CULTURE DEVELOPS AS A TOMB “Culture always develops as a tomb. The tomb is nothing but the first human monument, the first and most elemental and fundamental matrix of meaning. There is no culture without a tomb and no tomb without culture; in the end the tomb is the first and only cultural symbol.” (Rene Girard in Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World, 1987). In Egypt, the Pharaoh was sovereign. The tomb containing his body was the  foundation of Egyptian civilization. In the 20th century, "the people" became sovereign (Paul Kahn). Everyman his own tomb. Tombs of soldiers fallen in World War I at Saint Roch cemetery