'Human sacrifice' is the act of killing a human being for the purposes of making an offering to a deity or other, normally supernatural, power. It was practiced in many ancient
cultures. The practice has varied between different cultures, with some like the
Mayans and
Aztecs being notorious for their ritual killings, while others have looked down on the practice as primitive. Victims were
ritually killed in a manner that was supposed to please or appease
gods or
spirits. Victims ranged from prisoners to infants to
Vestal Virgins, who suffered such fates as burning, beheading and being buried alive.
Because information on certain cultures' sacrificial tendencies often comes from outside sources (
Greeks and
Romans for
Celts and medieval
Christians for
Norsemen, for example) who may have had ulterior
propaganda motives, some contemporary
historians consider certain allegations of human
sacrifice suspect.
Over time human sacrifice has become less common around the world, and sacrifices are now very rare. Most religions condemn the practice and present-day laws generally treat it as a criminal matter. Nonetheless it is still occasionally seen today, especially in the least developed areas of the world where traditional beliefs persist.
==
Magical thinking rationale for the sacrifices ==
Ritual sacrifice may involve offering to deities as payment for favorable interventions in an event of special importance, to forestall unfavorable events, or to purchase disclosures about the physical world. Human sacrifice has been practiced on a number of different occasions and in many different cultures. These include:
★ Sacrifice by Indian adherents of
Tantrism who believe that human sacrifices to the gods can change their fortune.
★ Sacrifice to accompany the dedication of a new building like a temple or bridge.
Chinese legends hold that thousands of people were entombed in the
Great Wall of China, which may be a factual historical event, a metaphorical one, considering the labor and investment of the construction, or a misstated one, since deceased laborers could be buried pragmatically where they worked.
★ In ancient
Japan legends talk about Hitobashira ("human pillar"), in which maidens were
buried alive at the base or near some constructions as a prayer to ensure the buildings against disasters or enemy attacks.
[1]
★ Sacrifice in
Aztec and
Mayan cultures to diverse gods.
★ Sacrifice of his daughter by a victorious Biblical general
Jephthah, and
Abraham's near-sacrifice of his son to prove his loyalty to
God.
★ Sacrifice upon the death of a
king, high priest or great leader; the sacrifices were to serve or accompany the deceased leader in the
next life.
Mongols,
Scythians, early
Egyptians and various
Mesoamerican chiefs could take most of their household, including servants and
concubines, with them to the next world. This is sometimes called a "retainer sacrifice," as the leader's retainers would be sacrificed along with their master.
★ Sacrifice by ritual combat. Aztecs killed prisoners in ritual combats such as
gladiatorial or
bloody games.
★
Martyrdom or sacrifice through
war, a controversial argument that asserts military combat to be ritualistic and hence a kind of ritual human sacrifice.
★ Sacrifice for
divination; a priest would try to
predict the future from the body parts of a slain prisoner or slave. According to
Strabo,
Celts stabbed a victim with a sword and divined the future from his death spasms.
[2]
★ Sacrifice in times of natural happenings. Droughts, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and comets were seen as a sign of anger or displeasure of
gods and sacrifices were made to appease the divine ire.
Ancient Minoans may have tried to avert destruction by earthquake by using a man as a sacrificial victim within the temple of
Anemospilia.
[3]
Sacrifice in the Bible
All three Abrahamic religions hold that the Bible condemns human sacrifice.
Jewish,
Christian,
Muslim, and modern historians' views on this subject can be found in the article on the
binding of Isaac.
References in the Bible point to an awareness of human sacrifice in the history of ancient near-eastern practice. During a battle with the Israelites the king of Moab gives his firstborn son and heir as a whole burnt offering (''olah'', as used of the Temple sacrifice).
[4] It is apparently effective, as the Israelites turn back (2 Kings 3.27). Also, in the time of the prophet
Micah he is able to say, "Shall I give my firstborn for my sin?"(Micah 6.7). So it is possible that the offering of a firstborn son or other human victim developed into the whole burnt offering of the Temple service.
