The word perfume derives from the Latin perfumare. meaning “to smoke through”. Perfumery, as the art of making perfumes, began in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley Civilization and possibly Ancient China. On the Indian subcontinent, perfume and perfumery existed in the Indus civilization (3300 BC – 1300 BC). The oldest perfumes ever found were discovered by archeologists in Cyprus. They were more than four thousand years old.