Editing Human sacrifice (section)

==== Mesopotamia ====
Retainer sacrifice was practised within the royal tombs of ancient [[Mesopotamia]]. Courtiers, guards, musicians, handmaidens, and grooms were presumed to have committed ritual suicide by taking poison.<ref>
{{cite news |last=Parker-Pearson |first=Mike |date=19 August 2002 |title=The Practice of Human Sacrifice |publisher=[[British Broadcasting Corporation]] |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/british_prehistory/human_sacrifice_03.shtml}}
</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |last=Bowe |first=Bruce |date=8 July 2008 |title=Acrobats Last Tumble |url=http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/32999/title/Acrobats_last_tumble |website=Science News |volume=174 |issue=1 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110629213949/http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/32999/title/Acrobats_last_tumble |archive-date=29 June 2011 |access-date=16 September 2021}}</ref>
A 2009 examination of skulls from the royal cemetery at [[Ur]], discovered in Iraq in the 1920s by a team led by [[Leonard Woolley|C. Leonard Woolley]], appears to support a more grisly interpretation of human sacrifices associated with elite burials in ancient Mesopotamia than had previously been recognized. Palace attendants, as part of royal mortuary ritual, were not dosed with poison to meet death serenely. Instead, they were put to death by having a sharp instrument, such as a pike, driven into their heads.<ref>
{{cite news |last=Wilford |first=John Noble |date=26 October 2009 |title=Ritual Deaths at Ur were anything but serene |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/science/27ur.html?_r=4}}
</ref><ref>
{{cite magazine |date=27 October 2009 |title=Iraq's ancient past: Rediscovering Ur's royal cemetery |url=https://almanac.upenn.edu/archive/volumes/v56/n09/ur.html |magazine=Almanac |publisher=[[University of Pennsylvania]] |volume=56 |access-date=17 July 2020 |via=almanac.upenn.edu |number=9 |place=Philadelphia}}
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