Child Sacrifice: Children of Phoenician Punic Carthage Where Not Sacrificed to the Gods

Still Born Fetuses in Urns & the Perpetuated Lie of Diodoro Siculo
Translated from Italian by kind courtesy of Pasquale Mereu, Karalis, Sardinia, Italy
From IGN Italy Global Nation (May 2007)

Excavations in Zama, Tunis, reveal that the practice of sacrificing children by the Phoenicians is a myth. The myth was born in the Greco-Roman age with Diodoro Siculo. He made a claim that in 310 B.C. the Carthaginians remembered that they did not honor their god Chronos with the annual sacrifice of children of noble families. Because of that, in few days, they slaughtered two hundred children. Recent archaeological discoveries have disavowed this macabre religious tradition, demonstrating that among Phoenicians there is no trace of human sacrifices. This appears in an interview, in the new issue of the Italian review: "Archeologia Viva," with professor Piero Bartoloni, Head of the Department of Phoenician-Punic Archaeology at Universita' di Sassari, Italy, and a favorite student of famous archaeologist Sabatino Moscati. He undertook a major excavation campaign in Zama, Tunisia, that is linked to the fall of Carthage after the battle of Zama in 202 B.C. The battle ended the second Punic war. He declares that, "In ancient times, for every ten children that were born, seven died within the first year and out of the remained three, only one became an adult. Now I ask: is it reasonable that, with such a high level of infant mortality, these people killed their own children?” Ten necropolises are the resting places of children. Actually it has been discovered -- Bartoloni reveals -- that the greater part of approximately 6,000 children urns found in Carthage, contain bones of fetuses, therefore of still born babies. The little older children remain a problem. They most probably passed away before their initiation, a ceremony that corresponds to Catholic baptism. Flames in some way were involved, because the same initiation included the "passage of fire” of the child, accompanied by its godfather. They jumped on burning coals, as written in the Bible, the Book of the Kings.

Curriculum Vitae et Studiorum di Piero Bartoloni (in Italian)

Piero Bartoloni si è laureato in Lettere presso l`insegnamento di Filologia Semitica, relatore Sabatino Moscati, con una tesi sull`insediamento di Monte Sirai (Carbonia-Cagliari), conseguendo la votazione di 110 e lode.

Piero Bartoloni è stato Dirigente di Ricerca del Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche presso l`Istituto per la Civiltà fenicia e punica, del quale è stato Direttore dal 1997 al 2002. Attualmente è Professore Straordinario di Archeologia fenicio-punica presso l`Università di Sassari. Inoltre, dal 1990 al 1994 è stato Professore di Archeologia del Vicino Oriente e dal 1994 al 2000 di Archeologia fenicio-punica nell`Università di Urbino.

Piero Bartoloni dal 1962 ha effettuato missioni archeologiche, prospezioni terrestri e subacquee e viaggi di studio in Italia, in Europa, in Africa e nel Nord-America. Attualmente, per conto del Dipartimento di Storia dell`Università di Sassari, dell`Istituto di Studi sulle Civiltà italiche e del Mediterraneo antico del Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, dirige gli scavi archeologici a Zama Regia (Siliana- Tunisia) e, in collaborazione con la Soprintendenza Archeologica per le Province di Cagliari e Oristano, a Sulcis e a Monte Sirai (Cagliari).

Piero Bartoloni è Coordinatore dell`XI Dottorato "Il Mediterraneo in età classica. Storia e culture", è Membro del Comitato Nazionale per gli Studi e le Ricerche sulla Civiltà fenicia e punica del Ministro per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali e Membro dell`Istituto Italiano per l`Africa e l`Oriente. Piero Bartoloni è Direttore del Museo Archeologico Comunale "Ferruccio Barreca" di Sant`Antioco (Cagliari)

Piero Bartoloni è autore di circa duecento (two hundreds) pubblicazioni a carattere scientifico, tra le quali dieci libri.

