Manchester Memoirs, Vol. lix. (191 5), No. 10. 75 



[In my search for information concerning the practice 

 of embalming in India, where by inference I was convinced 

 it must have had some vogue in ancient times, I com- 

 pletely overlooked the important memoir by Mr. W. 

 Crooke on " Primitive Rites of Disposal of the Dead, with 

 Special Reference to India" (Journ. Anthrop. Inst., Vol. 

 XXIX., 1899, p. 272). Since the rest of this article has 

 been in print Mr. Crooke has kindly called my attention 

 to his memoir and given me a lot of other valuable in- 

 formation. Fortunately all this evidence supports and 

 substantiates the opinions I had previously arrived at 

 inductively. For it provides a complete series of con- 

 necting links between the western and eastern portions 

 of the chain I am reconstructing. It is too bulky to insert 

 here and too important merely to summarise, so that I 

 must postpone fuller discussion of this Indian evidence 

 until some future time.] 



If it is admitted that the custom of mummification as 

 it is practised, for example, in the islands of the Torres 

 Straits was derived from Egypt, however remotely and 

 indirectly, it is clear that, as the technique includes a 

 number of curious features which were not introduced in 

 Egypt before the XVIIIth, XXth and XX 1st Dynasties 

 (respectively in the case of different procedures), the mi- 

 gration of people carrying the methods east could not 

 have left Egypt before the time of the XX 1st Dynasty, 

 say 900 B.C. as the earliest possible date. At this time 

 Egypt was in very close relationship with the Soudan 

 and Western Asia ; and it is obvious that the Egyptian 

 practices may have reached the Persian Gulf by three 

 routes: — (1) vid the Soudan, the headwaters of the Nile 

 and the Somali Coast, (2) by the Red Sea route, and (3) 

 from the Phoenician Coast down the Euphrates. No 

 doubt all three routes served as avenues for communi- 