In
Genesis 22 there is a story about the
binding of Isaac. In this story,
God tests
Abraham by asking him to present his son,
Isaac, as a sacrifice on
Mount Moriah. No reason is given within the text. Abraham agrees to this command without arguing. According to the text, God does not want Abraham to actually sacrifice his son; it states from the beginning that this is only a test of obedience. The story ends with an
angel stopping Abraham at the last minute and making Isaac's sacrifice unnecessary by providing a ram, caught in some nearby bushes, to be sacrificed instead. Many Bible scholars have suggested this story's origin was a remembrance of an era when human sacrifice was abolished in favor of animal sacrifice.
[5][6]
In the Christian religion the belief developed that the story of Isaac's binding was a foreshadowing of the sacrifice of
Jesus, whom Christians believe was God's only son and simultaneously God Himself, and who gave up his life so that sins could be forgiven. There is a tradition that the site of the binding of Isaac,
Moriah, was also the city of Jesus's future crucifixion, i.e.
Jerusalem.
[7] However no archaeological or historical evidence supports this assertion.
Another instance of human sacrifice mentioned in the Bible is the sacrifice of
Jephthah's daughter in Judges chapter 11. Jephthah is victorious in battle against the children of Ammon and vows to sacrifice to God whatsoever comes to greet him at the door when he returns home. The vow is stated in Judges 11:31 as "''Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering''." When he returns from battle, his virgin daughter runs out to greet him. That he actually does sacrifice her is shown in verse 11:39, "''And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed''". This example seems to be the exception rather than the rule, however, as the verse continues "''And she was a virgin. From this comes the Israelite custom that each year the young women of Israel go out for four days to commemorate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite."'' The lamentations that were offered annually in remembrance of this act frame it as the atrocity it was, and accentuate the grievousness of such a rash action. According to
commentators of the rabbinic Jewish tradition this was a gross violation of God's law, and this part of the Bible illustrates the terrible tragedy of human sacrifice. However most scholars believe the passage suggests the sacrifice was accepted by God.
[8] Others point out the complete lack of censure by God of Jephthah and the sacrifice of his daughter in the biblical account.
[9] The majority of the early Christian Church Fathers saw the sacrifice of Jepthah's virgin daughter as foreshadowing, like Isaac, the death of Jesus Christ not least because Jepthah's vow in the biblical account was made whilst under the influence of the Holy Spirit (Judges 11:29).
The beliefs of most denominations of
Christianity hinge upon a single, specific human sacrifice: that of the Christ. Most Christians believe, at least nominally, that in order to gain access to paradise in the afterlife each individual person must somehow become a partaker in that all-important human sacrifice for the atonement of their personal sins. Some Christians, including Orthodox and Roman Catholics, believe they participate in the sacrifice of Calvary through the
Eucharist which they believe is really the body and blood of Jesus Christ.
[10][11]
Ancient Egypt
There may be evidence of
retainer sacrifice in the early dynastic period at
Abydos, when on the death of a King he would be accompanied with servants, and possibly high officials, who would continue to serve him in eternal life. The skeletons found show no obvious signs of trauma, leading to speculation that the giving up of life to serve the King may have been a voluntary act, possibly carried out in a drug induced state. At about 2800BC any possible evidence of such practices disappears, though echoes are perhaps to be seen in the burial of statues of servants in
Old Kingdom tombs.
[12][13]
Phoenicia and Carthage
According to Roman sources,
Phoenicians and
Carthaginians sacrificed infants to their gods. The bones of numerous infants have been found in Carthaginian archaeological sites in modern times but the subject of
child sacrifice is controversial.
[14]
Plutarch (ca. 46–120 AD) mentions the practice, as do
Tertullian,
Orosius, Diodorus Siculus and
Philo.