Arguments for and against the claim that the Phoenician/Punic practiced child sacrifice by M'hamed Hassine Fantar and Lawrence E. Stager and Jospeh A Greene, as well as a letter in support of M'hamed Fantar's view.
NO, The Phoenician/Punic did not practice Child Sacrifice	YES, The Phoenician/Punic practiced Child Sacrifice
The Tophet was the final resting place for the still- born and for children who died in early infancy. (see letter below in support of this view) *M'hamed Hassine Fantar* 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 Salammbô; 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. For more information on the meaning of the word "Moloch," see Lawrence E. Stager and Samuel R. Wolff, "Child Sacrifice at Carthage‹Religious Rite or Population Control? Biblical Archaeology Review, January/February 1984. (This issue is out of print. To order a photocopy of this article, call us at 1-800-221-4644.) 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 Phoenicians, 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). 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.	The thousands of individual burials, the several mass burials and the animal burials all demonstrate that these were sacrifical offerings to the gods. *Lawrence E. Stager and Joseph A. Greene* 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. 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. The archaeological evidence, however, especially the bones found inside the burial urns, cannot be so easily explained away. Evidence from classical authors. 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. 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. To be sure, some historians who wrote about Carthage, such as Polybius, took no note of this practice. Why Polybius failed to mention Carthaginian child sacrifice is a mystery. He was a member of Scipio's staff in 146 B.C., and he must have known the city well. The revisionists seize on such omissions as an excuse to dismiss all reports of Phoenician child sacrifice as pure fabrications arising from anti-Phoenician bias. But this is a non sequitur. The fact that Polybius does not mention Carthaginian child sacrifice does not mean that other testimonies are false; it simply means that he has nothing to say on this point. Evidence from the Hebrew Bible. The sixth-century B.C. prophet Jeremiah accused syncretizing Judahites of setting up a "high place of Tophet" in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom outside Jerusalem (Jeremiah 7:30-32), where they "burn (sharaf) their sons and their daughters in the fire (b'esh)." This is clearly not a description of sons and daughters "passing through" the fire in some sort of rite of passage from which they emerge singed but not incinerated. These children, both male and female, "burn ... in the fire," that is, they are cremated, according to Jeremiah. This testimony is not from a foreigner who accuses the Judahites of evil ways; it is from one of their own. Any Jerusalemite who thought that the prophet might have been fabricating charges of child sacrifice could have taken a short walk down the valley of Ben-Hinnom and become, like Jeremiah, an eyewitness to the human sacrifices taking place there. The word "Tophet" can be translated "place of burning" or "roaster." The Hebrew text does not specify that the Judahite victims were buried, only burned, although the "place of burning" was probably adjacent to the place of burial. Indeed, soil in the Carthage Tophet was found to be full of olive wood charcoal, no doubt from the sacrificial pyres. We have no idea how the Phoenicians themselves referred to the places of burning or burial or to the practice itself, since no large body of Phoenician writing‹no Phoenician "Bible," as it were‹has come down to us. Evidence from Phoenician inscriptions. 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." 