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the ground. Next came the use of hollow trunks of trees as coffins.
At a later date dwellers in tents deposited their dead in caves, closing
the entrance with piles of loose stones, ashes and burnt wood. Still
later, tomb caves were cut out of the soft limestone. In the stone age
cave burial was not so common as burial in barrows. A barrow consisted
of a chamber made with slabs of stone, large enough to hold a
body in the sitting position: thereafter the whole was covered with
earth. This barrow burial was common in the bronze age. Research
has disclosed the fact that bodies were sometimes burned and the ashes
finally buried in barrows. The iron age brought improvement in
implements, and burials in graves became more common.
Apart from ancient Egypt, the earliest cemeteries were near
Bologna, but even there the remains were sometimes burned before
burial. This burning was primitive, the body being simply placed in
the centre of a bonfire of large dimensions. The process was incomplete,
being quite unlike the modern scientifically constructed crematory
furnace.
In ancient Egypt, burial customs and rites were most elaborate.
An attempt was made to preserve the body indefinitely against decay
and corruption by means of embalming. The heat and dryness enabled
the process to be carried out successfully, but in spite of the climatic
advantages, embalming does not prevent the ravages of death, nor does
it preserve the attributes of life, therefore the results of embalming
must be regarded as a miserable failure. The most beautiful mummy
is but a poor parody of life.
Sir Thomas Browne in his "Urn Burial" says: "Egyptian
ingenuity was more unsatisfied, contriving their bodies in sweet consistencies,
to attend the return of their souls. But all is vanity, feeding
the wind and folly. Egyptian mummies which Cambyses or time hath
spared, avarice now consumeth. Mummy is become merchandise.
Mezrain cures wounds and Pharoah is sold for balsam."
The practice of embalming in Egypt fitted in with the religious
belief of the nation. It was believed that the body was the habitation
of an ethereal something, the spirit, which at the time of death assumed
a form less material than the frame it had quitted, but representing as a
coloured shadow the exact image of the individual, trait for trait. This
shadowy existence has been given the name of the "double." It was
supposed to have the same needs and desires as the original and to be
a continuation of its life. It was ordained at some future time, after a