Livy and
Polybius do not. The
Hebrew Bible also mentions what appears to be child sacrifice practiced at a place called the
Tophet ("roasting place") by the
Caananites, ancestors of the Carthaginians, and by some Israelites. Some of these sources suggest that babies were roasted to death on a heated bronze statue. According to
Diodorus Siculus:
The accuracy of such stories is disputed by some modern historians and archaeologists.
[15] Nevertheless, several apparent "Tophets" have been identified, including a large one in Carthage.
Sacrifice in the classical world
Other than three possible sites in
Crete, and allusions to the practice in classical mythology, archaeologists have been unable to find any evidence that
Ancient Greeks practiced human sacrifice. The
deus ex machina salvation in some versions of
Iphigeneia (who was about to be sacrificed by her father
Agamemnon) and her replacement with a deer by the goddess
Artemis, may be a vestigial memory of the abandonment and discrediting of the practice of human sacrifice among the Greeks in favor of animal sacrifice. Many scholars have suggested a possible analogy with the story of
Isaac's attempted sacrifice by his father
Abraham in the
Bible, which was also stopped at the last minute (though it had first been encouraged) by divine intervention.
Early Romans practiced various forms of human sacrifice in their first centuries; from
Etruscans (or, according to other sources,
Sabellians), they adopted the original form of
gladiatorial combat where the victim was slain in a ritual battle. During the early
republic, criminals who had broken their oaths or defrauded others were sometimes "given to the gods" (that is, executed as a human sacrifice). The ''
Rex Nemorensis'' was an escaped
slave who became priest of the goddess
Diana at
Nemi by killing his predecessor.
Prisoners of war and
Vestal virgins were buried alive as offerings to
Manes and ''Di Inferi'' (gods of the underworld).
Archaeologists have found sacrificial victims buried in building foundations. Ordinarily, deceased Romans were
cremated rather than buried. Captured enemy leaders, after the victorious general's
triumph, would be ritually strangled in front of a statue of
Mars, the war god.
Religious practices changed over the centuries. According to
Pliny the Elder, human sacrifice was abolished by a
senatorial decree in
97 BCE, although by this time it was so rare that the decree was wholly symbolic. Most of the rituals turned to
animal sacrifice like ''
taurobolium'' or became merely symbolic. A Roman general might bury a statue of his likeness to thank the gods for victory.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus[16]refers to a sacrifice of
Argei in the
Vestal ritual that might have originally included sacrifice of old men. When the
Roman Empire expanded, Romans stopped human sacrifices as
barbaric. However, other activities with a ritual origin kept being practiced for many years, and even get more massive, like the gladiatorial games and some kinds of executions.
Chinese sacrifice
The ancient
Chinese are known to have made sacrifices of young men and women to river
deities, and to have buried slaves alive with their owners upon death as part of a funeral service. This was especially prevalent during the
Shang and
Zhou Dynasties. During the
Warring States period, Ximen Bao of
Wei demonstrated to the villagers that sacrifice to river deities was actually a ploy by crooked priests to pocket money.
[17] In Chinese lore, Ximen Bao is regarded as a folk hero who pointed out the absurdity of human sacrifice.
The sacrifice of a high-ranking male's slaves,
concubines or servants upon his death (called Xun Zang 殉葬 or more specifically Sheng Xun 生殉) was a more common form. The stated purpose is to provide companion for the dead in afterlife. In earlier times the victims were either killed or buried alive, while later they were usually forced to commit suicide.
Funeral human sacrifice was abolished by
Qin Dynasty in
384 BC. Afterwards it became relatively rare throughout central parts of China.. However,
Hongwu Emperor of
Ming Dynasty revived it in 1395 when his second son died and two of the prince's concubines were sacrificed. In
1464,
Zhengtong Emperor in his will forbade it for Ming emperors and princes.
Human sacrifice was also practiced by the
Manchus. Following Emperor
Nurhaci's death,
Lady Abahai and his two lesser consorts committed suicide. In
Qing Dynasty, sacrifice of slaves was banned by
Emperor Kangxi in
1673.