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. For more information on the meaning of the word "Moloch," see Lawrence E. Stager and Samuel R. Wolff, "Child Sacrifice at Carthage‹Religious Rite or Population Control? Biblical Archaeology Review, January/February 1984. (This issue is out of print. To order a photocopy of this article, call us at 1-800-221-4644.) Somewhat unexpectedly, inscribed stelae in the Carthage Tophet occasionally mark jars containing animal remains, incinerated and buried in the same careful fashion as the human victims. In this regard, a second- or third-century A.D. Neo-Punic stela from Cirta (Constantine), in Algeria, is relevant. The stela is inscribed in Latin: vita pro vita, sanguis pro sanguine, agnum pro vikario (Life for life, blood for blood, a lamb for a substitute). This act of substitution is reminiscent of the biblical Akedah, in which Abraham's sacrifice of his son Isaac was forestalled by the miraculous provision of a ram as a substitute (Genesis 22:13). Evidence from archaeology. The burned bones found inside jars from the Carthage Tophet provide conclusive evidence for Phoenician child sacrifice. 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. 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. 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. The sex of the victims is unclear. We do not know for certain whether they were exclusively males, as some have asserted, or both males and females. Some biblical texts suggest that firstborn males were chosen as the ultimate sacrifice to the deity. For example, during a military engagement between the Moabites and the Israelites, the king of Moab "took his firstborn son who was to succeed him, and offered him as a burnt offering." Upon witnessing this sacrifice, the Israelites retreated and "returned to their own land" (2 Kings 3:27). The prophet Micah lists the sacrifice of the firstborn male as the highest form of offering a human can give to a god‹even better than "calves a year old," rams or "rivers of olive oil" (Micah 6:6-7). Other texts, however, specify that both "sons and daughters" were sacrificed in the Tophet (Jeremiah 7:31 and 2 Kings 23:10). Infant skeletons are insufficiently developed to allow the determination of sex on the basis of bone morphology alone. Ongoing DNA analysis of bones from the jars, however, may resolve the question of whether the victims were all males or a mix of males and females. The classical and biblical texts, as well as the archaeology, all indicate that healthy living children were sacrificed to the gods in the Tophet. Our purpose in making this case is not to malign the Phoenicians but to understand them.
Excavations in Ashkelon prove that the Romans drowned, threw away their male babies DNA Analysis Sheds New Light on Oldest Profession at Ashkelon By Lawrence E. Stager and Patricia Smith From Biblical Archaeology Review BAR 23:04, Jul/Aug 1997 The latest scientific techniques using DNA analysis have enabled us to conclude that the fourth- to sixth-century A.D. building at Ashkelon we confidently identified as a bathhouse also served as a brothel. Its identity as a bathhouse of the late Roman period was never in doubt. Its architecture included a hypocausta and a tub. The real question was, Did it also serve as a brothel? During this period there is ample textual evidence to indicate that “mixed bathing” led to more than just cleanliness. One author, writing in the time of Nero, describes a father who went to the baths, leaving one child at home, only to return from the baths as the prospective father of two more. The poet Martial wrote that the “bathman lets you in among the tomb-haunting whores only after putting out his lantern.” Our suspicions that the Ashkelon bathhouse might also have been a brothel were aroused by the Israeli archaeologist and epigraphist Vasilios Tsaferis, who read a tantalizingly incomplete Greek inscription scrawled on the side of the tub as “Enter, enjoy and …” But the epigraph was too short to be decisive. The sewer system we found beneath the bathhouse was more suggestive. The sewer was high enough for an adult to stand up inside it. The whole system had been clogged and had gone out of use by the sixth century A.D. The sewer was filled with rubbish of all kinds, including potsherds, coins and animal bones. In addition, the shallow gutter that ran below and along the line of the sewer was