Grafton Elliot Smith

The migrations of early culture Grafton Elliot Smith

In entering upon the discussion of the geographical distribution of the practice of mummification I am concerned not so much with the origin and technical procedures of this remarkable custom. This aspect of the problem I have already considered in a series of memoirs. I have chosen mummification rather as the most peculiar, and therefore the most distinctive and obtrusive, element of a very intimately interwoven series of strange customs, which became fortuitously linked one with the other to form a definite culture-complex nearly thirty centuries ago, and spread along the coast-lines of a great part of the world, stirring into new and distinctive activity the sluggish uncultured peoples which in turn were subjected to this exotic leaven.