Celtic sacrifice
Main articles: Celts and human sacrifice
As written in Roman sources,
Celtic
Druids engaged extensively in human sacrifice.
[18] According to
Julius Caesar, the slaves and dependants of
Gauls of rank would be burnt along with the body of their master as part of his funerary rites.
["Gaius Julius Caesar]
Commentaries on the Gallic War", Book VI:19, translated by W.A. McDevitte and W.S. Bohn, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1869.[13] He also describes how they built wicker figures that were filled with living humans and then burned.
[19] It is known that druids at least supervised sacrifices of some kind. According to
Cassius Dio,
Boudica's forces impaled Roman captives during her rebellion against the
Roman occupation, to the accompaniment of revellery and sacrifices in the sacred groves of Andate.
[20] Some modern-day scholars question the accuracy of these accounts, as they invariably come from hostile (Roman or Greek) sources.
[21]
Different gods reportedly required different kind of sacrifices. Victims meant for
Esus were
hanged, those meant for
Taranis immolated and those for
Teutates drowned. Some, like the
Lindow Man, may have gone to their deaths willingly.
Archaeological evidence from the British Isles seems to indicate that human sacrifice may have been practiced, over times long pre-dating any contact with Rome. Human remains have been found at the foundations of structures from the Neolithic time to the Roman era, with injuries and in positions that argue for their being foundation sacrifices. Similarly, additional human remains in the tombs of aged men show signs of having been killed to be buried in the grave.
Viking Age sacrifice
According to
Norse mythology,
Odin hanged himself from the world-tree
Yggdrasil for nine nights to attain divine wisdom. Medieval Christian sources refer to Norsemen sacrificing prisoners by hanging them from trees, but the true extent of this behavior is unclear.
Norse warriors were sometimes buried with enslaved women with the belief that these women would become their wives in
Valhalla. A detailed eyewitness account of such a burial was given by
Ahmad ibn Fadlan as part of his account of an
embassy to the
Volga Bulgars in 921. In his description of the funeral of a
Scandinavian
chieftain, a slave volunteers to die with a Norseman. After ten days of festivities, she is stabbed to death by an old woman, a sort of priestess who is referred to as
Völva or "Angel of Death", and
burnt together with the deceased in his boat.
Adam von Bremen recorded human sacrifices to
Odin in
11th century Sweden, at the
Temple at Uppsala, a tradition which is confirmed by
Gesta Danorum and the
Norse sagas. According to the
Ynglinga saga, king
Domalde was sacrificed there in the hope to bring greater future harvests and the total domination of all future wars. The same saga also relates that Domalde's descendant king
Aun sacrificed nine of his own sons to Odin in exchange for longer life, until the Swedes stopped him from sacrificing his last son,
Egil.
Heidrek in the
Hervarar saga agrees to the sacrifice of his son in exchange for the command over a fourth of the men of
Reidgotaland. With these, he seizes the entire kingdom and prevents the sacrifice of his son, dedicating those fallen in his rebellion to Odin instead.
Pre-Columbian sacrifice
Some of the most famous forms of ancient human sacrifice were performed by various
Pre-Columbian civilizations in the
Americas.
Mixtec
The
Mixtec players of the
Ulama game were sacrificed when the game was used to resolve a dispute between cities. The rulers would play a game instead of going to battle. The losing ruler would be sacrificed. The ruler "Eight Deer" was considered a great ball player and won several cities this way, until he lost a ball game and was sacrificed.
Maya
The
Maya held the belief that
cenotes or limestone sinkholes were portals to the underworld and sacrificed human beings to please the water god
Chaac. The most notable example of this is the "
Sacred Cenote" at
Chichen Itza where extensive excavations have recovered the remains of 42 individuals, half of them under twenty years old.
In the
Post-Classic period, the victims and the altar are represented as daubed in a hue now known as
Maya Blue, obtained from the
añil plant and the clay mineral
palygorskite.
