132 ELLIOT Smith, Distribution of Mummification. 



nation who had made some progress in agriculture and 

 understood the use of gold and iron, were clothed ' with 

 a fabric made of the fibrous bark of plants which they 

 wove in the loom/ and had several domesticated animals, 

 a new and unexpected light may possibly be thrown upon 

 the origin of primitive American culture. It is certain 

 that massive ruins and remains of pyramidal structures 

 and terraced buildings closely analogous to those of India, 

 Java and Cambodia, as well as to those of Central America, 

 Mexico and Peru, exist in many islands of Polynesia, 

 such as the Ladrone Islands, Tahiti, Fiji, Easter Island 

 and the Sandwich Islands, and the customs of the Poly- 

 nesians are almost all of them found to exist also amongst 

 the American races." 



" Perhaps here, then, we have the ' missing link ' be- 

 tween the Old World civilizations and the mysterious 

 civilizations of America." 



Summary. 



Between 4000 B.C. and 900 B.C. a highly complex 

 culture compounded of a remarkable series of peculiar 

 elements, which were associated the one with the other 

 in Egypt largely by chance, became intimately interwoven 

 to form the curious texture of a cult which Brockwell has 

 labelled " heliolithic," in reference to the fact that it in- 

 cludes sun-worship, the custom of building megalithic 

 monuments, and certain extraordinary beliefs concerning 

 stones. An even more peculiar and distinctive feature, 

 genetically related to the development of megalithic 

 practices and the belief that human beings could dwell in 

 stones, is the custom of mummification. 



The earliest known Egyptians (before 4000 B.C.) 

 practised weaving and agriculture, performed the opera- 

 tion of " incision " (the prototype of complete circum- 



