Imagine going to a museum.

It has a huge queue, many steps up to its imposingGrand and impressive-looking. door but, nothing inside!

Nothing to see, that is. Breathe in and it is a different story.

Moving through the galleries, you travel through time - from the smell of a feast in Ancient Rome to a 21st-Century brunch in New York, on to the pong of a VictorianThe era when Queen Victoria was on the British throne, from 1837 to 1901.  street, to the stink of a World War One trench.

This museum does not yet exist - but could it?

Researcher Cecilia Bembibre believes historians have ignored smells. They are an essential part of humanity's cultural heritageValued things from the past., she argues: part of what makes places and times unique.

Using cutting-edge techniques, she captures the scent of historic objects, such as old books in the library of St Paul's CathedralOne of London's most famous landmarks, designed by Sir Christopher Wren. This working church was the tallest building in London from 1710 to 1967.. She then works out the different chemicals that go into making that scent in order to reproduce it.

In the future, this could be used to create a museum of smells that might disappear forever.

Odeuropa, a European research project, is undertaking a £2.8m plan to create the first major museum. 

The team is using AIA computer programme that has been designed to think.  to trawl through 250,000 historical documents in seven different languages. They will use the information to create the online Encyclopaedia of Smell Heritage. 

This April, a collaboration with Museum Ulm in Germany opened to visitors. A new guided tour paired scents with artworks that have visual references to smells. 

Martin Schaffner's 1549 painting Christ in Limbo was accompanied by "the harrowing atmosphere of Hell". His earlier work, Portrait of Eisel Besserer, had the altogether nicer smell of pomanderA piece of fragranced jewellery, including nutmeg, cinnamon and rose. They were used to protect the body during plague outbreaks. .

Would a museum of smells be worth it?

Smell is the most powerful sense. The nose can recognise one trillion different odours.

Smell has had a huge impact on culture. The UnescoThe United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation. It aims to promote international cooperation in the arts, education, science and culture. list of intangible cultural heritage includes activities that relate to smell, such as perfume-making in southern France, and festivals in Spain and Columbia.

Smells may also help us, more than anything else, connect with other humans. The novelist Marcel ProustA French novelist who lived from 1871 to 1922.  wrote about how "taste and smell alone" remain when all other memories fail.

Because smells leave no trace, they are overlooked. Unlike more traditional museum objects, we cannot discover old smells lying around.

The smells of the past need to be experienced directly.

Yes: A museum of smells could transform our understanding of both the past and present. Our environment is changing rapidly. We need to preserve the smells around us before they disappear forever.

No: This is a silly idea. Smells are ephemeralLasting for a very short time. - they are made to disappear and we should not try to keep them. To learn from the past, we need sight and touch to read old documents and study objects. 

Or... A real-life museum may be a good idea, but an online encyclopaedia certainly is not. Smells must be experienced to be understood - that cannot happen in the odourless virtual world.