the Middle Kingdom (XIth-XIIIth Dynasties) the head was usually turned
over on to the left side, in order that the dead man might look through
the two great eyes painted on that side of the coffin. Afterward the
rigidly extended position was always adopted. The Neolithic Egyptians,
however, buried the dead lying wholly on the left side and in a
contracted position, with the knees drawn up to the chin. The bodies
were not embalmed, and the extended position and mummification were
never used. Under the IVth Dynasty we find in the necropolis of Mêdûm
(north of the Payyûm) the two positions used simultaneously, and the
extended bodies are mummified. The contracted bodies are skeletons, as
in the case of most of the predynastic bodies. When these are found with
flesh, skin, and hair intact, their preservation is due to the dryness
of the soil and the preservative salts it contains, not to intentional
embalming, which was evidently introduced by those who employed the
extended position in burial. The contracted position is found as late as
the Vth Dynasty at Dashasha, south of the Eayyûm, but after that date it
is no longer found.

The conclusion is obvious that the contracted position without
mummification, which the Neolithic people used, was supplanted in the
early dynastic period by the extended position with mummification, and
by the time of the VIth Dynasty it was entirely superseded. This points
to the supersession of the burial customs of the indigenous Neolithic
race by those of another race which conquered and dominated the
indigenes. And, since the extended burials of the IVth Dynasty are
evidently those of the higher nobles, while the contracted ones are
those of inferior people, it is probable that the customs of extended
burial and embalming were introduced by a foreign race which founded the
Egyptian monarchical state, with its hierarchy of nobles and officials,
and in fact started Egyptian civilization on its way. The conquerors of