Part 6

In later times the Persians seem to have been influenced by the practices in vogue in Early Christian times in Egypt, before the coming of Islâm. Thus in Moll’s History (=46=, p. 545), the statement is made in reference to the Moslem burial customs in Persia; “if it [the corpse] is to be buried a great way off, it is put into a wooden coffin filled up with salt, lime and perfumes to preserve it; for they embalm their dead bodies no otherwise in Persia, nor do they ever embowel them, as with us.” That this is merely a degraded form of the Egyptian embalmer’s practice is shown by the fact that it is identical with the method used by the Copts in Egypt until the seventh, or perhaps even as late as the ninth century A.D., and in their case we know that it is a development from, or degradation of, the ancient practice.

This method seems also to have spread to India: for Mr. Crooke tells me that even at the present day several of the ascetic orders bury their dead in salt.

In Moll’s book the following curious statement also occurs, p. 474:—“_Mummy_, which is human flesh embalm’d that has lain in dry earth several ages, and become hard as horn, is frequently found in the sands of Chorassan, or the ancient Bactria, and some of the bodies are so little alter’d, ’tis said, that the features may be plainly distinguish’d.”

In studying the easterly migration of the custom of mummification it is quite certain that the main stream of the wanderers who carried the knowledge to the east must have set out from the East African coast, because a whole series of modifications of the Egyptian method which were introduced in the Soudan and further south are also found in Indonesia, Polynesia and America. A curious feature of Egyptian embalming in the XIXth and especially the XXIst Dynasties (=78= and =86=) was the use of butter for packing the mummy. Among the Baganda, according to Roscoe, special importance came to be attached to this practice. Mr. Crooke has given me references from Indian literature (see especially _Journ. Anthr. Soc. Bombay_, Vol. I., 1886, p. 39) to bodies being “skilfully embalmed with heavenly drugs and _ghee_” [clarified butter].

The ancient Aryans used to disembowel the corpse and fill the cavity with _ghee_ (Mitra, “Indo-Aryans,” London, 1881, Vol. I., p. 135), as was done in the case of the mummy of the famous Pharaoh Meneptah (=86=).

The peculiarly Mediterranean modifications also spread east and it seems most likely that in this case the route from Syria down the Euphrates to the Persian Gulf was taken.

[Since this has been in print further investigation has elucidated with remarkable precision the ways and means of, as well as the impelling motives for, the great migration to the East. This calls for some modification of the foregoing (as well as many of the subsequent) paragraphs. It has been seen that the great wave of culture carried east and west from Egypt the distinctive method of embalming that came into full use somewhere about 900 B.C.; hence it is probable the eighth century B.C. witnessed the commencement of the series of expeditions, which probably extended over many centuries. It can be no mere chance that the period indicated coincides with the time when the Phœnicians were embarking upon maritime enterprises on a much greater and more daring scale than the world had known until then, in the Mediterranean and Atlantic, in the Red Sea and beyond. In the course of their trading expeditions to the Bab-el-Mandeb these Levantine mariners brought to that region a fuller knowledge of the customs and practices of Egypt and of the whole Phœnician world in the Mediterranean. It was probably in this way and not by the Euphrates route that the culture of the Levant reached the Persian Gulf and India.

The easterly migration of culture which set out from the region of the Bab-el-Mandeb conveyed not only the Ethiopian modifications of Egyptian practices, but also the Egyptian and Mediterranean contributions which the Phœnicians had brought to Ethiopia. On some future occasion I shall discuss the important part played by the Phœnicians in these expeditions to the Far East.]

It is unfortunate that practically nothing is known of the practice of mummification on the Southern coast of Arabia. Bent tells us that the Southern Arabians preserved their dead. Moreover, as the Egyptians obtained from Sabæa much of the materials used for embalming, it is not unlikely that the Arabs may also have learned the use of these preservatives.

