The majority of urns in this site, as well as in similar sites in Motya and Tharros, contained the charred bones of infants or fetuses; in rarer instances, the remains of children between the ages of two and four have been found. Sceptics maintain that the bodies of children found in Carthaginian and Phoenician cemeteries were merely the cremated remains of children who died naturally. 200 children of the most affluent and powerful families were slain and tossed into the burning pyre. Sacrificing children was apparently distasteful even to Carthaginians, and according to Plutarch they began to seek alternatives to offering up their own children, such as buying children from poor families or raising servant children instead. One explanation is that the Carthaginians sacrificed children in return for divine intervention. The Carthaginians had a high degree of religious syncretism, incorporating deities and practices from the many cultures they interacted with, including Greece, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Italy; conversely, many of its cults and practices spread across the Mediterranean via trade and colonisation. Foreign visitors, including otherwise hostile figures like Cato the Censor and Agathocles of Syracuse, consistently described the Carthaginian countryside as prosperous and verdant, with large private estates “beautified for their enjoyment”.

In countries like Argentina, the exchange rate is so favorable to Americans that I zig-zagged around Buenos Aires for a week and the most expensive trip was a 37-minute ride across town during rush hour for $9.30. In case you have limited free time, and looking for an enjoyable activity, consider taking a ride. During the peak of its wealth and power in the fourth and third centuries BC, Carthage was among the largest metropolises in antiquity; its free male population alone may have numbered roughly 200,000 in 241 BC, excluding resident foreigners. Strabo estimates a total population of 700,000, a figure that was possibly drawn from Polybius; it is unclear if this number includes all residents or just free citizens. Surviving Punic texts indicate a very well-organized priesthood class, who were drawn mostly from the elite class and distinguished from most of the population by being clean shaven. Contemporary scholarship places the peak of its population at 500,000 by 300 BC, which would make Carthage the largest city in the world at the time. In the early fifth century BC, the Syracusan leader Hermocrates reportedly described Carthage as the richest city in the world; centuries later, even in its weakened state following the First Punic War, the “universal view” was that Carthage was “the richest city in world”.

In their treaty with Macedon in 215 BC, Carthaginian officials and generals swore an oath to both the Greek and Carthaginian gods. Aside from Melqart’s awakening rite, Punic inscriptions found in Carthage attest to a mayumas festival probably involving the ritual portage of water; the word itself is arguably a Semitic calque on the Greek hydrophoria (ὑδροφόρια). The most well-known Carthaginian in the Greco-Roman world, aside from military and political leaders, was probably the fictional Hanno of the Roman comedy Poenulus (“The Little Carthaginian” or “Our Carthaginian Friend”), who is portrayed as a garish, crafty, and wealthy merchant. According to Charles Picard, Greek and Roman critics objected not to the killing of children but to its religious context: in both ancient Greece and Rome, inconvenient newborns were commonly killed by exposure to the elements. He notes that infant and child mortality were high in ancient times-with perhaps a third of Roman infants dying of natural causes in the first three centuries AD-which not only would explain the frequency of child burials, but would make the regular, large-scale sacrificing of children an existential threat to “communal survival”. Forensic evidence further suggests that most of the infants had died prior to cremation.

However, such crises would naturally lead to increased child mortality, and consequently, more child burials via cremation. However, it does cost significantly more. You have to check out more things within these guides and an actual conversation can greatly aid you with that. Hoyos also notes contradictions between the various historical descriptions of the practice, many of which have not been backed by modern archaeology. Dexter Hoyos argues that it is impossible to determine a “definitive answer” to the question of child sacrifice. The Hebrew Bible mentions child sacrifice practiced by the Canaanites, ancestors of the Carthaginians, while Greek sources allege that the Phoenicians sacrificed the sons of princes during times of “grave peril”. The Greek goddesses Demeter and Kore became prominent in the late fourth century, following the war with Syracuse, and were worshiped into the second century AD. At any time when the Order Buffer is non-empty, the station will schedule the continued processing of the oldest packet found there, to be executed Tw seconds following the Time at which said message was received. I would leave, I mean when my oldest was really little, I would leave before she was awake and I’d come home and she was in bed already.