filled with the skeletons of about a hundred babies. Analysis of these remains by physical anthropologists Patricia Smith and Gila Kahila indicated that the infants were newborns, discarded within a day of birth. Analysis of teeth that had not yet erupted revealed bloodstains, indicating that the infants were either strangled or drowned. Because the infant remains were found in the gutter of the sewer, it seems likely that they were intentionally drowned. For centuries, infanticide was an accepted practice for disposing of unwanted female babies—and, less often, male babies. This was especially true in ancient Roman society. In a letter (dated to June 17 of the year 1 B.C. by our calendar), a certain Hilarion writes to his wife Alis: “I ask and beg you to take good care of our baby son … If you are delivered of child [before I get home,] if it is a boy keep it; if a girl, discard it.” Knowing that the Ashkelon bathhouse was an unlikely institution for either the city’s Jews or Christians, both of whom were overwhelmingly “pro-natal,” we assumed the bathhouse/bordello made sense in a Roman context. There should, according to conventional wisdom and calculations, be more female than male babies discarded in the sewers of Ashkelon. This determination could not be made by the analysis usually used by physical anthropologists. It is impossible to determine the sex of prepubescent humans from skeletal observations alone: Such diagnostic features as the pelvis have not yet reached a significant developmental stage. Our only hope of determining the gender of the Roman infants from Ashkelon was DNA analysis. If the relevant ancient DNA could be isolated and successfully extracted, the X and Y chromosomes could be distinguished. Drs. Ariella Oppenheim and Marina Faerman, of the hematology and anatomy departments at Hebrew University, determined that the sewer sample contained both sexes. They restricted the ancient DNA samples to left femurs so that they would not duplicate bones from the same infant. They tested 43 exemplars found in the gutter. The femurs were examined using three different tests, from which they could be confident in determining the sex of 19 individuals, based on DNA analyses. Of these, 14 were male and 5 female. The high proportion of males supports the intriguing possibility that the infants discarded in the sewer were the unwanted offspring of bathhouse courtesans. The prostitutes of the establishment may have preferred to preserve a higher proportion of illegitimate female offspring to meet the future needs of the largely heterosexual institution. Bibliography Baker, Jill L. "The Middle and Late Bronze Age Tomb Complex at Ashkelon, Israel: The Architecture and the Funeral Kit." Ph.D. diss., Brown University, 2003. Ballard, R. D., Stager, L. E., et al. "Iron Age Shipwrecks in Deep Water off Ashkelon, Israel." American Journal of Archaeology 106/2(2002): 151-168. Barako, Tristan. "The Seaborne Migration of the Philistines." Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 2001. —. "The Philistines as Mercantile Phenomenon." American Journal of Archaeology 104/3 (July 2000): 513-530. Bietak, M., Kopetzky, K. and L. E. Stager, "Stratigraphie Comparée Nouvelle: The Synchronisation of Ashkelon and Tell el-Dab´a." In Proceedings of the 3ICAANE in Paris, 2002. Ed. J.-C. Margueron, P. de Miroschedji and J.-P. Thalmann. (in press). Carmi, I., et al. "The Dating of Ancient Water Wells by Archaeological and 14C Methods: Comparative Study of Ceramics and Wood." Israel Exploration Journal 44 (1994): 184-200. Cohen, Susan. Canaanites, Chronology, and Connections: The Relationship of Middle Bronze Age IIA Canaan to Middle Kingdom Egypt. Harvard Semitic Museum Publications, Studies in the History and Archaeology of the Levant, vol. 3, Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2002. Cross, Frank M. "A Philistine Ostracon From Ashkelon." Biblical Archaeology Review 22/1 (1996): 64-65. Esse, Douglas. "Ashkelon." Anchor Bible Dictionary. Ed. D. N. Freedman, vol. 1, 477-490. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1992. Faerman, M., et al. "Determining the sex of infanticide victims from the Late Roman era through ancient DNA analysis." Journal of Archaeological Science 25 (1998): 861-865. —. "DNA analysis reveals the sex of infanticide victims." Nature 385 (1997): 212-213. Faust, Avraham and Ehud Weiss. "Judah, Philistia and the World: Reconstructing the Seventh Century BCE Economic System. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 338, (2005): 71-92. Gitler, Haim and Y. Kahanov. "The Ascalon 1988 Hoard (CH.9.548), A Periplus to Ascalon in the Late Hellenistic Period?" In Coin Hoards 9: Greek Hoards. Royal Numismatic Society Special Publications No. 35. Ed. A. Meadows, U. Wartenberg, 259Ð268. London: Royal Numismatic Society, 2002. Gitler, Haim. "Achaemenid Motifs in the Coinage of Ashdod, Ascalon and Gaza from the Fourth Century B.C." Transeuphratène 20 (2000): 73-87. —. "New Fourth-Century B.C. Coins from Ashkelon." The Numismatic Chronicle 156 (1996): 1-9. Gold, Wendy. "Dark Side Unearthed in Ancient Israeli City." Discovery Channel, Canada, 20 January 1997. Gore, Rick. "Ancient Ashkelon." National Geographic Magazine 199/1(2001): 66-90. Greene, Joseph. "Ascalon." In Encyclopedia of Early Christian Art and Archaeology. Ed. P. Corby Finney. New York: Garland Publishing Inc. (forthcoming). Hesse, Brian. "Pampered Pooches or Plain Pariahs? The Ashkelon Dog Burials." Biblical Archaeologist 56/2 (1993): 55-80. Hoffman, Tracy L. "Ascalon 'Arus Al Sham: Domestic Architecture and the Development of a Byzantine-Islamic City." Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 2003. Huehnergard, John and W. van Soldt. "A Cuneiform Lexical Text from Ashkelon with a Canaanite Column." Israel Exploration Journal 49 (1999): 184-192. Johnson, Barbara and L.E. Stager. "Ashkelon: Wine Emporium of the Holy Land." In Recent Excavations in Israel. Ed. Seymour Gitin, 95-109. Boston: AIA Colloquia and Conference Papers 1, 1995. Keel, Othmar. "Aschkelon." In Corpus der Stempelsiegel—Amulette aus Palästina/Israel vol. 1. Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 13. Ed., 688-736 (nos. 1-120). Freiburg: Freiburg University, 1997. Lass, Egon. "Quantitative Studies in Flotation at Ashkelon, 1986 to 1988." Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 294 (1994): 23-38. Lipovitch, David. "Can These Bones Live Again? An Analysis of the Persian Period Non-Candid Mammalian Faunal Remains from Tel Ashkelon." Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1999. Master, Daniel. "Trade and Politics: Ashkelon's Balancing Act in the 7th Century B.C.E." Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 330 (2003): 47-64. —. "The Seaport of Ashkelon in the Seventh Century BCE: A Petrographic Study." Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 2001. —. "Iron I Chronology at Ashkelon: Preliminary Results of the Leon Levy Expedition," in Radiocarbon Dating and the Bible, ed. T. Levy. Equinox, 2005. —. "Ashkelon" in Dictionary of the Old Testament: Historical Books, ed. B. T. Arnold and H. G. M. Williamson. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2005.] Mayerson, Philip. "An Additional Note on Ascalon Wine (P. Oxy. 1384)." Israel Exploration Journal 45 (1995):190. —. "The Use of Ascalon Wine in the Medical Writers of the Fourth to the Seventh Centuries." Israel Exploration Journal 43 (1994): 169-173. Rosen-Ayalon, Miriam. "The Islamic Jewellrey From Ashkelon In Jewellery and Goldsmithing in the Islamic World: International Symposium, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, 1987. Ed. N. Brosh, 9-20. Jerusalem: Israel Museum, 1991. Schloen, David. "Ashkelon." In Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East. Ed. E. Meyers, vol. 1, 220-223. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1997. Sharon, Moshe. "A New Fatimid Inscription from Ascalon and Its Historical Setting." 'Atiqot 26 (1997): 61-86. —. Egyptian Caliph and English Baron: The story of an Arabic inscription for Ashkelon. Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum Palaestinae. Jerusalem: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1994. Smith, Patricia and G. Kahila. "Identification of Infanticide in Archaeological Sites: A Case Study from the Late Roman-Early Byzantine Periods at Ashkelon, Israel." Journal of Archaeological Science 19 (1992): 667-675. Stager, Lawrence E. and P. J. King. Life in Biblical Israel. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2001. Stager, Lawrence E. "Port Power: The Organization of Maritime Trade and Hinterland Production." In Studies in the Archaeology of Israel and Neighboring Lands: In Memory of Douglas L. Esse. SAOC 59, ASOR Books 5. Ed. S. R. Wolff, 625-638. Atlanta, GA: ASOR, 2001. Stager, Lawrence E. and P. Smith. "DNA Analysis Sheds New Light on Oldest Profession at Ashkelon." Biblical Archaeology Review23/4 (1997): 16. Stager, Lawrence E. and P.A. Mountjoy. "A Pictorial Krater from Philistine Ashkelon," in Up to the Gates of Ekron [1 Samuel 17:52]: Essays on the Archaeology and History of the Eastern Mediterranean in Honor of Seymour Gitin, eds. S.W.Crawford et al, Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, in press. Stager, Lawrence E., M. Bietak and K. Kopetzky. "Stratigraphie Comparee Nouvelle: the Synchronisation of Ashkelon and Tell el-Dab`a" in International Conference on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East (ICAANE) vol. 3 (Conference held in Paris, April 2003) eds. Pierre de Miroschedji and Jean-Paul Thalmann, pp. 221-234. Stager, Lawrence E. and R. J. Voss. "A Sequence of Tell el Yahudiyah Ware from Ashkelon" in Tell el Yahudiyah Ware from Egypt and Levant, ed. M. Bietak. Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften: Vienna., in press. Stager, Lawrence E. and F. M. Cross, "Cypro-Minoan Inscriptions Found in Philistine Ashkelon," Israel Exploration Journal 56/4, 2006. Stager, Lawrence E. "Ashkelon and the Archaeology of Destruction." In Eretz Israel 25 [Joseph Aviram Volume]. Ed. A. Biran, et al., 61-74. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1996. —. "The Fury of Babylon." Biblical Archaeology Review 22/1 (1996): 58-69, 76-77. —. "The Impact of the Sea Peoples in Canaan (1185-1050 BCE)." In The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land. Ed. Thomas E. Levy, 332-348. New York, NY: Facts on File, 1995. —. "Ashkelon." New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations In the Holy Land. Ed. E. Stern, vol. 1,103-112. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1993. —. "The MB IIA Ceramic Sequence at Tel Ashkelon and Its Implications for the 'Port Power' Model of Trade." In The Middle Bronze Age in the Levant: Proceedings of an International Conference on MB IIA Ceramic Material, Vienna, 24th-26th of January 2001. Ed. M. Bietak, 353-362. Wien: Verlag Der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2002. —. "Chariot Fittings from Philistine Ashkelon," Confronting the Past: Archaeological and Historical Essays on Ancient Israel in Honor of William G. Dever, eds. S. Gitin, J.E. Wright, and J.P. Dessel. Eisenbrauns 2006, pp. 169-176. —. "Biblical Philistines: A Hellenistic Literary Creation?" in "I Will Speak the Riddles of Ancient Times:" Archaeological and Historical Studies in Honor of Amihai Mazar, eds. A. Maeir and P. de Miroschedji. Eisenbrauns 2006, pp.375-384. —. "New Discoveries in the Excavations of Ashkelon in the Bronze and Iron Ages," Qadmoniot. Vol. 39, No. 131, 2006 (Hebrew). —. "The House of the Silver Calf of Ashkelon" in Timelines: Studies in Honour of Manfred Bietak Volume II, eds. E. Czerny, I. Hein, H. Hunger, D. Melman, and A. Schwab, Peeters 2006, pp 403-410. —. "Das Silberkalb von Aschkelon." Antike Welt 21/4 (1990): 271-272. —. Ashkelon Discovered: From Canaanites and Philistines to Romans and Moslems. Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society, 1991. —. "Un Veau d'argent déacouvert à Ashqelôn." Le Monde de la Bible 70 (1991): 50 52. —. "When Canaanites and Philistines Ruled Ashkelon." Biblical Archaeology Review 17/2 (1991): 24 43. —. "Why Were Hundreds of Dogs Buried at Ashkelon?" Biblical Archaeology Review 17/3 (1991): 27 42. —. "Eroticism and Infanticide at Ashkelon." Biblical Archaeology Review 17/4 (1991): 35-53. —. "In the Footsteps of the Philistines." In Ashqelon 4000 and Forty More Years. Ed. N. Arbel, vol. 1, chapter 1. Tel Aviv: Graph Or Daphtal, 1990. Stager, Lawrence E. and D. Esse. "Ashkelon Excavations: The Leon Levy Expedition." In Ashqelon 4000 and Forty More Years. Ed. N. Arbel, vol. 1, chapter 2. Tel Aviv: Graph Or Daphtal, 1990. —. "Notes and News: Ashkelon." Israel Exploration Journal 37 (1987): 68-72. Stone, Bryan J. "The Philistines and Acculturation: Culture Change and Ethnic Continuity in the Iron Age." Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 298 (1995): 7-32. Thompson, Christine. "Sealed Silver in Iron Age Cisjordan and the 'Invention' of Coinage." Oxford Journal of Archaeology 22/1 (2003): 67-107. Voss, Ross. "A Sequence of Four Middle Bronze Gates in Asheklon." In The Middle Bronze Age in the Levant: Proceedings of an International Conference on MB IIA Ceramic Material, Vienna, 24th-26th of January 2001. Ed. M. Bietak,.379-384. Wien: Verlag Der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2002. Waldbaum, Jane C. "Iron I-II(1200-586)—Imports and Local Imitations: Greek." In The Ancient Pottery of Israel and Its Neighbors from the Neolithic through the Hellenistic Period. Ed. S. Gitin. Jerusalem: IES, W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, IAA, (in preparation). —. "7th Century B.C. Greek Pottery from Ashkelon, Israel: An Entrepôt in the Southern Levant." In Pont-Exuin et Commerce: La Genèse de la 'Route de la Soie,' Actes die IXe Symposium de Vani (Colchide)-1999. Ed. M. Faudot, A. Fraysse, and E. Geny, 57-75. Presses Universitaires Franc-Comtoises, 2002. Waldbaum, Jane C. and J. Magness. "The Chronology of Early Greek Pottery: New Evidence from Seventh Century B.C. Destruction Levels in Israel." American Journal of Archaeology 101 (1997): 23-40. Wapnish Paula and B. Hesse. "Pigs' Feet, Cattle Bones and Birds' Wings." Biblical Archaeology Review 22/1 (1996): 62. Wapnish, Paula. "Beauty and Utility in Bone: New Light on Bone Crafting." Biblical Archaeology Review 17/4 (1991): 54-57. Weiss, Ehud and M. E. Kislev. "Plant Remains as Indicators for Economic Activity: A Case Study from Iron Age Ashkelon." Journal of Archaeological Science 31 (2004): 1-13. Response in support of M'hamed Hassine Fantar published as is. Subject: letter to the Editor: about child sacrifice in Carthage Date: Tuesday, February 3, 2004 2:50 PM From: Salvatore Conte <sal.conte@tiscali.it> To: Salim Khalaf Dear Editor, I read the interesting article you published about child sacrifice in Carthage (with theses by M'hamed Hassine Fantar from one side, and by Lawrence E. Stager and Joseph A. Greene from the other one). I'm an Italian independent scholar and I focus my studies over historical problems produced by "Romancentrism": a totalitarian point of view of Mediterranean ancient history, based on false witnesses and on the absence (from the "trial") of Carthage libraries burned by the greatest vandal (and criminal) of ancient times: Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus minor. I share Prof. Fantar's thesis. His thought is clear and gets my humble admiration. Not only Prof. Moscati, but three eminent scholars (Michel Gras, Pierre Rouillard, Javier Teixidor: "L'univers phénicien", Arthaud, 1989) are agree with him too. So I think this is the truth: 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 children and this request was inscribed on a funeral stela (M'hamed Hassine Fantar). But I'd wish rising here another question: the "classical sources" (Fantar's words) which talk about children sacrifices in Carthage are nearly the same which talk about the suicide (in the fire) of Carthage foundress, Elissa of Tyrus (Dido). I think these two topics are just one. We know Tanit is the most important Goddess in Carthage, and she's protagonist in the Tophet too. We know also that Astarte and Tanit are not the same one. We know that no sign of Tanit is dated older than IX-VIII century B.C (Elissa times). And we know Elissa was deified, but we don't know her divine name. Besides we know Tanit cult will survive in Carthage very long, until the end of "classical age" (5th century C.E.), with a strong identification with the city, even if no more Punic. So I think Tanit is the divine name of Elissa, and since she was devoted to Astarte, she