Manchester Memoirs, Vol. lix. (191 5), No. 10. 



X, On the Significance of the Geographical Distri- 

 bution of the Practice of Mummification. — A 

 Stud/ of the Migrations of Peoples and the 

 .Spread of certain Customs and Beliefs. 



By Professor G. Elliot Smith, M.A., M.D., F.R.S. 



(Read February 23rd, ig/J. Received for publication April 6th, igiS>) 



In entering upon the discussion of the geographical 

 distribution of the practice of mummification I am con- 

 cerned not so much with the origin and technical pro- 

 cedures of this remarkable custom. This aspect of the 

 problem I have already considered in a series of memoirs 

 (75 to 89 1 ). I have chosen mummification rather as the 

 most peculiar, and therefore the most distinctive and 

 obtrusive, element of a very intimately interwoven series 

 of strange customs, which became fortuitously linked one 

 with the other to form a definite culture-complex nearly 

 thirty centuries ago, and spread along the coastlines of a 

 great part of the world, stirring into new and distinctive 

 activity the sluggish uncultured peoples which in turn 

 were subjected to this exotic leaven. 



If one looks into the journals of anthropology and 

 ethnology, there will be found amongst the vast collections 

 of information relating to man's activities a most sugges- 

 tive series of facts concerning the migrations of past ages 

 and the spread of peculiar customs and beliefs. 



If a map of the world is taken and one plots out 

 {Map I.) the geographical distribution of such remarkable 



1 These figures refer to the bibliography at the end. 

 July yth, 1Q15. 



