Note 13 — Chapter II · THE SECOND STONE AGE.

M. Troyon has started the idea that the crouched attitude of the dead—repliée, as he describes it: he declares that it does not in the least resemble the crouched attitude which men of some races assume when sleeping—was imposed upon the dead with a symbolical meaning, viz. that it was meant to imitate the position of the child in the womb of its parent, and as such to enfold the hope of resurrection in the act of entombment. The idea is a poetical one, but I much doubt whether it has pre-existed in other minds before finding a place in that of M. Troyon. The author, however, should be heard in defence of his own theory, and may be so in the Revue Arch., ix. 289.