probably was considered the "incarnation" or "revelation" of Astarte. The ingenious, peaceful, "miraculous" foundation and fast development of Carthage, the good relations with Lybian peoples, a long and stable government, agriculture and urban improvements, a special - feminine - care of childhood to favor the growth of the new city (as Prof. Fantar explains by his better words), and at last a mild passage to the Republic form, probably led to her deification. But also to the grudge by hostile foreign leaders and their "classical voices". In any case, so many evidences seem to exclude the fanciful, contradictories inventions about her suicide made by some "classical sources" ("the voice of the enemy", as writes Gerhard Herm). I publish on my website (www.queendido.org <http://www.queendido.org> ) complete references (but mainly on Italian language). But I wish proposing here a confirm by an excellent Author: Virgil. I study his Aeneid from a different, not common, point of view: "double writing" system by French Prof. Jean-Yves Maleuvre. According to this theory, Virgil was a fierce opponent of Emperor Augustus. By this reason, he disappointed Augustus expectations about Aeneas heroism, and he secretly built his Poem around Dido's character (I call this "Didocentrism" in Virgil's Work). This explains very well the famous historical anachronism between Aeneas and Dido (three/four centuries far): Virgil was completely disinterested by Aeneas. His historical attention is for Dido's times. We have several examples: for instance, he perfectly knew when Phoenicians colonized Cyprus (IX century B.C., according to Gras/Rouillard/Teixidor; see Aeneid, I, 621-622). Following this line we discover several important things. One of these is that Virgil probably knew Phoenician/Punic "child religious philosophy"; in this way he writes in the Aeneid, 6th Book, 426-429 (T.C. Williams translation): Now hears he sobs, and piteous, lisping cries Of souls of babes upon the threshold plaining; Whom, ere they took their portion of sweet life, Dark Fate from nursing bosoms tore, and plunged In bitterness of death. Through Aeneas eyes, Virgil describes a special area of Underworld where the souls of soon dead children stay, separated from the other souls (this aspect is different from Homer's Underworld). So probably Virgil knew this Punic convention and he accepted it, introducing it in his work. It's possible notice that Virgil doesn't explain children deaths by human actions. But, since virgilian narrator is often "internal" (I mean "not omniscient"), and since Aeneas "travel" in Underworld is indeed a dream of the Trojan, the thing is even more interesting: Aeneas comes from Carthage long stay, at Dido's court; in this way, he has "absorbed" Phoenician/Punic vision of Underworld, where very little children can't be judged by "Minos, the judge" of Underworld, because (as Fantar says so well) "these children were not dead in the usual sense of the word; rather, they were retroceded". I substain also that Dido's suicide in the Aeneid is merely apparent, but this is another story... Complex enough and requiring Ovid knowledge. I can just invite here to reflect about the fact that "comites aspiciunt" (read "Trojans hope for"), of IV, 664, introduces a subjective vision (internal narration): pyre's fire "deceives" Aeneas and companions. They wish seeing Dido's death, and they see it, by their mind, in the way they prefer: ugly and bloody (check narrative/subjective echos among IV, 665, and Trojans' leaving from Carthage, IV, 581-583). That's the exact meaning of Dido's words in IV, 661/662, I think. Virgil, Ovid (Fasti), and Silius Italicus (Virgil's follower), demolish "classical sources" in the name of a common vision of Mediterranean history: one, unique people - one, unique great civilization - one story only, with no ostility and no hate towards other parts of this same Mediterranean people. The introduction in Rome of Tanit cult with a temple close to Juno's one (I remember Dido is "daughter" and First Priestess of Juno in Virgil's Poem), is the summa of this concept. Thank you for your work, dear Editor. Dr. Salvatore Conte