impregnated with bitumen, the head supported by a cushion or flat
brick,** the arms laid across the breast, and the shroud adjusted by
bands to the loins and legs. Sometimes the corpse was placed on its left
side, with the legs slightly bent, and the right hand, extending
over the left shoulder, was inserted into a vase, as if to convey the
contents to the mouth.

* Vaulted chambers are confined chiefly to the ancient
cemeteries of Uru at Mugheir; they are rather over six to
seven feet long, with a breadth of five and a half feet. The
walls are not quite perpendicular, but are somewhat splayed
up to two-thirds of their height, where they begin to narrow
into the vaulted roof.

** The object placed under the head of the skeleton is the
dried brick mentioned in the text; the vessel to which the
hand is stretched out was of copper; the other vessels were
of earthenware, and contained water, or dates, of which the
stones were found. The small cylinders on the side were of
stone; the two large cylinders, between the copper vessel
and those of earthenware, were pieces of bamboo, of whose
use we are ignorant.

[Illustration: 213.jpg THE INTERIOR OF THE TOMB]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Taylor

Clay jars and dishes, arranged around the body, contained the food and
drink required for the dead man's daily fare--his favourite wine,
dates, fish, fowl, game, occasionally also a boar's head--and even stone
representations of provisions, which, like those of Egypt, were lasting
substitutes for the reality. The dead man required weapons also to
enable him to protect his food-store, and his lance, javelins and baton
of office were placed alongside him, together with a cylinder bearing
his name, which he had employed as his seal in his lifetime. Beside
the body of a woman or young girl was arranged an abundance of spare
ornaments, flowers, scent-bottles, combs, cosmetic pencils, and cakes
of the black paste with which they were accustomed to paint the eyebrows
and the edges of the eyelids.

Cremation seems in many cases to have been preferred to burial in a
tomb. The funeral pile was constructed at some distance from the town,
on a specially reserved area in the middle of the marshes. The body,
wrapped up in coarse matting, was placed upon a heap of reeds and rushes
saturated with bitumen: a brick wall, coated with moist clay, was built
arou