nd this to circumscribe the action of the flames, and, the customary
prayers having been recited, the pile was set on fire, masses of fresh
material, together with the funerary furniture and usual viaticum,
being added to the pyre. When the work of cremation was considered to
be complete, the fire was extinguished, and an examination made of the
residue. It frequently happened that only the most accessible and most
easily destroyed parts of the body had been attacked by the flames, and
that there remained a black and disfigured mass which the fire had
not consumed. The previously prepared coating of mud was then made to
furnish a clay covering for the body, so as to conceal the sickening
spectacle from the view of the relatives and spectators. Sometimes,
however, the furnace accomplished its work satisfactorily, and there was
nothing to be seen at the end but greasy ashes and scraps of calcined
bones. The remains were frequently left where they were, and the funeral
pile became their tomb. They were, however, often collected and disposed
of in a manner which varied with their more or less complete combustion.
Bodies insufficiently burnt were interred in graves, or in public
chapels; while the ashes of those fully cremated, together with the
scraps of bones and the _debris_ of the offerings, were placed in long
urns. The heat had contorted the weapons and half melted the vessels
of copper; and the deceased was thus obliged to be content with the
fragments only of the things provided for him. These were, however,
sufficient for the purpose, and his possessions, once put to the test
of the flames, now accompanied him whither he went: water alone was
lacking, but provision was made for this by the construction on the
spot of cisterns to collect it. For this purpose several cylinders of
pottery, some twenty inches broad, were inserted in the ground one
above the other from a depth of from ten to twelve feet, and the last
cylinder, reaching the level of the ground, was provided with a narrow
neck, through which the rainwater or infiltrations from the river flowed
into this novel cistern. Many examples of these are found in one and the
same chamber,* thus giving the soul an opportunity of finding water in
one or other of them. The tombs at Uruk, arranged closely together
with coterminous walls, and gradually covered by the sand or by the
accumulation and _debris_ of new tombs, came at length to form an actual
mound. In cities wh