yS ELLIOT SMITH, Distribution of Mummification. 



Babylonian models further east removes any doubt as to 

 the part it played. Crooke speaks of the Southern 

 Dravidians as a maritime people, who placed in their 

 burial mounds " bronze articles which were probably im- 

 ported in the course of trade with Babylonia " (12, p. 29). 

 " They were probably the builders of the remarkable 

 series of rude stone monuments which crown the hills in 

 the Nilgiri range and the plateau of the Deccan " (p. 28). 

 The most ancient stone monuments in Southern India 

 contain objects which go to prove that they were built at 

 the earliest just before the introduction of iron-working. 

 Thus, if the knowledge of iron-working came from 

 Europe, these monuments could not have been built 

 much before 800 B.C. As a matter of fact it is known 

 that many of them cannot be older than 600 B.C. 

 (Crooke, 13, p. 129). All of these facts agree in 

 supporting the view that the influence of Egypt, which, 

 so far as the matters under consideration are concerned, 

 came into operation not earlier than the eighth century 

 B.C., spread to India partly via Babylonia and partly by 

 way of East Africa, somewhere between the close of the 

 eighth and the commencement of the sixth century B.C. 

 The monuments to which I have just been referring 

 were not, in my opinion, directly inspired by Egypt, but 

 indirectly. The North S)'rian and the adjoining territories 

 adopted the Egyptian burial customs at an earlier period 

 and the finished type of holed dolmen was probably 

 developed and survived in that region long after its 

 Egyptian prototype had become a thing of the past. 

 The real types that have come down to our times are 

 found in the Caucasus, between the Black Sea and the 

 Caspian. The Indian dolmens were certainly imitations 

 of these models. But in respect of other buildings the 

 Indians directly adopted Babylonian and Egyptian types. 