[22]
Aztec
Main articles: Human sacrifice in Aztec culture
The
Aztecs were particularly noted for practicing human sacrifice on a large scale; an offering to
Huitzilopochtli would be made to restore the blood he lost, as the
sun was engaged in a daily battle. Human sacrifices would prevent the end of the world that could happen on each cycle of 52 years. In the 1487 re-consecration of the
Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan many prisoners were sacrificed.
Tlaloc
Main articles: Child sacrifice in pre-Columbian cultures
Tlaloc would require weeping boys in the first months of the
Aztec calendar to be ritually murdered.
Xipe Totec
Sacrifices to
Xipe Totec were bound to a post and shot full of
arrows. The dead victim would be skinned and a priest would use the skin. Earth mother
Teteoinnan required
flayed female victims.
Inca empire
A number of mummies of sacrificed children have been recovered in the Inca regions of
South America, an ancient practice known as
capacocha.
[23]
Ancient Hindu practice of Sati
The practice of ''sati'' (or
''suttee'') is a Hindu
funeral custom, now very rare, in which the dead man's widow
immolates herself on her husband’s funeral
pyre.
The term is derived from the original name of a goddess (see
Dakshayani), who immolated herself, unable to bear the humiliation of her (living) husband. The term may also be used to refer to the widow herself. The term ''sati'' is now sometimes interpreted as "chaste woman".
The act of ''sati'' was supposed to take place voluntarily, and from the existing accounts, most of them were voluntary. The act may have been expected of widows in some communities. The extent to which any social pressures or expectations should be considered as compulsion has been the matter of much debate in modern times. It is frequently stated that a widow could expect little of life after her husband's death, especially if she was childless. However, there were also instances where the wish of the widow to commit ''sati'' was not welcomed by others, and where efforts were made to prevent the death.
[24]
There are accounts of many different approaches of the widow to her death. The majority have the widow seated or lying down on the funeral pyre beside her dead husband. There are also many descriptions of widows who walked or jumped into the flames after the fire had been lit, and there are descriptions of widows who lit their own funeral pyres after seating themselves on it.
[25]
West African Human Sacrifice
Human sacrifice was common in west African states up to and during the nineteenth century. The
Annual customs of Dahomey was the most notorious example, but sacrifices were carried out all along the west African coast and further inland. Sacrfices were particularly common after the death of a King or Queen, and there are many recorded cases of hundreds or even thousands of slaves being sacrificed at such events. Sacrifices were particularly common in
Dahomey, in the
Benin Empire, in what is now
Ghana, and in the small independent states in what is now southern
Nigeria.
In the northern parts of West Africa, human sacrifice had become rare early as
Islam became more established in these areas such as the
Hausa States. Human sacrifice was officially banned in the remainder of West African states only by coercion, or in some cases
annexation, by either the British or French. An important step was the British co-ercing the powerful
Egbo secret society to oppose human sacrifice in 1850. This society was powerful in a large number of states in what is now south-eastern
Nigeria. Nonetheless, human sacrifice continued, normally in secret, until west Africa came under firm colonial control.
The last major center of human sacrifice was the
Benin Empire in modern
Nigeria. The Benin Empire agreed with the British to prohibit human sacrifice in the 1890s. However, for five years the rulers continued human sacrifice on a large scale. After an incident in which British observers were killed in order to prevent them witnessing human sacrifice, the British authorities assembled forces to conquer the Benin Empire. This caused an escalation of human sacrifice as Benin's rulers sought to protect themselves from Britain by appeasing the Gods with sacrifice. After a brief campaign the Benin Empire was conquered and human sacrifice suppressed.
Contemporary human sacrifice
Recent Sati incidence
''Sati'' still occurs occasionally, mostly in rural areas. About 40 cases have occurred in India since independence in
1947, the majority in the
Shekhawati region of
Rajasthan. The last clearly documented case was that of
Roop Kanwar in 1987. However there are claims that other more recent deaths have also been cases of ''sati''.
