CHAP, vin.] THE BELIEF IN A FUTURE STATE. 289 



manner of the builders of the Egyptian pyramids, while 

 the few articles placed in it with his body may perhaps 

 measure the value placed upon him by the survivors. 



The view that the tombs and their contents imply 

 a belief in a future state is fully borne out by an ap- 

 peal to almost universal habits and modes of thought, 

 current equally among civilised and barbarous peoples. 1 

 The tomb was, to the Neolithic mind, as truly the habit- 

 ation of the spirits of the dead as the hut was that 

 of the living. It was the home of the dead chieftain, 

 and the centre into which the members of the family 

 or clan were gradually gathered, and where they led a 

 joyous and happy life similar to that which they enjoyed 

 on the earth. Hence the offerings made to them, and 

 the superstitions which have clustered round them, to 

 be remarked among the survivals from the Neolithic age 

 into the Historic period. The little cups, bowls, basins, 

 and hollows on some of the slabs of the stone chambers 

 of the tombs were probably intended to hold offerings 

 made to the spirits of the dead, such as those on the 

 capstone of the cromlech 2 at Bonnington Mains, near 

 Eatho, a few miles west of Edinburgh, on one of the 

 props of the cromlech at L'Ancresse, Guernsey, 3 and in 

 many other localities. 4 



1 See Tylor, Primitive Culture, chaps, xi. to xvii. 



2 Wilson, Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, i. p. 95, 2d edit. 



3 Lukis, Journ. Brit. Archeol. Ass. iii. p. 342 ; Archceologia, xxxv. 

 p. 232. 



4 Simpson, British Archaic Sculpturings. Edinburgh, 1867. 



U 



