SAEDNEWS: Shocking Evidence Reveals That Carthaginian Parents Ritualistically Sacrificed Young Children as Offerings to Their Gods
Along the coasts of Tunisia lie the ruins of a city that once rivaled Rome in power: ancient Carthage. Today, the city’s sacred sites, once dedicated to sacrifices and offerings, lie buried beneath layers of dust and soil. Thousands of years ago, these sites attracted wealth, devotion, and the reverence of worshippers.
According to Britannica, Carthage was founded around 900 BCE by the Phoenicians and grew into a bustling commercial hub and a legendary maritime port.
Like other Phoenician cities, Carthage had a Tophet—a sacred enclosure where sacrifices and burials took place. The Carthaginian Tophet consisted of a “sanctuary area” for votive offerings and a cemetery section where the deceased were interred.
Shocking evidence has emerged indicating that Carthaginian parents ritually sacrificed their young children as offerings to the gods.
The Tunisian Ministry of Cultural Affairs announced in a press release on August 11 that archaeologists excavating the Tophet discovered a collection of offerings, including five gold coins dating back 2,300 years, tombstones, and several urns containing remains of animals, infants, and premature babies.
The rare gold coins measure about an inch in diameter and feature the face of Tanit, the ancient goddess of fertility and motherhood. These coins were offered to the principal Tophet deities—god Hammon and goddess Tanit—by wealthy worshippers.
Carthage’s Tophet served both as a massive sacrificial site and a cemetery. Since its rediscovery in 1921, archaeologists have uncovered more than 20,000 urns containing the remains of children, mostly newborns but also children up to four years old.
Although this interpretation has been disputed in the past, mounting evidence suggests that Carthaginian parents ritually offered their young children as sacrifices to the gods.
Josephine Quinn, one of the study’s authors, explains, “They may have done this out of deep religious conviction, or from the belief that the sacrifice and the prosperity it brought to the family or community were more important than a child’s life.”
