34 ELLIOT Smith, Distribution of Mummification. 



again, large pottery coffins, of an oblong, elliptical, or 

 circular form, were used. Later on, when metal imple- 

 ments were invented (90), and the skill to use them created 

 the crafts of the carpenter and stonemason, coffins of 

 wood or stone came into vogue. It is quite certain 

 that the coffin and sarcophagus were Egyptian inventions. 

 The mere fact of this extraordinary variety of means 

 and materials employed in Egypt, when in other countries 

 one definite method was adopted, is proof of the most 

 positive kind that these measures for lining the grave 

 were actually invented in Egypt. For the inventor tries 

 experiments : the borrower imitates one definite thing. 

 During this process of gradual evolution, which occupied 

 the whole of the Pre- and Proto-dynastic periods, the 

 practice of inhumation (in the strict sense of the term) 

 changed step by step into one of burial in a tomb. In 

 other words, instead of burial in the soil, the body came 

 to be lodged in a carefully constructed subterranean 

 chamber, which no longer was filled up with earth. The 

 further stages in this process of evolution of tomb con- 

 struction, the way in which the rock-cut tomb came into 

 existence, and the gradual development of the stone 

 superstructure and temple of offerings — all of these 

 matters have been summarised in some detail in my 

 article on the evolution of megalithic monuments (94). 



What especially I want to emphasize here is that in 

 Egypt is preserved every stage in the gradual transfor- 

 mation of the burial customs from simple inhumation 

 into that associated with the fully-developed rock-cut 

 tomb and the stone temple. There can be no question 

 that the craft of the stonemason and the practice of 

 building megalithic monuments originated in Egypt. In 

 addition, I want to make it quite clear that there is the 

 most intimate genetic relationship between the develop- 



