The migrations of early culture / A study of the significance of the geographical distribution of the practice of mummification as evidence of the migrations of peoples and the spread of certain customs and beliefs

by Grafton Elliot Smith

This explains what I meant to imply when I said that the megalithic idea and the incentive to mummify the dead are genetically related, the one to the other. The stone-tomb came into existence as a direct result of the importance attached to the corpse. This development defeated the very object that inspired it. The invention of the art of embalming was the logical outcome of the attempt to remedy this unexpected result.

As in the history of every similar happening elsewhere, necessity, or what these simple-minded people believed to be a necessity, was the “mother of invention.”

In the course of the following discussion it will be seen that the practice of mummification became linked up in another way with what may be called the megalithic traditions. The crudely-preserved body no longer retained any likeness to the person as his friends knew him when alive. A life-like stone statue was therefore made to represent him. Magical means (p. 42) were adopted to give life to the statue. Thus originated the belief that a stone might become the dwelling of a living person; and that a person when dead may become converted into stone. So insistent did this belief become that among more uncultured people, who borrowed Egyptian practices but were unable to make portrait statues, a rudely-shaped or even unhewn pillar of stone came to be regarded as the dwelling of the deceased.

Thus from being the mere device for the identification of the deceased the stone statue degenerated among less cultured people into an object even less like the dead man than his own crudely-made mummy. But the fundamental idea remained and became the starting point for that rich crop of petrifaction-myths and beliefs concerning men and animals living in stones.

Thus arose in Egypt, somewhere about 3000 B.C., the nucleus of the “heliolithic” culture-complex—mummification, megalithic architecture, and the making of idols, three practices most intimately and genetically linked one with the other. But it was the merest accident that the people amongst whom these customs developed, should also have been weavers of linen, workers in copper, worshippers of the sun and serpent, and practitioners of massage and circumcision.

But it was not for another fifteen centuries that the characteristic “heliolithic” culture-complex was completed by the addition of numerous other trivial customs, like ear-piercing, tattooing and the use of the swastika, none of which originated in Egypt, but happened to have become “tacked on” to that distinctive culture before its great world tour began.

The earliest unquestionable evidence ([89]) of an attempt artificially to preserve the body was found in a rock-cut tomb of the Second Dynasty, at Sakkara. It is important to note that the body was lying in a flexed position upon the left side, and was contained in a short wooden coffin, modelled like a house. The limbs were wrapped separately and large quantities of fine linen bandages had been applied around all parts of the body, so as to mould the wrapped mummy to a life-like form.

Thus in the earliest mummy—or, to be strictly accurate, in the remains which exhibit the earliest evidence of the attempt at embalming—we find exemplified the two objects that the Ancient Egyptian embalmer aimed at throughout the whole history of his craft, viz., to preserve the actual tissues of the body, as well as the form and likeness of the deceased as he was when alive.

From the first the embalmer realised the limitations of his craftsmanship, i.e., that he was unable to make the body itself life-like. Hence he strove to preserve its tissues and then to make use of its wrappings for the purpose of fashioning a model or statue of the dead man. At first this was done while the body was flexed in the traditional manner. But soon the flexed position was gradually abandoned. Perhaps this change was brought about because it was easier to model the superficial form of a wrapped body when extended; and the greater success of the results so obtained may have been sufficiently important to have outweighed the restraining influence of tradition. The change may have occurred all the more readily at this time as beds were coming into use, and the idea of placing the “sleeping” body on a bed may have helped towards the process of extension.

But whatever view is taken of the explanation of the change of the attitude of the body, it is certain that it began soon after the first attempts at mummification were made. The evidence of extended burials, referred to the First Dynasty, which were found by Flinders Petrie at Tarkhan ([54]), may seem to contradict this: but there are reasons for believing that attempts at embalming were being made even at that time ([85]). It seems to be definitely proved that this change was not due to any foreign influence ([45]). At the time that it occurred there was a very considerable alien element in the population of Egypt; but the admixture took place long before the change in the position of the body was manifested. Perhaps the presence of a large foreign element may have weakened the sway of Egyptian tradition; but the evidence seems definitely opposed to the inference that it played any active part in the change of custom. For the history of the gradual way in which the change was slowly effected is certain proof of the causal factors at work. There was no sudden adoption of the fully extended position, but a slow and very gradual straightening of the limbs—a process which it took centuries to complete. The analysis of the evidence by Mace is quite conclusive on this point ([45]).