Carthage - Tophet

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Tunisia. The excavations have shown that the custom of sacrificing first-born children, particularly boys, which was common in earlier times in the Near East, was also practiced in the early days of Carthage. Although the heyday of the cult was from the sixth to the third centuries B.C., the Tophet continued in use as a cult site into the early Christian period. Gustave Flaubert gives a vivid account of the sacrifice of children in Carthage in his novel "Salammbo" (see Quotations). The ashes of the victims were deposited in the sacred precinct, originally in urns surrounded by vertical slabs of stone; later the urns were buried in the ground and each grave was marked by a stele between 30 and 90cm (1 and 3ft) high. Many of these stones have inscriptions in Punic (Libyan) script, magical signs and stylized representation of the gods. When the Tophet was full the place of sacrifice was covered with earth and a new layer began to be built up. At the lowest level of all the excavators discovered a small niche, the Chapel of Cintas, which may possibly have been the burial chapel of Elissa herself. The Carthaginians hoped by these human sacrifices to win the favor of the gods in a time of need. Estimates of the number of victims put the figure as high as 7,000. Some evidence was provided by the numbers of stelae and pottery urns found during the excavations, many of which are displayed in the museums of Tunis and Carthage. Since most of the sacred precinct, which covers an area of 2 hectares/5 acres, has been built over, it has been possible so far to excavate only a very small part of it. The site is a maze of burial shafts and remains of foundations, with numerous stelae, some of them bearing inscriptions and symbols. On the offer of a small tip the custodian will open a shed containing numerous stelae, most of them with inscriptions, and pottery urns, still said to contain the ashes of the unfortunate victims.