Phoenicia and Carthage

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See also: Religion in Carthage

Carthage was notorious to its neighbors for child sacrifice. Plutarch (ca. 46120 AD) mentions the
practice, as do Tertullian, Orosius and Diodorus Siculus. However,Livy and Polybius do not. The Hebrew
Bible also mentions what appears to be child sacrifice practiced at a place called the Tophet ("roasting
place") by the Canaanites, ancestors of the Carthaginians, and by some Israelites.
Some of these sources suggest that babies were roasted to death on a heated bronze statue. According
to Diodorus Siculus, "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."(Bib. Hist. 20.14.6)
Sites within Carthage and other Phoenician centers revealed the remains of infants and children in large
numbers; some historians[citation needed] interpret this as evidence for frequent and prominent child
sacrifice to the god Baal-hamon.
The accuracy of such stories is disputed by some modern historians and archaeologists.[13] At Carthage,
a large cemetery exists that combines the bodies of both very young children and small animals, and
those who argue in favor of child sacrifice have argued that if the animals were sacrificed then so too were
the children.[14] However, recent archaeological work has produced a detailed breakdown of the age of
the buried children and based on this, and especially on the presence of pre natal individuals - that is still
births, it is also argued that this site is consistent with the burial of children who had died from natural
causes in a society that had a high infant mortality rate - as Carthage is assumed to have been. I.e. this
data supports the view that Tophets were cemeteries for those who died shortly before or after birth,
regardless of the cause.[14]
Greek, Roman and Israelite writers refer to Phoenician child sacrifice. However, some historians have
disputed this interpretation, suggesting instead that these were resting places for children miscarried or
who died in infancy.[citation needed]Skeptics suggest that the bodies of children found in Carthaginian and
Phoenician cemeteries were merely the cremated remains of children that died naturally.[15]Sergio
Ribichini has argued that the Tophet was "a child necropolis designed to receive the remains of infants
who had died prematurely of sickness or other natural causes, and who for this reason were "offered" to
specific deities and buried in a place different from the one reserved for the ordinary dead".[16] The few
Carthaginian texts which have survived make absolutely no mention of child sacrifice, though most of
them pertain to matters entirely unrelated to religion, such as the practice of agriculture.[citation needed]
According to Stager and Wolff, in 1984, there was a consensus among scholars that Carthaginian children
were sacrificed by their parents, who would make a vow to kill the next child if the gods would grant them
a favor: for instance that their shipment of goods were to arrive safely in a foreign port.[17] They placed
their children alive in the arms of a bronze statue of:

the lady Tanit ... . The hands of the statue extended over a brazier into which the child fell
once the flames had caused the limbs to contract and its mouth to open ... . The child was
alive and conscious when burned ... Philo specified that the sacrificed child was bestloved.[18]

Later commentators have compared the accounts of child sacrifice in the Old Testament with similar ones

from Greek and Latin sources speaking of the offering of children by fire as sacrifices in the Punic city
of Carthage, which was a Phoenician colony. Cleitarchus, Diodorus Siculus and Plutarch all mention
burning of children as an offering to Cronus or Saturn, that is to Ba'al Hammon, the chief god of Carthage
(see Interpretatio graeca for clarification). Issues and practices relating to Moloch and child sacrifice may
also have been created for negative effect[citation needed]. Some scholars think that after the Romans finally
defeated Carthage and totally destroyed the city, they engaged in post-war propaganda to make their
archenemies seem cruel and less civilized[citation needed]. The topic of whether Phoenician child sacrifice
was real or a myth continues to be discussed in academic circles.[19][20]