by johnny nemo » Mon Aug 07, 2006 7:16 pm
<!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://ancienthistory.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://phoenicia.org/childsacrifice.html">ancienthistory.about.com/...ifice.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>The evidence that Phoenicians ritually sacrificed their children comes from four sources. Classical authors and biblical prophets charge the Phoenicians with the practice. Stelae associated with burial urns found at Carthage bear decorations alluding to sacrifice and inscriptions expressing vows to Phoenician deities. Urns buried beneath these stelae contain remains of children (and sometimes of animals) who were cremated as described in the sources or implied by the inscriptions.<br><br>Still, some scholars like Dr. Fantar deny that the Phoenicians sacrificed their children. They dismiss the texts as tendentious or misinformed, and they ignore the sacrificial implications of the inscribed stelae.<!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong> The archaeological evidence, however, especially the bones found inside the burial urns, cannot be so easily explained away.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Evidence from classical authors</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Ancient authors, both Greco-Roman historians like Kleitarchos, Diodorus and Plutarch and Church fathers like Tertullian, condemn the Carthaginians for the practice of child sacrifice.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> Some add lurid but unverifiable details‹sacrifices witnessed by distraught mothers, grimacing victims consumed by flames, human offerings received in the outstretched arms of a brazen statue. On one point these sources are completely in accord: The Carthaginians sacrificed their children to their supreme deities. <br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Evidence from Phoenician inscriptions.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br>What have come down to us are thousands of Phoenician inscriptions, the vast majority of which are from the Carthage Tophet. These inscriptions, however, are highly formulaic and tantalizingly laconic. None refers explicitly to child sacrifice, only to vows made to Tanit and Ba'al Hammon. For example, an inscription on a stela from the Tanit II period (sixth to third century B.C.) reads: "To our lady, to Tanit ... and to our lord, to Ba'al Hammon, that which was vowed." <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>The placement of such stelae immediately above the jars containing burned remains strongly suggests that these vows had something to do with the cremated individuals, human or animal, inside the jars.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> <br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Evidence from archaeology</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>The burned bones found inside jars from the Carthage Tophet provide conclusive evidence for Phoenician child sacrifice.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> Animal remains, mostly sheep and goats, found inside some of the Tophet urns strongly suggest that this was not a burial ground for children who died prematurely. The animals were sacrificed to the gods, presumably in place of children. It is highly likely that the children unlucky enough not to have substitutes were also sacrificed and then buried in the Tophet.<br><br>Moreover, the osteological evidence reveals that most of the victims were children two to three months old, though some were as old as age five.<!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong> So far no skeleton has shown any signs of pathological conditions that might have caused death. These were healthy children deliberately killed as sacrifices in the manner described in the classical and biblical texts.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>The classical and biblical texts, as well as the archaeology, all indicate that healthy living children were sacrificed to the gods in the Tophet.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> Our purpose in making this case is not to malign the Phoenicians but to understand them.</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br> <p></p><i></i>