Roop Kanwar, a childless 18-year old widow, committed sati on
4 September 1987, some allege forcibly, dressed in her red wedding dress in Rajasthan's Deorala village. Several thousand people were said to have been at the event. After her death, she was hailed as a "sati mata", meaning pure mother. The event quickly produced a public outcry in urban centres, pitting a modern Indian
ideology against a traditional one. A much-publicised investigation led to the arrest of a large number of people from Deorala, said to have been present in the ceremony, or participants in it. Eventually, 11 people were charged. On
January 31,
2004 a special court in
Jaipur acquitted all of the 11 accused in the case, observing that the prosecution had failed to prove charges that they glorified ''sati''.
On
18 May 2006, Vidyawati, a 35-year-old woman, allegedly committed sati by jumping into the blazing funeral pyre of her husband in Rari-Bujurg Village, Fatehpur district in the State of
Uttar Pradesh.
[26]
On
21 August 2006, Janakrani, a 40-year-old woman, burnt to death on the funeral pyre of her husband Prem Narayan in Sagar district.
[27]
Some people in
India are adherents of a set of theistic philosophies called
Tantrism (not to be confused with
Tantric Buddhism). Most either use
animal sacrifice or symbolic
effigies, but a small percent of them engage in human sacrifice:
A 2006 newspaper report states:
In Africa
Human sacrifice, in the context of religious ritual, still occurs in other traditional religions, for example in
muti killings in eastern
Africa. Human sacrifice is no longer officially condoned in any country, and such cases are regarded as
murder.
In the West
So-called
Satanic ritual abuse is largely unsubstantiated. One such ritual murder occurred in 1999 in Hyvinkää, Finland, as a young man was slowly tortured to death and his body parts eaten in a sacrificial rite. The three cultists were sentenced to prison. Modern
occultists consider such sacrifices unnecessary, or use them only in the symbolic form where the volunteer "sacrifice" is not actually killed.
In 2005 the
BBC reported that children are being trafficked into the UK from Africa and used for human sacrifices. This claim was based on a confidential report prepared by the
Metropolitan Police.
[28]
Ending of human sacrifice
The ending of human sacrifice has usually occurred as a result of the questioning of traditional systems of belief which arises through culture contact, or rapid
social change.
★ In the ancient Near East, human sacrifice was suppressed throughout the
Persian Empire, partly as a consequence of the spread of
Zoroastrianism which taught that human sacrifice was a sign of
Ahriman, not of the Wise Lord
Ahura Mazda.
★
Carthaginian human sacrifice came to an end with the
Punic Wars with Rome, whilst Roman
Gladatorial Games came to an end in the
Roman Empire in the year
404, after a long campaign by
Christian authorities to outlaw the practice, and following the death of a monk who had tried to break up a gladitorial bout.
★ Human sacrifice amongst the
Aztecs and other American peoples came to an end with the invasion of the Spanish
Conquistadors and the imposition of Christianity.
References
Articles
★ “Indian cult kills children for goddess: Holy men blamed for inciting dozens of deaths”, ''The Observer'' (United Kingdom newspaper) Dan McDougall in Khurja, India, Sunday March 5, 2006
★ Heinsohn, Gunnar: “The Rise of Blood Sacrifice and Priest Kingship in Mesopotamia: A Cosmic Decree?”
