>>15055692

(Please read from the start)

Next is an acticle putting both side’s arguments: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jan/21/carthaginians-sacrificed-own-children-study

“Carthaginians sacrificed own children, archaeologists say

Graves holding tiny cremated bones confirm accounts dismissed as Greek or Roman black propaganda, study shows.

Just as ancient Greek and Roman propagandists insisted, the Carthaginians did kill their own infant children, burying them with sacrificed animals and ritual inscriptions in special cemeteries to give thanks for favours from the gods, according to a new study.”

>>This one is darn too good: he admits it’s propaganda, but the Carthaginians are guilty of sacrificing children because a burial with uncertain inscriptions were found. The situation with the Greek-Roman sources is like bringing Killary as a witness to testify against Trump about his “supposed” friendship with Epstein. It’s the same situation we have here on our hands anons. You cannot bring witnesses whom are known to be the enemies of the Carthaginians/Phoenicians to testify against them.

"This is something dismissed as black propaganda because in modern times people just didn't want to believe it," said Josephine Quinn, a lecturer in ancient history at Oxford, who is behind the study, with international colleagues, of one of the most bitterly debated questions in classical archaeology.

But when you pull together all the evidence – archaeological, epigraphic and literary – it is overwhelming and, we believe, conclusive: they did kill their children, and on the evidence of the inscriptions, not just as an offering for future favours but fulfilling a promise that had already been made.

"This was not a common event, and it must have been among an elite because cremation was very expensive, and so was the ritual of burial. It may even have been seen as a philanthropic act for the good of the whole community."

Argument has raged on the subject since cemeteries known as tophets – after the biblical account of a place of sacrifice – were excavated in the early 20th century on the outskirts of Carthage in modern Tunisia, and then at other Carthaginian sites in Sicily and Sardinia. The graves held tiny cremated bones carefully packed into urns, buried under tombstones giving thanks to the gods. One has a carving which has been interpreted as a priest carrying the body of a small child. Some archaeologists and historians saw the finds as proving ancient accounts of child sacrifice; others insisted they showed tender respect for cherished children who died before or soon after birth.”

>> Notice the observations he is making of how carefully the remains are buried? But for him it means nothing and he keeps on singing to the same tune.

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>>15063191

(Please read from the start)

“Quinn and her colleagues, a group of Punic archaeologists and historians from Italy and the Netherlands, who publish their findings in the journal Antiquity – where the argument has been rumbling on for several years – completely reject the latter theory.

“The inscriptions are unequivocal: time and again we find the explanation that the gods 'heard my voice and blessed me'. It cannot be that so many children conveniently happened to die at just the right time to become an offering – and in any case a poorly or dead child would make a pretty feeble offering if you're already worried about the gods rejecting it."

"Then there is the fact that the animals from the sites, which were beyond question sacrificial offerings, are buried in exactly the same way, sometimes in the same urns with the bones of the children."

>> Yes, there is no question the animal bones are sacrificial offering, but…they were offered so that the deity protects and guids the dead child’s soul and spirit to Heaven. The Beam symbol on the stelae is conveniently ignored. This symbol was put there for a reason = to make sure the light beam got the soul and spirit of the dead child to Heaven.

“Although hundreds of remains were found, there were far too few to represent all the stillbirth and infant deaths of Carthage. According to Quinn, there were perhaps 25 such burials a year, for a city of perhaps 500,000 people.”

>> That’s the maximum demographic number and the lowest was 200 000 people. This is important and it will play a part in what I’m going to explain about the reason = cause of death. See, we never found the cause of death for such a big number of dead children. We can say the cause of death is stillbirth and so on for some of them, but this doesn’t cover all the dead children. We always thought the cause was some type of illness of some sort. But we found nothing in the past that could justify the large numbers spread over many centuries. But now I found it and it justifies ALL of the deaths: even the ones whom died before maturity, the stillborns and everyone else. One illness killed them all. It turned out to be a rare illness.

“The Roman historian Diodorus and other ancient historians gave graphic accounts of Carthaginian child sacrifice: "There was in their city a bronze image of Cronus, extending its hands, palms up and sloping towards the ground, so that each of the children when placed thereon rolled down and fell into a sort of gaping pit filled with fire."

Diodorus even said that some citizens who bought children from poor people and reared them specially for sacrifice believed misfortunes had resulted because they had not sacrificed their own offspring.

The argument has been passionate for years, with scientists often reaching opposed conclusions from the same bone fragments: four years ago a group of scientists published a paper saying the cremated remains did not indicate infant sacrifice.”

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