Cultivators: Tapputi

Womanica

Wonder Media Network and iHeartPodcasts

Society & Culture, Education, History

4.3 • 920 Ratings

🗓️ 8 April 2025

⏱️ 6 minutes

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Summary

Tapputi is widely regarded as one of the first known chemists, and her name appears in a Mesopotamian cuneiform tablet dating to approximately 1200 BCE. She is believed to have worked in the Babylonian royal palace, where she held the title of “Belatekallim,” meaning a female overseer or supervisor. Tapputi is most famous for making perfumes, the descriptions of her work provide some of the earliest documented evidence of chemical distillation and solvent use—techniques that form the foundation of modern chemistry.

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0:00.0	I'm Nicola Cochlin and for BBC Radio 4, this is history's youngest heroes. Rebellion, risk and the radical power of youth.
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0:14.8	Twelve stories of extraordinary young people from across history.
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0:21.0	That resistance has to be mounted.
0:22.4	It has to be mounted now.
0:24.4	Follow History's youngest heroes, wherever you get your podcasts.
0:30.5	In Mississippi, Yazoo Clay keeps secrets.
0:34.3	Seven thousand bodies out there or more. A forgotten asylum cemetery. It was my family's
0:41.4	mystery. Shame, guilt, propriety, something keeps it all buried deep until it's not. I'm Larison
0:50.4	Campbell and this is under Yazoo Clay. Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
1:03.0	Hello, my name is Carmen Borka Carrillo. I'm a producer here at Wonder Media Network, and I'm so excited to be guest hosting this episode of Womanica.
1:13.7	This month, we're talking about cultivators.
1:16.7	Women who nurtured, cross-pollinated, experimented, or went to great lengths to better understand and protect the natural world.
1:23.9	Today, we're talking about the first recorded chemist in history.
1:27.5	She knew how to extract fragrance from plants and flowers through a sophisticated process.
1:32.2	That's still a cornerstone of modern chemistry and perfume making.
1:37.0	Let's talk about Taputi.
1:40.4	The little we know about Taputti's life comes from fragments of clay tablets that date back thousands of years.
1:47.0	It's believed to Puti lived around the year 1200 BC in Mesopotamia, which means the land between the rivers.
1:55.0	The rivers were the Tigris and the Euphrates, which continue to be sources of water for present-day Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq.
2:04.6	Mesopotamia is known as the cradle of civilization, where early advancements in math,
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