[29] (also published in ''Religion'', Vol. 22, 1992)
Books
★ ''Dying for the Gods'', Miranda Aldhouse Green; Trafalgar Square; 2001, ISBN 0-7524-1940-4
★ ''Cenote of Sacrifices'', Clemency Coggins and Orrin C. Shane III ; 1984 The university of Texas Press; ISBN 0-292-71097-6
★ ''Violence and the Sacred'', Rene Girard, translated by P. Gregory; Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979, ISBN-10: 0826477186
★ ''I See Satan Fall Like Lightning'', René Girard, Translated by James G. Williams; Orbis Books; 2001, ISBN 1-57075-319-9
★ ''The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: Their Nature and Legacy''
Ronald Hutton, 1991, ISBN 0-631-18946-7
★ ''Human Sacrifice in Ancient Greece''
Dennis D. Hughes 1991 Routledge ISBN 0-415-03483-3
★ ''City of Sacrifice: The Aztec Empire and the Role of Violence in Civilization'', David Carrasco, Moughton Mifflin, 2000, ISBN 0-807-04643-4
Notes and References
1. [1]
2. "Strabo
Geography", Book IV Chapter 4:5, published in Vol. II of the Loeb Classical Library edition, 1923.★ class=wikiexternal target=_blank>.html
3. "The Temple of Anemospilia"[2]
4. "Why King Mesha of Moab Sacrificed His Oldest Son", Baruch Margalit, Biblical Archaeology Review, Nov/Dec 1986.[3]
5. "Child Sacrifice: Returning God’s Gift", Susan Ackerman, Biblical Archaeology Review, June 1993.[4]
6. "Child Sacrifice at Carthage—Religious Rite or Population Control?", Lawrence E. Stager and Samuel R. Wolff, Biblical Archaeology Review, Jan/Feb 1984.[5]
7. http://"Voices From the Children of Abraham",[www.newmantoronto.com/040311childrenofabraham2.htm]
8. "Why the Deuteronomist Told about the Sacrifice of Jephthah's Daughter", Journal for the Study of the Old Testament,Sage Publications, p7,[6]
9. "Did Jephthah Kill his Daughter?", Solomon Landers, Biblical Archaeology Review, August 1991.[7]
10. "The Sacrifice of the Mass", Catholic Encyclopedia.[8]
11. "Sacrifice of the Mass", Orthodox Church of America.[9]
12. "Human Sacrifice", retrieved 12 May 2007.[10]
13. "Abydos - Life and Death at the Dawning of Egyptian Civilization", National Geographic, April 2005, retrieved 12 May 2007.[11]
14. http://www.phoenicia.org/childsacrifice.html
15. Fantar, M’Hamed Hassine. Archaeology Odyssey Nov/Dec 2000, pp. 28-31
16. Dionysius of Halicarnassus,
Roman Antiquities, i.19, 38.★ class=wikiexternal target=_blank>.html#38.2
17. http://www.chinaculture.org/gb/en_aboutchina/2003-09/24/content_26349.htm
18. ''"The Religion of the Ancient Celts"'', J. A. MacCulloch, ch xvi, 1911, retrieved 24 May 2007.[12]
19. "Gaius Julius Caesar
Commentaries on the Gallic War", Book VI:16, translated by W.A. McDevitte and W.S. Bohn, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1869.[14]
20. ''"Roman History"'', Cassius Dio, p95 ch62:7, Translation by Earnest Cary,Loeb classical Library, retrieved 24 May 2007.★ class=wikiexternal target=_blank>.html
21. ''"What We Don't Know About the Ancient Celts"'', Rowan Fairgrove, Pomegrante Magazine, Issue 2 1997, retrieved 24 May 2007.[15]
22. as cited in
23. [16] – Discovery Channel article
24. http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/Organizations/healthnet/SAsia/forums/sati/prevention.html
25. http://chnm.gmu.edu/wwh/modules/lesson5/lesson5.php?s=1
26. http://www.centralchronicle.com/20060520/2005002.htm
27. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/5273336.stm
28. "Boys used for Human Sacrifice", BBC NEWS, 16th June 2005.[17]
29. http://www.kronia.com/library/journals/sacrfice.txt
See also
★
Cannibalism
★
Luhansk sacrificial site
★
The Lottery (short story)
External links
★
TIME Asia Magazine: Killing for “Mother” Kali
★
Indian temple revives “human sacrifice”
★
Witch Burning and Human Sacrifice in India, PDF
★
“Priest makes human sacrifice”
★
Human sacrifice of children
.jpg)
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