"Tophet": an Overall Interpretation, in P. Xella (ed.), The Tophet in the Ancient Mediterranean (SEL 29-30, 2012-13), Verona 2013, 259-281 (original) (raw)
Related papers
SEL 29-30 (2012/2013)
There is no evidence for a contemporary ancient concept analogous to our ‘Punic World’, and such modern ethno-cultural categorizations can obscure more interesting ancient communities of identification and practice. This essay looks at a case study of such a community, the small set of Phoenician-speaking cities in the central Mediterranean that established child-sacrifice sanctuaries. I start not from an assumption that these so-called tophets reflected generic colonial identities but from the specific identifications that the sanctuaries made between themselves. I argue that these cannot be satisfactorily explained simply in the context of a diasporic ‘Punic World’, or solely through the actions of Carthage, and that taken on their own terms these cultural phenomena have the potential to reveal new narratives in the western Mediterranean.
The Ideology of the Tophet. Some Ethno-Anthropological Remarks
IX Congreso Internacional de estudios fenicios y púnicos. MYTRA 5, 271-279, 2020
In current debate about the nature of the Phoenician and Carthaginian cremation child sanctuary called tophet, and particularly about the rites performed in it, a very important but rather neglected aspect of research is a comparative assessment which takes into account the data offered by ethno-anthropological research on early childhood. It is of utmost importance that historians, philologists and archaeologists are aware of evidence on infanticide and ritual killing in other epochs and societies. Only in this way it is possible to escape the traps of ethnocentrism, abandoning the idea that our system of values is ontologically valid for the whole human history. The in-depth knowledge of the enormous comparative material can reveal much, not only about the ancient ideology of tophet’s users, but also of modern scholars who refuse – sometimes, more emotionally than intellectually – to accept even the theoretical possibility of sacrificing children.
The Levantine Roots of the tophet Sanctuary
Journal of Ancient History 2023; 11(2): 291–303 Open Access., 2023
Phoenician and Carthaginian infant cremation sanctuaries (tophet), attested throughout the central Mediterranean (north Africa, Sardinia and Sicily, and perhaps Malta), up to this point lack convincing archaeological evidence in the Phoenician motherland and the far western Mediterranean. This study collects and reexamines the evidence of its Levantine origin of historical order, (the chronology of the settlements and the almost contemporary installation of tophet precincts in them), epigraphic (the inscription of Nebi Yunis) and literary (biblical testimonies and some Greek and Latin writers). Taken as a whole, this documentation strongly leads us to exclude an explanation of the tophet as a novelty introduced by the migrants, but an ancient traditional institution that derived in all probability from the city of Tyre.
Forbidden to Sacrifice Humans or Eat Dogs: Revisiting the Tophet Debate though a Demographic Lens
Cartagine. Studi e Ricerche, 2023
Due to recent osteoarchaeological publications, prominent historians, archaeologists and osteologists have reignited the debate over the practice of infant and child sacrifice at Phoenician sites in the central Mediterranean. In all previous studies, including osteoarchaeological approaches, the debate has been conducted on terms established by the Greco-Roman sources. Here, I move away from those sources and suggest a series of demographic models in order to understand better the effects of infanticide on population growth at Phoenician colonies in the Early Iron Age central Mediterranean.
Cemetery or sacrifice? Infant burials at the Carthage Tophet
Antiquity, 2013
The recent article on the Carthage Tophet infants by Schwartz et al. (2012) takes issue with our paper (Smith et al. 2011) that claims the Carthaginians practiced infant sacrifice. Both studies were carried out on the same sample of cremated infant remains excavated by the ASOR Punic project between 1975 and 1980 (Stager 1982). We examined the contents of 334 urns while Schwartz et al. (2012) examined the same sample plus an additional fourteen urns (N = 348). We differed, however, in our conclusions regarding the age distribution of the infants and the extent to which it supported or refuted claims that Tophet infants were sacrificed. This note explains why we think that Schwartz et al. (2012) erred in their age assessments and introduces additional evidence to show that the age distribution of the Tophet infants supports our contention of infant sacrifice.
In the ancient Mediterranean the role of children changed over time based on the context, and this panel intends to be a benchmark for the reconstruction of their – exclusive or shared with other people – presence in cult places located in Greece and Hellenized countries, dated between the late 4th and the 1st century BCE. Despite the relevance of infancy and transitional phases in the Hellenistic world and the existing literature concerning childhood and sanctuaries related to children, a broader Mediterranean perspective on their material and immaterial traces recorded in cult places is still lacking. So, the panel aims at identifying, categorizing and reconstructing contexts, activities, lifestyles and cultural behaviours, mainly exploring the following aspects: 1) cult activities by children; 2) transitional phases linked to rites of passage and education, visible in sanctuaries; 3) gender differentiation in cult places and activities there performed; 4) children’s identity, sociality (religious, economic, cultural, public and private roles) and ideology; 5) gods for children: the relation between deities and childhood. The multidisciplinary approach, including written sources clearly referring to cult places, topographical and archaeological data – objects (sculptures, terracotta figurines, pottery, votives and other finds) as well as traces of ritual activities –, iconographic and anthropological studies, is the key to the reading of the topic addressed by the panel. The wide geographical framework, including the Mediterranean space and conterminous countries representing pivotal case studies from different cultural areas (i.e. Anatolia, Mesopotamia...), allows comparisons among distant people and different cultures.
Aging cremated infants: the problem of sacrifice at the Tophet of Carthage
Antiquity, 2011
The Greeks and Romans reproached the Phoenicians for the sacrifice of infants, and the excavation of cremated infants at ‘Tophets’ (named after the sacrificial site in Jerusalem mentioned in the Bible) seems to bear this out. However, the argument for infant sacrifice depends largely on a skewed age profile, and age is not easy to determine. The authors approach this problem with a battery of new techniques, showing that in the Tophet of Carthage the majority of the infants died between one and one and a half months. Sacrifice was thus very probable.