68 ELLIOT SMITH, Distribution of Mummification. 



This method seems also to have spread to India : for 

 Mr. Crooke tells me that even at the present day several 

 of the ascetic orders bury their dead in salt. 



In Moll's book the following curious statement also 

 occurs, p. 474 : — " Mummy, which is human flesh embaim'd 

 that has lain in dry earth several ages, and become hard 

 as horn, is frequently found in the sands of Chorassan, or 

 the ancient Bactria, and some of the bodies are so little 

 alter'd, 'tis said, that the features may be plainly 

 distinguish'd." 



In studying the easterly migration of the. custom of 

 mummification it is quite certain that the main stream of 

 the wanderers who carried the knowledge to the east 

 must have set out from the East African coast, because 

 a whole series of modifications of the Egyptian method 

 which were introduced in the Soudan and further south 

 are also found in Indonesia, Polynesia and America. A 

 curious feature of Egyptian embalming in the XlXth and 

 especially the XXIst Dynasties (78 and 86j was the use 

 of butter for packing the mummy. Among the Baganda, 

 according to Roscoe, special importance came to be 

 attached to this practice. Mr. Crooke has given me refer- 

 ences from Indian literature (see especially Journ. Anthr. 

 Soc. Bombay, Vol. I., 1886, p. 39) to bodies being "skilfully 

 embalmed with heavenly drugs and ghee" [clarified butter]. 



The ancient Aryans used to disembowel the corpse 

 and fill the cavity with ghee (Mitra, " Indo- Aryans," 

 London, 1881, Vol. I., p. 135), as was done in the case of 

 the mummy of the famous Pharaoh Meneptah (86). 



The peculiarly Mediterranean modifications also spread 

 east and it seems most likely that in this case the route 

 from Syria down the Euphrates to the Persian Gulf was 

 taken. 



[Since this has been in print further investigation has 





