Volume 11, Issue 2 - Infants as votive offerings: Phoenician tophet precincts in context

This general introduction serves as a preface to each author’s contribution, outlining certain common standards and methods. These include the range of meanings we use for specific terms and the answers to basic yet often contested interrogatives relating to the precinct (the who, what, when, and where) and the history of polemical debates within the discipline (the why and how). By providing this background context here, oft repeated at the beginning of any study of tophet precincts, each author can instead focus on specific data and on analysis within their specialization.

This article is a tribute to the life of Professor Lawrence E. Stager, prominent biblical scholar and archaeologist from Harvard University who conducted important excavations and research at the tophet of Carthage. Following this tribute is an unpublished article by the late Professor Stager with a preface to the article by the author.

The non-human animal remains excavated in the Carthage tophet represent a substantial sample of animal bones from a single site. The urns contain partial or whole sheep or goat (ovicaprids) carcasses in abundant numbers, revealing a consistent offering of ovicaprids, some birds, and in a very few cases, fish. Overwhelmingly, the animals are whole-burnt offerings, sacrificed as an offering to the deity or deities. The consistency of the age of the cremated ovicaprids that were interred in the urns allows for a profile of relating animal remains to ritual behavior that took place at the Carthage tophet .

Amulets found in burial urns of the Carthaginian tophet are discussed in terms of frequency of occurrence, and the nature and chronology of their material composition. Amulets were added in only 31 % of the urns studied, exclusively to urns containing human remains, with glass, faience, gold and silver the most common materials used. Chemical analysis of a selection of glass and silver amulets identified the primary origin of raw materials used in their manufacture. The primary glass used for the tophet amulets has its origin in the Levant and/or Egypt, from at least two different production centers in those regions. This does not exclude the likely existence of local secondary workshops where primary glass was colored and shaped. The silver in the amulets shows a diachronic shift in raw materials usage, from western Mediterranean sources in the eighth and seventh centuries BCE to eastern Mediterranean sources (possibly combined with Iberian sources) in the sixth and fifth centuries. Some objects could be positively linked to sources in Laurion/Kea and Siphnos, while others may have derived from the mixing of ores or the recycling of older materials.

Burial urns and lids found in the Carthage tophet precinct play a pivotal role in our understanding of material trajectories. Significant differences in macroscopic features present problems as to where and how these vessels were made. In general, issues in sourcing north African ceramic materials stem from their compositional homogeneity, having mostly sand and calcareous fractions varying to a greater or lesser degree. In this paper we present the results of a petrographic study of ceramic materials in order to understand the different fabrics present within the tophet assemblage, with the ultimate aim of determining whether or not their production took place in Carthage itself and to trace transformations in local and regional ceramic fabric types.

Within the range of Phoenician artisanal production of stone votive markers in the central Mediterranean, specifically cippi and stelae from tophet precincts, this paper offers a preliminary exploration of some iconographic and stylistic aspects of anthropomorphic representations in general, and those of children in particular. It provides an overview of traditional craftmanship at different centers of production, the ritual function of stelae in archaeological contexts, and their relevance in the social sphere as “talking monuments.” It also analyses certain specific figural elements (e. g., the so-called “bottle-idol”) and their developments over time. The main aim is to propose tentative interpretations for images of children, given the specific rituals of the sanctuary and their ideological meanings.

My goal in this study is to persuade the reader that the word my c ms is a compound noun with the elements / may / + / yu c mas /. I will endorse the analysis argued by Good that the Punic compound can be explained by reference to the Greek word Μαιουμα(ς), the name of a spring festival. To the cogent objections of critics of the seemingly odd compound implied by this analysis, I offer agreement, but also the further observation that linguistic theory predicts its oddness. Punic my c ms provides an example of noun incorporation , a process of deriving lexemes from sentence elements.

Phoenician and Carthaginian infant cremation sanctuaries ( tophet ), attested throughout the central Mediterranean (north Africa, Sardinia and Sicily, and perhaps Malta), up to this point lack convincing archaeological evidence in the Phoenician motherland and the far western Mediterranean. This study collects and re-examines the evidence of its Levantine origin of historical order, (the chronology of the settlements and the almost contemporary installation of tophet precincts in them), epigraphic (the inscription of Nebi Yunis) and literary (biblical testimonies and some Greek and Latin writers). Taken as a whole, this documentation strongly leads us to exclude an explanation of the tophet as a novelty introduced by the migrants, but an ancient traditional institution that derived in all probability from the city of Tyre.

Recent excavations, undertaken since 2014 at the sanctuary of Ba‘l Ḥammon in Carthage, have had as their objective the identification of various stratigraphic sequences that testify to changes in the spatial extension and chronological stratification of this precinct. The different categories of material artifacts, including urns and stelae , will be published with precisely dated archaeological contexts for the first time. Our stratigraphic controls will allow for a better understanding of how the sanctuary was used, including how various ritual gestures were carried out within the precinct.