Were living Children Sacrificed to the Gods? No

028

Were it not for a few classical accounts, scholars would probably not attribute the burials in the Carthage Tophet to child sacrifice. Some of the more sensational stories, such as those related by the first-century B.C. historian Diodorus Siculus, have been picked up in modern times and passed off as the entire truth. In the 19th century, for instance, Gustave Flaubert described Punic child sacrifices in his novel SalammboÆ; he had no evidence at all, except for the classical sources.

What if, however, the classical sources are unreliable? Indeed, what if all the evidence regarding the burials—either from literary sources or archaeological excavations—is unreliable or inconclusive?

Here is Diodorus’s account of how the Carthaginians sacrificed their children: “There was in their city a bronze image of Cronus, extending its hands, palms up and sloping toward the ground, so that each of the children when placed thereon rolled down and fell into a sort of gaping pit filled with fire” (Library of History 20.6–7).

This is the stuff of myth, not history. Diodorus, who was from Sicily, was probably mixing up stories about Carthage with ancient Sicilian myths—specifically the myth of the great bronze bull, built for the Sicilian tyrant Phalaris, in which the king’s enemies were roasted alive.

Now, when we come to more credible sources, like the Roman historian Polybius (c. 200–118 B.C.), there is no mention of Carthaginian child sacrifice. Polybius, we know, was with the Roman general Scipio Aemilianus when he destroyed Punic Carthage in 146 B.C. Polybius had no love of Carthage; he fought against the city. His evidence would have been decisive. But he does not make the least allusion to child sacrifice at Carthage.

Nor does the Roman historian Livy (c. 64 B.C.–12 A.D.), a more reliable contemporary of Diodorus. Livy was relatively well informed about Carthage, yet he was not so affectionate toward the city as to cover up what would have been in his eyes the worst of infamies: the deliberate slaughter of children.

So it is not clear at all from the classical sources that the Carthaginians sacrificed their children to the gods. What about the biblical verses often taken as evidence of child sacrifice among the Canaanites—particularly the 030Phoenicians, who established Carthage? The word “Tophet” is only known from the Hebrew Bible; it occurs several times in Jeremiah, once in Isaiah and once in Kings, always in the same context: “He [the late-seventh-century B.C. Judahite king Josiah] defiled Tophet, which is in the valley of Ben-hinnom, so that no one would make a son or a daughter pass through fire as an offering to Moloch” (2 Kings 23:10).^a So strong a connection has been presumed between such biblical passages and the Punic sanctuaries that these sacred grounds in Carthage and elsewhere are now called Tophets. The fact is, however, that the biblical passages do not mention sacrifice. They only refer to passing children through fire.

Neither the classical sources nor the biblical passages provide conclusive evidence concerning the events that took place in the Carthage Tophet. What about the physical facts?

The Tophet was a sacred space where urns containing the incinerated bones of children were buried. These remains, moreover, were no doubt buried ritually, in accord with Punic religious or cultic laws. Marking some urns are stelae bearing Phoenician inscriptions, along with symbols (like the triangular symbol of the goddess Tanit) and figural images. The incinerated remains are those of very young children, even fetuses; in certain urns, the bones of animals have been discovered. In some cases the urns contain the remains of children and animals mixed together. How do we account for these facts?

Some historians, such as the French scholar Hélène Benichou-Safar, have proposed that the Carthage Tophet was simply a children’s cemetery in which incineration was the method of burial. This interpretation, however, confronts a sizable obstacle: Many of the thousands of inscriptions engraved on the burial stelae are votive. The inscriptions make offerings and vows to the gods, and they plead for the gods’ blessing. Not one of these inscriptions, however, mentions death.

The Carthage Tophet, like other Tophets in Sicily and Sardinia, was not a necropolis. It was a sanctuary of the Punic god Ba’al Hammon.

The texts of the inscriptions in the Carthage Tophet suggest that the sanctuary was open to everyone, regardless of nationality or social status. We know that Greek-speaking people made use of the sanctuary, for instance, since some inscriptions have the names of the gods transcribed in Greek characters. Foreigners who visited the Tophet clearly did not offer Ba’al Hammon their offspring. Nor is it likely that visitors from other Punic settlements visited the Carthage Tophet to bury or sacrifice their children. One inscription, for example, mentions a woman named “Arishat daughter of Ozmik.” The inscription tells us that Arishat was a “Baalat Eryx,” or noble woman of Eryx, a Punic community in Sicily. It seems reasonable to assume that Arishat, while visiting the great city of Carthage, simply felt the need to pay homage to the Punic gods—or to utter a vow or make a request.

The Carthage Tophet was a sacred sanctuary where people came to make vows and address requests to Ba’al Hammon and his consort Tanit, according to the formula do ut des (“I give in order that you give”). Each vow was accompanied by an offering.

Some of the stelae suggest that animals were sacrificed and then offered to the gods. For example, some stelae bear engraved depictions of altars and the heads of the animal victims.

The presence of the incinerated bones of very young children, infants and even fetuses is puzzling. If the Tophet was not a cemetery (as the presence of animal bones suggests), why do we find infants and fetuses buried in a sanctuary?

It is very common, all over the world, to find that children who die young, and especially fetuses, are accorded special status. Many cultures believe that these are simply not ordinary deaths. The Italian archaeologist Sabatino Moscati has pointed out that in certain Greek necropolises children were incinerated and their tombs were located in a separate sector, quite distinct from the burial place used for adults. This is also the case in some Islamic necropolises, where sections are reserved exclusively for the tombs of infants. Even today, Japanese children who die young, called Gizu, are placed in special areas of a temple, and they are represented by carved figurines that suggest their holy status.

Similarly, Punic children who died young possessed a special status. They were accordingly incinerated and buried inside an enclosure reserved for the cult of lord Ba’al Hammon and lady Tanit. These children were not “dead” in the usual sense of the word; rather, they were retroceded. For mysterious reasons, Ba’al Hammon decided to recall them to himself. Submitting to divine will, the parents returned the child, giving it back to the god according to a ritual that involved, among other things, incineration and burial. In return, the parents hoped that Ba’al Hammon and Tanit would provide a replacement for the retroceded child—and this request was inscribed on a funeral stela.

Thus the Tophet burials were not true offerings of children to the gods. Rather, they were restitutions of children or fetuses taken prematurely, by natural death.

Carthaginians did not sacrifice their children to Ba’al Hammon in the Tophet. This open-air site, accessible to all who cared to visit the place, was a sacred sanctuary presided over by Ba’al Hammon and his consort Tanit. The human remains found in the urns buried in the Tophet were of children recalled to the presence of the gods; that is why they were buried in the sanctuary. To this sanctuary came grieving parents, who gave their children back to Ba’al Hammon and Tanit. Sometimes the parents would offer animal sacrifices to the gods to solicit their favor. Then they had funeral stelae carved and inscribed with vows, along with the poignant request that the divine couple grant them further offspring.

Were it not for a few classical accounts, scholars would probably not attribute the burials in the Carthage Tophet to child sacrifice. Some of the more sensational stories, such as those related by the first-century B.C. historian Diodorus Siculus, have been picked up in modern times and passed off as the entire truth. In the 19th century, for instance, Gustave Flaubert described Punic child sacrifices in his novel SalammboÆ; he had no evidence at all, except for the classical sources. What if, however, the classical sources are unreliable? Indeed, what if all the evidence regarding the burials—either from literary […]