Note 13 — X. On the Significance of the Geographical Distribution of the Practice of Mummification.—A Study of the Migrations of Peoples and the Spread of certain Customs and Beliefs. (continued 2)

Jackson refers the suggestion to Curzon’s “Persia and the Persian Question,” 1892, where I find (Vol. II., pp. 74, 79, 80, 146, 178 and 192) most conclusive evidence in proof of the fact that the body of Cyrus was mummified and all the Egyptian rites were observed (see especially Mr. Cecil Smith’s note on p. 80). In Persia, under Darius (p. 182), the Egyptian methods of tomb-construction were closely copied, not only in their general plan, but in minute details of their decoration (see p. 178)—also the bas-relief of Cyrus wearing the Egyptian crown (p. 74). Cambyses even introduced Egyptian workmen to carry out such work (p. 192).

There are reasons for believing that India also was in turn influenced by this direct transmission of Egyptian practices to Persia, but only after (perhaps more than a century after) the Ethiopian modification of Egyptian embalming had been adopted there.