Description
Book SynopsisNumerous ancient texts describe human sacrifices and other forms of ritual killing: in 480 BC Themistocles sacrifices three Persian captives to Dionysus; human scapegoats called pharmakoi are expelled yearly from Greek cities, and according to some authors they are killed; Locrin girls are hunted down and slain by the Trojans; on Mt Lykaion children are sacrificed and consumed by the worshippers; and many other texts report human sacrifices performed regularly in the cult of the gods or during emergencies such as war and plague. Archaeologists have frequently proposed human sacrifice as an explanation for their discoveries: from Minoan Crete children's bones with knife-cut marks, the skeleton of a youth lying on a platform with a bronze blade resting on his chest, skeletons, sometimes bound, in the dromoi of Mycenaean and Cypriot chamber tombs; and dual man-woman burials, where it is suggested that the woman was slain or took her own life at the man's funeral. If the archaeologists' in
Table of ContentsPreface, Abbreviations, 1 Sacrifice and ritual killing: terminology and types, 2 Archaeological evidence, 3 Funerary ritual killing in Greek literature and history, 4 Human sacrifice in Greek myth, cult, and history, 5 The pharmakos and related rites, 6 Strangers in a strange land: the Locrian maiden tribute, 7 Conclusion, Appendix A Cut marks and mass burials, Appendix B Pylos tablet Tn 316, Bibliography, Index locorum, Subject index
