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.
Kindertoten ping.
Other than 100 or so years of war and invasion, I can’t imagine why the Roman’s would talk smack about Carthage...
That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever read. Carthaginian inscriptions, ancient chroniclers, the Old Testament and this scientist’s results all show infant sacrifice by the Carthaginians. But the “scientist” then says: “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.” Ridiculous. It’s like he wanted to disprove infant sacrifice and couldn’t so he just spun it that way.
Carthage is not mentioned in the Bible.
Please note that this is University of Pittsburgh research, so still has scientific credibility, unlike Pennsylvania State University, that can no longer be considered a credible research facility as long as Michael Mann, creator of the “horse hockey graph” of global climate change remains in their employ.
Attitudes about Rome are interesting. In recent times it's been popular to portray the Romans as brutal conquerors of harmless peoples. Peoples who were harmlessly attacking Rome for hundreds of years. By modern standards, there just weren't any good guys back then.
Spoilsports.
Wrong in a sense. Caananites and Tophet. The Carthaginian people; their ancestors.
I doubt that ‘infant sacrifice’ was uncommon anywhere back then. Probably not at any time.
The Romans even accused them of purchasing young babies from impoverished peasants along the Italian coast for the purpose of sacrificing them.
The Carthaginians semitic relatives throughout the area ALSO accused them of infant sacrifice.
Now, as nasty a piece of propaganda as the story might seem, EVERYBODY said it about the Carthaginians but not about each other!
It's probably more like the Aztec practice of bringing in sacrificial victims from their tributary tribes. By the time the Spaniards showed up the tributaries were ready for a revolution!
The Spanish economic competitors of the time ~ the Brits, Scandinavians, French and Italians did not criticize the Spanish for helping put down the Aztecs although they did criticize them for every other thing under the Sun.
The fact the researchers found "newborns" suggests nothing else than that the Carthaginians preferred "fresh meat" to serve Saturn!
Our chroniclers will say something like: only 1 in 5 children were sacrificed on the altar of selfishness while still in the womb. This means that America of the late 20th and early 21st century was not at all uncaring about their unborn children.
Just looking through my Bible here, I don’t see the land that Carthage was in isn’t in any of the maps until they show Paul’s mission trips. Those would be after Christ’s death and resurrection.
Maybe this guy set out to prove the Bible wrong, but picked the wrong city. Or maybe the reporter doesn’t have his facts straight. I can’t believe a reporter could be wrong, though.
Agreed, it’s tough to sing Kumbya with a pilum stuck in your back.
Phonecia is mentioned under later names as Canaan, Israel, Judea, Syria, Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, and Arvad
Because they hideously murdered fewer children than was thought, the researchers have concluded that the Cathagenians weren’t brutal. That makes sense in liberal academia.
On the other hand, I guess we might not think the Cathaginians not so terribly brutal if we compare their infant sacrifices to the tens of millions of babies we have sacrificed to the religions of feminism, liberalism, and zero population growth.
Lev.18:21 forbids the Israelites to sacrifice their children--which presupposes that it was a known custom in the area which they were not to follow.
2 Kings 3:27 tells of the king of Moab taking his oldest son and offering him for a burnt offering (the king is identified as Mesha in verse 4). The Moabites lived east of the Dead Sea and were descended from Lot, Abraham's nephew, according to Genesis 19:37.
Maybe this guy set out to prove the Bible wrong, but picked the wrong city. Or maybe the reporter doesn’t have his facts straight. I can’t believe a reporter could be wrong, though.
I do not see why you are looking in the Bible to find out about Carthage. What does the Bible have to do with it? Rome completely destroyed the city in 146 BC. The period of the Punic Wars (264 BC-146 BC) is not covered in the Old Testament and predates the New Testament. According to the maps I have seen of Paul's missionary journeys, he did not go to the site of ancient Carthage. In Paul's time, no one would have referred to a country or a place called Carthage. It no longer existed.
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