In support of this suggestion I might refer to the evidence from Madagascar. It is well known that this island was colonised in ancient times by people from the neighbourhood of the Bab-el-Mandeb, probably Galla-people from the Somali coast as well as Sabæans from the Arabian coast, possibly ferried along the African shore by expert mariners from Oman and the Persian Gulf, either the Phœnicians themselves or their kinsmen. A more numerous element came from the distant Malay Archipelago. Either or both of these racial elements may have introduced the practice of mummification into Madagascar.

In his “History on Madagascar” (1838, Vol. I, p, 243) Ellis says there “was no regular embalming,” but the “body was preserved for a time by the use of large quantities of gum benzoin, or other powdered aromatic gums.” This method is strongly suggestive of South Arabian influence.

Hartland says “the Betsileo [and other Madagascar tribes] dry the corpse in the air, the fluids being assisted to escape” (=32=, p. 418).

Grandidier, however, gives us more precise information on this subject (“La Mort et les Funerailles à Madagascar,” _L’Anthropologie_, T. 23, 1912, p. 329). According to him the Betsileo open the body of the dead and remove all the viscera, which they throw into a lake: among the Merina the entrails are removed only in the cases of their sovereigns or members of the royal family.

The practice of mummification amongst the Betsileo is of peculiar interest because the embalmed bodies are buried in stone tombs obviously inspired by Egyptian models. The subterranean megalithic burial chamber in association with an oblong _mastaba_-like superstructure at once recalls the distinctive features of the Egyptian tomb. But there is a curious feature suggestive of Babylonian influence, namely, the situation of the temple of offerings on the top of the _mastaba_. In some respects this type of grave recalls those found in the Bahrein Islands by Bent (=4=), which he compares with the Early Phœnician tombs at Arvad (=55=). There can be no question that the latter were copied from Theban tombs of the New Empire (_vide supra_).

This seems to point quite clearly to the fact that the Betsileo burial practices were inspired by Egyptian models, possibly modified by Southern Arabian influences.

In Hall’s “Great Zimbabwe” (1905, pp. 94 and 95), it is stated that “the Baduma, who live in Gutu’s country, and also the Barotse, still embalm, or, rather, dry the bodies of their chiefs, and also the dead of certain families, though generally the bodies are buried lengthways on their right side, facing the sun. The body is placed in the hut on a bier made of poles near a large fire, and continually turned until the body is dry. Then it is wrapped up in a blanket and hung from the roof” [as is done in the Doré Bay region in New Guinea].

There has been considerable controversy as to the origin of the vast stone monuments in this region. The writer from whom I have just quoted, with many others, believed the Zimbabwe ruins to be the work of Early Sabæan or Phœnician immigrants, who were attracted by the Rhodesian gold-fields. Randall-MacIver believed that he found Chinese and Persian relics (no earlier than the 14th or at earliest 13th century) under the foundations; and recklessly jumped to the conclusion that the local Negroes had conceived and built these vast monuments! The idea of any savage people, and especially Negroes, planning such structures and undertaking the enormous labour of their construction is surely too ludicrous to be considered seriously. Even if these monuments were built no earlier than five or six centuries ago, that does not invalidate the hypothesis that they were inspired by the models of some old civilization. Is it necessary to expound the whole theory of survivals to make this point clear? The whole of this memoir is concerned with the persistence in outlying corners of the world of strange practices whose inventors passed away twenty-eight centuries and more ago, and whose country has forgotten them and their works for more than a thousand years. [My friend, W. J. Perry, is collecting other evidence which proves quite definitely that the Zimbabwe culture was “heliolithic.”]

In Moll’s History (=46=) the following passage occurs in an account of the customs of Ceylon, p. 430, “when a person of condition dies his corps is laid out and wash’d, and being cover’d with a linnen-cloath, is carried out upon a bier to some high place and burnt: but if he was an officer who belong’d to the court, the corps is not burnt till the king gives orders for it, which is sometimes a great while after. In this case his friends hollow the body of a tree, and having bowell’d and embalm’d the corps, they put it in, filling the hollow up with pepper, and having made it as close as possible, they bury the corpse in some room of the house till the king orders it to be burnt.”

