Editing Infanticide (section)

=====Carthage=====
<!--

Before making any edits regarding the alleged practice of child sacrifice, please read the archived discussion at [[Talk:Carthage/Human Sacrifice]]. We have been around this block several times before.

Please refrain from entering text that comes down conclusively on the question of whether or not child sacrifice was, in fact, practiced in Carthage. This question has been the subject of long and heated debate among editors of this article and has occasioned edit warring, semi-protection, etc.

The current consensus is that nobody knows for sure and that we should simply report both sides of the question without asserting which one is right. Any departure from this stance is likely to get edited out fairly quickly.

Parts of this section may be canted towards the assertion that child sacrifice ''was'' practiced in Carthage. It is reasonable to put in qualifying text that asserts that the details of the child sacrifice are based on accounts that may not be altogether reliable.

We are in the process of looking for sources for these details so that the descriptions can be based on [[WP:RS|reliable sources]].

See [[Talk:Carthage/Human Sacrifice]] for details of past debate on this topic.

-->

{{Main|Punic religion#Tophets and child sacrifice|l1=Carthaginian religion – child sacrifice question}}

According to Shelby Brown, [[Ancient Carthage|Carthaginian]]s, descendants of the [[Phoenicia]]ns, sacrificed infants to their gods.<ref name="Brown 1991">{{Cite book| last = Brown | first = Shelby | title = Late Carthaginian Child Sacrifice and Sacrificial Monuments in their Mediterranean Context| publisher = Sheffield Academic Press| year = 1991| location = Sheffield }}</ref> Charred bones of hundreds of infants have been found in Carthaginian archaeological sites. One such area harbored as many as 20,000 burial [[urn]]s.<ref name="Brown 1991"/> Skeptics suggest that the bodies of children found in Carthaginian and Phoenician cemeteries were merely the cremated remains of children who died naturally.<ref>Sergio Ribichini, "Beliefs and Religious Life" in Moscati, Sabatino (ed), ''The Phoenicians'', 1988, p.141</ref>

[[Plutarch]] ({{circa}} {{CE|46–120}}) mentions the practice, as do [[Tertullian]], [[Paulus Orosius|Orosius]], Diodorus Siculus and [[Philo]]. The [[Hebrew Bible]] also mentions what appears to be child sacrifice practiced at a place called the [[Tophet]] (from the Hebrew ''taph'' or ''toph'', to burn) by the [[Canaan]]ites. Writing in the {{BCE|3rd century}}, [[Kleitarchos]], one of the historians of [[Alexander the Great]], described that the infants rolled into the flaming pit. [[Diodorus Siculus]] wrote that babies were roasted to death inside the burning pit of the god [[Baal#Ba'al|Baal Hamon]], a bronze statue.<ref>{{Cite book| last = Brown| first = Shelby| title = Late Carthaginian Child Sacrifice and Sacrificial Monuments in their Mediterranean Context| publisher = Sheffield Academic Press| year = 1991| location = Sheffield | pages = 22–23}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last = Stager| first = Lawrence| author-link = Lawrence Stager|author2=Samuel R. Wolff| title = Child sacrifice at Carthage – religious rite or population control?| journal = [[Biblical Archaeology Review]]| volume = 10| issue = Jan/Feb| pages = 31–51| year = 1984}}</ref>