TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 647 
became magnified into the belief in the necessity of providing a house strong 
enough to endure and prevent the possibility of a houseless spirit wandering at 
large and making itself a nuisance to the living. ; 
Thus, when the mastaba type of grave was made, for example, to bury 
an Egyptian dying in a foreign land, where skilled craftsmen to carve statues 
and cut burial shafts deep in the rock were unobtainable, the serdab was not 
only still retained, although there was no statue to put in it, but it even 
increased in size and importance. 
It became a chamber built, in many instances, of huge masses of stone, so 
as to ensure the permanency necessary to keep the spirit ‘at home.’ The stela 
likewise persisted, and became the ‘holed stone’ of the dolmen—the hole being 
the representative of the slit of communication between the chapel and the 
serdab in the mastaba. Sometimes in contemporary subterranean rock-cut 
tombs imitating the dolmen rough bas-relief were carved upon the inner wall 
of the serdab chamber to represent the status of the old Egyptian tomb; but 
more often such crude pictures were made on the walls in the chapel (or 
portico) corresponding to the portraits of the deceased (in the Egyptian tomb) 
receiving offerings of food, which in the dolmen were often represented 
symbolically by ‘ cup-markings.’ 
The mound of earth and the retaining wall (i.e. the mastaba proper) were 
sometimes retained in association with the dolmen, but were not infrequently 
omitted (or are absent now). 
In the Sardinian ‘Giants’ Tombs’ there are represented the mastaba, with 
its retaining wall, the tumulus, the serdab, a carved stela, and a chapel. In 
the allée couverte, so typically seen in France, are-represented the chapel, often 
with very crude portraits of the deceased in bas-relief, the ste/a (holed stone), 
and the serdab, but without the twmulus and its retaining wall in many cases. 
The simplest form of dolmen represents a glorified serdab—the home of the 
disembodied spirit, hovering above the remains of the body in the grave— 
without a stela, but with usually the eastern side open, to represent the door 
through which offerings of food can be made to the deceased. 
9. Les derniéres Découvertes d’Giuvres d’Art paléolithiques dans les 
Cavernes de la Gaule. Par le Professeur Dr. Caprran. 
On sait que depuis un grand nombre d’années on connaissait quelques trés 
jolies sculptures et gravures paléolithiques exécutées sur os, corne ou ivoire et 
découvertes dans des foyers de l’Age du renne. Depuis treize ans on a signalé en 
France et en Espagne toute une série de grottes 4 parois ornées de gravures ou 
de peintures remontant a l’époque quaternaire. 
Depuis quelques mois nos découvertes en Dordogne avec Peyrony et 
Bouyssonie ont montré qu’il existait une autre variété d’ceuvres d’art quaternaires. 
Ce sont des gravures exécutées sur des dalles ou des blocs de pierre irréguliers 
de 20 cm. 4 70 cm. de largeur rencontrés au milieu des foyers de l’époque 
magdalénienne 4 La Madeleine et 4 Limeuil (Dordogne). Ces trés belles gravures 
non encore publiées sont d’un art tres remarquable. Elles représentent surtout 
des rennes, des chevaux, des bouquetins. Quelques trés belles sculptures en 
ivoire de petite dimension accompagnaient ces piéces. 
a — 
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17. 
The following Papers were read :— 
1. Stone-boiling in the British Isles. 
By T. C. Oantrrivt, B.Sc., F.G.S. 
The process of boiling water by plunging into it a succession of red-hot stones 
was in use among most of the northern tribes of North America when that 
continent first became known to European voyagers, and it survived among the 
Assinneboins and other primitive peoples down to the early nineteenth century. 
