Well, OK, perhaps it's a wee bit sensationalized from the Roman point of view.
Posted on 02/17/2010 10:10:18 AM PST by decimon
Researchers examined 348 burial urns to learn that about a fifth of the children were prenatal at death, indicating that young Carthaginian children were cremated and interred in ceremonial urns regardless of cause of death
PITTSBURGH—A study led by University of Pittsburgh researchers could finally lay to rest the millennia-old conjecture that the ancient empire of Carthage regularly sacrificed its youngest citizens. An examination of the remains of Carthaginian children revealed that most infants perished prenatally or very shortly after birth and were unlikely to have lived long enough to be sacrificed, according to a Feb. 17 report in PLoS ONE.
The findings—based on the first published analysis of the skeletal remains found in Carthaginian burial urns—refute claims from as early as the 3rd century BCE of systematic infant sacrifice at Carthage that remain a subject of debate among biblical scholars and archaeologists, said lead researcher Jeffrey H. Schwartz, a professor of anthropology and history and philosophy of science in Pitt's School of Arts and Sciences and president of the World Academy of Art and Science. Schwartz and his colleagues present the more benign interpretation that very young Punic children were cremated and interred in burial urns regardless of how they died.
"Our study emphasizes that historical scientists must consider all evidence when deciphering ancient societal behavior," Schwartz said. "The idea of regular infant sacrifice in Carthage is not based on a study of the cremated remains, but on instances of human sacrifice reported by a few ancient chroniclers, inferred from ambiguous Carthaginian inscriptions, and referenced in the Old Testament. Our results show that some children were sacrificed, but they contradict the conclusion that Carthaginians were a brutal bunch who regularly sacrificed their own children."
Schwartz worked with Frank Houghton of the Veterans Research Foundation of Pittsburgh, Roberto Macchiarelli of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, and Luca Bondioli of the National Museum of Prehistory and Ethnography in Rome to inspect the remains of children found in Tophets, burial sites peripheral to conventional Carthaginian cemeteries for older children and adults. Tophets housed urns containing the cremated remains of young children and animals, which led to the theory that they were reserved for victims of sacrifice.
Schwartz and his coauthors tested the all-sacrifice claim by examining the skeletal remains from 348 urns for developmental markers that would determine the children's age at death. Schwartz and Houghton recorded skull, hip, long bone, and tooth measurements that indicated most of the children died in their first year with a sizeable number aged only two to five months, and that at least 20 percent of the sample was prenatal.
Schwartz and Houghton then selected teeth from 50 individuals they concluded had died before or shortly after birth and sent them to Macchiarelli and Bondioli, who examined the samples for a neonatal line. This opaque band forms in human teeth between the interruption of enamel production at birth and its resumption within two weeks of life. Identification of this line is commonly used to determine an infant's age at death. Macchiarelli and Bondioli found a neonatal line in the teeth of 24 individuals, meaning that the remaining 26 individuals died prenatally or within two weeks of birth, the researchers reported.
The contents of the urns also dispel the possibility of mass infant sacrifice, Schwartz and Houghton noted. No urn contained enough skeletal material to suggest the presence of more than two complete individuals. Although many urns contained some superfluous fragments belonging to additional children, the researchers concluded that these bones remained from previous cremations and may have inadvertently been mixed with the ashes of subsequent cremations.
The team's report also disputes the contention that Carthaginians specifically sacrificed first-born males. Schwartz and Houghton determined sex by measuring the sciatic notch—a crevice at the rear of the pelvis that's wider in females—of 70 hipbones. They discovered that 38 pelvises came from females and 26 from males. Two others were likely female, one likely male, and three undetermined.
Schwartz and his colleagues conclude that the high incidence of prenate and infant mortality are consistent with modern data on stillbirths, miscarriages, and infant death. They write that if conditions in other ancient cities held in Carthage, young and unborn children could have easily succumbed to the diseases and sanitary shortcomings found in such cities as Rome and Pompeii.
Carthage was a colony of the Phonecian cities Sidon and Tyre, also called the Caananites in Scripture. The Caananites had a god called Moloch to who children were sacrificed. This practiced also migrated into Israel and Judah where it is routinely condemned in Scripture.
Yes, the Romans referred to the Carthaginian people as Punic, presumably a derivation of Phoenician. I also have read that the Carthaginians would have worshiped Baal, and that names like Hannibal means something like "Baal helps him". So, they, or their forbears are alluded to in the Bible, but the Carthaginians proper, who fought the long war(s) with Rome are not, AFAIK.
Discovering that they were perninatal does not determine the cause of death.
Carthage was a Phonecian city just as Sidon and Tyre are. The Romans called them “Puni”.
Like other Canaanites, they had children pass through fire for Moloch at Tophets. (Ironically, at the end of the Third Punic War, which was an extermination campaign by the Romans, surviving Carthaginians claimed to be Jews, since Israel was an ally of Rome against the Selucid Empire.
Check the responses on this thread for a more complete understanding of this. I noticed you weren’t pinged to a couple posts that explain how the Biblical account of the Canaanites is relevant.
|
|
|||
Gods |
Thanks decimon. |
||
|
· Discover · Nat Geographic · Texas AM Anthro News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · Google · · The Archaeology Channel · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists · |
|||
We already know what you are M'am; now we're just negotiating the price.
...it was just wide spread, random infant sacrifice. Nothing systematic about it, so nothing to worry about.
Oh, and it has nothing to do with their religion; nor does it have any ties to terrorism.
Perhaps because the researcher referenced it, and MichiganConservative thought he may have missed something?
I know that when somebody tells me something is in the Bible that I suspect is bogus, I either ask them to show me; or try to look it up for myself. They're usually wrong, spinning, or both.
Schwartz said. "The idea of regular infant sacrifice in Carthage is not based on a study of the cremated remains, but on instances of human sacrifice reported by a few ancient chroniclers, inferred from ambiguous Carthaginian inscriptions, and referenced in the Old Testament.
I didn’t know that the FBI was that old.
The Carthaginians were the Israelis of their day, a small but superbly successful and wealth country, they were envied as far away as Rome, a rival for dominance of the Mediterranean. Carthage reminds me of Rome, they became complacent and their envious neighbors destroyed their civilization and their empire. Or like modern America.
Matthew 7:13-15 (King James Version)
13Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
14Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
15Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
“I doubt that ‘infant sacrifice’ was uncommon anywhere back then. Probably not at any time.”
We’re seeing much the same thing in our own culture now. Much of the same rationalizations and such used to justify abortion on demand now had to be concerns in ancient times too. Especially when famine and poverty were crushingly in ways that affect few areas now.
The only differences I can honestly see between the current and the past is there’s no attempts to appease “gods” with it now.
Well, OK, perhaps it's a wee bit sensationalized from the Roman point of view.
One of my all-time favorite sword-and-sandal movies (must be “Samson”) has this scene where a giant idol with a big open furnace in its mouth, or maybe its belly, tips over and kills the heathens. S’cool.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.