Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ancient Carthaginians did sacrifice their children (2014)

ox.ac.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 255 posts

Re: Ancient Carthaginians did sacrifice their children (2014)

#51

Post by the_mitsuhiko »

rsynnott wrote: post #24
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My growing distrust of soft sciences over the past few years means that this article did not move the needle in me to believe Carthage practiced child sacrifice, not one millimeter. There is a trove of independent historic stories and tales about child sacrifice in Carthage from Plutarch, Plato and even the Bible. In some sense I think it would more obvious than not to assume that child sacrifice did take place.

Couple of issues there; you’d have to question the independence (at the remove of time it’s impossible to know if there was a single source), and if you’re going to take attestation by multiple ancient writers as strong evidence of a thing, well, you’re going to end up believing some odd, and often contradictory, things. That sort of evidence isn’t nothing, but _in itself_ you probably need to be very careful with it…

I don't dispute that, but we have both multiple written sources about the practice and the Tophet of Carthage is an actually existing cemetery containing both young children and animals. So while there is no definite evidence in one way or the other, I would argue it's not outlandish to assume that the written history is to be trusted here.

Re: Ancient Carthaginians did sacrifice their children (2014)

#52

Post by AmericanChopper »

gettodachoppa wrote: post #15

[flagged]

> and my only thought is, did they really have access to so much more credible evidence that all historians before 2014 didn't?

It was really only after the 1970s that academia pushed the no child sacrifice in Carthage narrative. If it’s the modern humanities department that you have a problem with, then the child sacrifice denial is an innovation created by that system to begin with.

Re: Ancient Carthaginians did sacrifice their children (2014)

#53

Post by ffgjgf1 »

rsynnott wrote: post #24
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My growing distrust of soft sciences over the past few years means that this article did not move the needle in me to believe Carthage practiced child sacrifice, not one millimeter. There is a trove of independent historic stories and tales about child sacrifice in Carthage from Plutarch, Plato and even the Bible. In some sense I think it would more obvious than not to assume that child sacrifice did take place.

Couple of issues there; you’d have to question the independence (at the remove of time it’s impossible to know if there was a single source), and if you’re going to take attestation by multiple ancient writers as strong evidence of a thing, well, you’re going to end up believing some odd, and often contradictory, things. That sort of evidence isn’t nothing, but _in itself_ you probably need to be very careful with it…

> you’d have to question the independence

The Greeks had no issue describing the bizarre Etruscan custom of no exposing “excess” female infants and treating the more or less equally to boys.

Killing infants or even young children was really not a big deal in the ancient word. Viewing it as some act of extreme evil is mainly a Christian thing…

Re: Ancient Carthaginians did sacrifice their children (2014)

#54

Post by ffgjgf1 »

lelanthran wrote: post #23
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My growing distrust of soft sciences over the past few years means that this article did not move the needle in me to believe Carthage practiced child sacrifice, not one millimeter. There is a trove of independent historic stories and tales about child sacrifice in Carthage from Plutarch, Plato and even the Bible. In some sense I think it would more obvious than not to assume that child sacrifice did take place.

> There is a trove of independent historic stories and tales about child sacrifice in Carthage from Plutarch, Plato and even the Bible. So? Historic stories and tales from a time when those things weren't written down but handed orally from generation to generation are generally far removed from the truth. After all, even in an age where almost everything is written down we still battle to separate baseless accusatio…

> things weren't written

Why do you think they weren’t written done? Carthage and many other from which we have no surviving texts were highly literate societies and there is no reason to think that Greek or Roman historians did not use those sources.

Re: Ancient Carthaginians did sacrifice their children (2014)

#55

Post by ffgjgf1 »

fastball wrote: post #30
dan-robertson wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bible was initially an oral tradition but I’m pretty sure Plutarch and Plato were written down from the start.

Yes, but Plato and Plutarch weren't eyewitnesses, they were recording the claims of others, i.e. still rooted in oral histories.

Or texts written by others. I’m sure there were way more punic or greek sources written down by eyewitness than we have now (by several magnitudes)

Re: Ancient Carthaginians did sacrifice their children (2014)

#56

Post by ffgjgf1 »

lynx23 wrote: post #32
gettodachoppa wrote: post #15

[flagged]

It is about time that we call out soft sciences for what they are. Pretty much a hoax and a way to escape real work when going to university. Two of my partners both have academic degrees in soft sciences, one even made it to a PhD. And both pretty much lack understanding of the scientiific process. This is horrifying, because society treats them as if they should know.

I would view it more as personal failure of your partners and the institutions they attended than of fields themselves…

Re: Ancient Carthaginians did sacrifice their children (2014)

#57

Post by ffgjgf1 »

fastball wrote: post #35
tomohawk wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carthage was a Phoenician colony. The Phoenicians (Sidon, Tyre) were independently described by other cultures as having a national cult that sacrificed children. These descriptions are preserved in the Bible. The struggle with this cult was a significant formative experience of Judaism that lasted many generations.

Societies have also been known to completely fabricate horrible anecdotes about their neighbors / nemeses.

In this case you have multiple societies independently telling the same thing about the same society. Seems about as credible as it gets in a situation like this.

Also it’s not like killing infants was a big deal for the Greeks. There were even a bit shocked by their perceived lack of female infanticide in the Etruscan society.

Re: Ancient Carthaginians did sacrifice their children (2014)

#58

Post by JoeAltmaier »

gettodachoppa wrote: post #15

[flagged]

Roman brothel excavations (in the old vincas, villages surrounding Roman frontier forts) would have numerous (>50) holes chipped in the sod with sad remains of tiny human bones. The unwanted children of the employees of the brothel, the unwanted and unsupportable offspring of Roman soldiers sowing their wild oats and not stepping up.

Not a thing to debate. Sure infant mortality was bad back then but not that bad. And no wanted, loved child got stuffed into a hole chipped in the sod back of the brothel.

Re: Ancient Carthaginians did sacrifice their children (2014)

#59

Post by antman »

I remember reading an analysis of a script written during the wars of Carthage with Rome which had this incredible meaning: "Stop adopting slave children to sacrifice them so that we have a favorable outcome, it needs to be your actual children".

Most if not all Mediterranean civilizations practiced child sacrifice, for Minoans the keywords for those with access to scientific papers is "The Southern House of Knossos" and ofcourse the 14 youths being sent each year to the Minotaur

Most Ministries of culture of the respective countries have not financed further research to this arguably interesting topic

Re: Ancient Carthaginians did sacrifice their children (2014)

#60

Post by ffgjgf1 »

lelanthran wrote: post #21
oofnik wrote: post #7

Child sacrifice hooks into some very deep and dark aspects of human psychology that we have yet to unpack. There is a reason that this practice crops up in various civilizations seemingly independently, and it is not a pretty one - at least not by contemporary moral sensibilities. It is impossible to understand the biblical narrative of the binding of Isaac, for example, without addressing the context in which such a…

> Child sacrifice hooks into some very deep and dark aspects of human psychology that we have yet to unpack. Maybe not. Humans first do something practical, and then use rituals and tradition to justify it. Here's an alternative scenario: In an age where abortion had a higher chance of killing the woman than childbirth, this was the only practical abortion. It's only after the fact that it gets justified as a sacrifi…

Greeks and Romans had almost bo qualms about infanticide though. It was no less acceptable than abortion is nowadays.

They only had issues with ritualizing the process or killing older children..

Post reply on HN