Cemetery or sacrifice? Infant burials at the Carthage Tophet

E-ISSN： 1745-1744|87|338|1199-1207

ISSN： 0003-598x

Source： Antiquity, Vol.87, Iss.338, 2013-11, pp. : 1199-1207

Disclaimer: Any content in publications that violate the sovereignty, the constitution or regulations of the PRC is not accepted or approved by CNPIEC.

Previous Menu Next

Abstract

Even if the foundation, rise and eventual demise of Carthage and its overseas territories in the West Mediterranean occurred in much the same space and time as the glory days of Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic Greece and Rome, there is no doubt that the Phoenicians and their Punic successors (to use the conventional terms) have rarely been regarded as fully signed-up members of the ancient world. Reduced to walk-on cameos as skilled silversmiths, agricultural experts, shrewd traders or military strategists, Phoenician and Punic representations tend to be rather stereotypical (Prag 2010, with earlier bibliography), which perhaps should not come as a surprise, as nearly all these portraits have been sketched by outsiders; they certainly do not add up to a coherent ethnographic or political description.