“As for the poorer people, they usually wrap them up in mats and bury them.”

This traveller’s tale would not call for serious attention if it were not confirmed by modern accounts of an analogous practice in Burma and the neighbourhood.

In his “Himalayan Journal” Sir Joseph Hooker described how the Khasias temporarily embalm their dead in honey before cremating them.

Pettigrew (=56=, p. 245) quotes Captain Coke’s account of the embalming of a Burman priest. The body, as witnessed by him, was lying exposed to public view upon a stage constructed of bamboos. This is the bier which is so invariably associated with mummification.

“The entrails of the deceased (who had been dead upwards of a month) had been taken out a few hours after death by means of an incision in the stomach, and the vacuum being filled with honey and spices the opening was sewed up. The whole body was then covered over with a slight coating of resinous substance called _dhamma_, and wax, to preserve it from the air, after which it was richly overlaid with gold leaf, thus giving the body the appearance of one of the finely moulded images so common in the temples of the worshippers of BOODH.”

Then it was cremated.

This is a curious instance of the blending of the custom of mummification with the later practice of cremation, which was inspired by entirely different ideals. Throughout the whole area in which Egyptian methods of embalming were adopted there are found numerous instances of such syncretism with a variety of burial customs.

“Another method which I have known to be practised, but not as common as the one above detailed, of embalming bodies in the Burman country, is by forcing two hollow bamboos through the soles of the feet, up the legs and into the body of the deceased; then by dint of pressing and squeezing the fluid is carried off through the bamboos into the ground.”

This practice is an important link between the Egyptian and the Indonesian methods.

In his article on Thibetan burial customs (=32=, p. 511), Waddell informs us that preservation of the entire body by embalming seems to be restricted to the sovereign Grand Lamas of Lhāsa and Tāshilhumpo. “The body is embalmed by salting, and, clad in the robes of the deceased and surrounded by his personal implements of worship, is placed, in the attitude of a seated Buddha, within a gilded copper sarcophagus in one of the rooms of the palace: it is then worshipped as a divinity.”

There are many points of interest in this practice, which, considered in conjunction with the methods practised in Burma, Ceylon and Persia just mentioned, clearly indicate not only the sources and the routes taken by this knowledge of embalming in its spread from Egypt, but also how the burial rites of a variety of peoples can become intimately blended and intermingled one with another.

In Captain T. H. Lewins’ book on “The Wild Tribes of South-Eastern India” (London, 1870, p. 274) I find the following statement:—“Among the Dhun and Khorn clans the body is placed in a coffin made of a hollow tree trunk, with holes in the bottom. This is placed on a lofty platform and left to dry in the sun. The dried body is afterwards rammed into an earthern vase and buried; the head is cut off and preserved. Another clan sheathe their dead in pith; the corpse is then placed on a platform, under which a slow fire is kept up until the body is dried. The corpse is then kept for six months ... it is then buried. The Howlong clan hang the body up to the house-beams for seven days, during which time the dead man’s wife has to sit underneath spinning.”

These interesting records are of considerable value in establishing connexions between East Africa and regions further east, which will be discussed in the following pages.

[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 completely 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 information. Fortunately all this evidence supports and substantiates the opinions I had previously arrived at inductively. For it provides a complete series of connecting 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 XXIst Dynasties (respectively in the case of different procedures), the migration of people carrying the methods east could not have left Egypt before the time of the XXIst 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) _viâ_ the Soudan, the head-waters of the Nile and the Somali Coast, (2) by the Red Sea route, and (3) from the Phœnician Coast down the Euphrates. No doubt all three routes served as avenues for communication and for the transmission of cultural influences; and it is not essential for our immediate purposes to enquire which channel served to transmit each element of Egyptian culture that made its influence felt in the neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf at this period. For it was a period of active maritime enterprise, especially on the part of the Phœnicians, both in the Mediterranean and the Southern Seas, and a time when the fluctuating political fortunes of Egypt, Western Asia and the Soudan produced a more intimate intermingling of the peoples, so that they mutually influenced one another most profoundly.

