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



sepulchres found in the Bahrein Islands (4). The Betsileo 

 tombs in Madagascar probably represent the same type 

 transferred via Sabaea down the East African coast. 



As to the means by which the customs of the dwellers 

 around the Persian Gulf were communicated to the 

 peoples of India and Ceylon there is a considerable mass 

 of evidence. The fact that mummification, the building 

 of megalithic monuments of the recognised Mediterranean 

 types, sun- and serpent-worship and all the other im- 

 pedimenta of the " heliolithic " culture made their 

 appearance in India in pre-Aryan times affords positive 

 evidence of the reality of the intercourse. I have already 

 referred to the adoption in India of the curiously eccentric 

 method of steering river-boats found in Middle Kingdom 

 Egyptian tombs ; and the custom of representing eyes on 

 the prow of the boat are further illustrations of the spread 

 of distinctive practices. According to Rhys Davids 

 (14, p. 116) "it may now be accepted as a working 

 hypothesis that sea-going merchants [mostly Dravidians, 

 not Aryans], availing themselves of the monsoons, were in 

 the habit, at the beginning of the seventh (and perhaps at 

 the end of the eighth) century B.C., of trading from ports 

 on the South-West of India to Babylon, then a great 

 mercantile emporium." He adduces evidence which 

 clearly demonstrates that the written scripts of India, 

 Ceylon and Burma were in this way derived from " the 

 pre-Semitic race now called Akkadians." " It seems 

 almost impossible to avoid the conclusion that [the] 

 curious buildings [at Anuradhapura in Ceylon] were not 

 entirely without connection with the seven-storied 

 Ziggarats which were so striking a feature among the 

 buildings of Chaldaea. ... it would seem that in 

 this case also the Indians were borrowers of an idea " 

 (p. 70). The more precise and definite influence of 



