22 ELLIOT SMITH, Distribution of Mummification. 



knowledge of these things to the Torres Straits could not 

 have started on its long course from Egypt before the 

 ninth century B.C., at the earliest. 



The incision for eviscerating the body was made in 

 the flank, right or left, or in the perineum (19 ; 25) — the 

 two sites selected for making the embalming incision 

 in Egypt (78) ; the flank incision was made in the 

 precise situation (between costal margin and iliac crest) 

 which was distinctive of XX 1st and XXI Ind Dynasty 

 methods in Egypt (86) ; and the wound was stitched up 

 in accordance with the method employed in the case of 

 the cheaper kinds of embalming at that period (78). 

 When the flank incision was not employed an opening 

 was made in the perineum, as was done in Egypt — the 

 second method mentioned by Herodotus — in the case of 

 less wealthy people (56, p. 46). 



The viscera, after removal, were thrown into the sea, 

 as, according to Porphyry and Plutarch, it was the practice 

 in Egypt at one time (56, pp. $7 and 58) to cast them into 

 the Nile. 



The body was painted with a mixture containing red- 

 ochre, the scalp was painted black, and artificial eyes were 

 inserted. These procedures were first adopted (in their 

 entirety) in Egypt during the XX 1st Dynasty, although 

 the experiments leading up to the adoption of these 

 methods began in the XlXth. 



But most remarkable of all, the curiously inexplicable 

 Egyptian procedure for removing the brain, which in 

 Egypt was not attempted until the XVIIIth Dynasty — 

 i.e., until its embalmers had had seventeen centuries 

 experience of their remarkable craft (78) — was also 

 followed by the savages of the Torres Straits (25 ; 27) ! 



Surely it is inconceivable that such people could have 

 originated the idea or devised the means for practising an 