It is important to remember that many of the features of the embalmer’s art as it is practiced in the far East are modifications of the Egyptian method which were first introduced in the region of the Upper Nile, so that the East African Coast must have been the point of departure for such methods. Other features, not only of the method of embalming, but also of the associated megalithic architecture, were equally distinctive of the Phœnician region and may have been transmitted by the Euphrates.[14] Other features again were distinctively Babylonian. Of the former, the African influence, I might refer to the use of the frame-like support for the mummy, the custom of removing the head some months after burial, and the sacrifice of wives and servants. As to the Phœnician and Babylonian influences, the use of honey might be cited, and the emphasis laid upon “cedar” wood and “cedar” oil in mummification; and the Phœnician adaptation of the New Empire type of Theban tomb seen at Arvad and the analogous sepulchres found in the Bahrein Islands (=4=) The Betsileo tombs in Madagascar probably represent the same type transferred _viâ_ Sabæa 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 impedimenta 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 Anurādhapura in Ceylon] were not entirely without connection with the seven-storied Ziggarats which were so striking a feature among the buildings of Chaldæa.... it would seem that in this case also the Indians were borrowers of an idea” (p. 70). The more precise and definite influence of 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 imported 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 _viâ_ 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 Syrian 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. I have already referred to the former. Many of the Dravidian temples are so precisely modelled on the plan of the Theban temples of the New Empire that to question the source of the inspiration of the former is impossible.

“Fergusson first called attention to the striking similarity in general arrangement and conception between the great South Indian temples and those of ancient Egypt.... The gopurams or gate-towers, which in the later more ornate examples are decorated from the base to the summit with sculptures of the Hindu Pantheon, increase in size with the size of the walled quadrangles, the outer ones becoming imposing landmarks, which are visible for miles around, and are strikingly similar to the pylons of Egyptian temples” (Thurston, =101=, pp. 158 and 161). Thus in the matter of its early buildings India has clearly been influenced by Egypt, Phœnicia and Chaldea; and this great cultural wave impinged upon the Indian peninsula not before the close of the eighth century B.C.

It is important also to remember that it reached India just (perhaps not more than a century) before another wave of a very different culture poured down from the north, and introduced, among other things, the practice of cremation.

For our immediate purpose this is unfortunate, because that practice is inspired by ideas utterly opposed to those underlying the custom of embalming, and naturally destroyed most, though by no means all, traces of the latter. That the practice of embalming did actually reach India from the west is known not merely because evidence of unmistakably Egyptian technique is found further east, but also because in India and Ceylon there are definite traces of the custom, to which reference has already been made in the foregoing pages. Cases from Persia, Ceylon, India, Burma and Thibet were cited in proof of the survival of elements of the embalming process or ritual, even when the Brahmanical and Buddhist burial practices had been adopted.

From the foregoing account there can be no doubt that the people of India did at one time practice mummification, at any rate in the case of their chiefs. They also acquired a knowledge of the arts and crafts, as the result of the influence exerted by the rich stream of culture which brought the attainments of the great western civilizations to India before the Ayran immigration. The bringers of this new culture mingled their blood with the aboriginal pre-Dravidian population and the result was the Dravidians. It is not at all improbable that the resultant Dravidian civilization had reached a higher plane than that of the Aryas, who entered the country after them.

In Oldham’s interesting and suggestive brochure (=51=, pp. 53-55), which, in spite of Crooke’s drastic criticism, seems to me to be a valuable contribution to a knowledge of the questions under discussion, the following passages occur:—

“The Asuras, Dasyus, or Nagas, with whom the Aryas came into contact, on approaching the borders of India, were no savage aboriginal tribes, but a civilized people who had cities and castles. Some of these are said in the Veda to have been built of stone.

“It would seem, indeed, as if the Asuras had reached a higher degree of civilization than their Aryan rivals. Some of their cities were places of considerable importance. And, in addition to this, wealth and luxury, the use of magic, superior architectural skill, and ability to restore the dead to life, were ascribed to the Asuras by Brahmanical writers.”