentioned in a cuneiform tablet dated around 1200 BC in Babylonian Mesopotamia.
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Tapputi is also referred to as Tapputi-Belatekallim. "Belatekallim" refers to a female overseer of a palace. She was an overseer at the Royal Palace and worked with another female researcher named (—)-ninu.
She used flowers, oil, and calamus (sweet flag) along with cyprus, myrrh, and balsam. She added water or other solvents then distilled and filtered several times. This is also the oldest referenced still.
Learn more about women in the history of science:
Houlihan, Sherida; Wotiz, John H. (June 1975), "Women in chemistry before 1900", Journal of Chemical Education, 52 (6): 362, Bibcode:1975JChEd..52..362H, doi:10.1021/ed052p362
Gabriele Kass-Simon; Patricia Farnes; Deborah Nash, eds. (1999). Women of Science: Righting the Record (First Midland Book ed.). Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana Univ. Press. p. 301. ISBN 9780253208132.
Levey, Martin (1973). Early Arabic Pharmacology: An Introduction Based on Ancient and Medieval Sources. Brill Archive. p. 9. ISBN 90-04-03796-9.
Rayner-Canham, Marelene, and Geoffrey Rayner-Canham. Women in Chemistry: Their Changing Roles from Alchemical Times to the Mid-Twentieth Century. First edition. Chemical Heritage Foundation, 9 June 2005. 1. Print.