4 ms·

While it's interesting and something I hadn't heard about, Carthage's potential religious human sacrifice aspect of culture, this comment is ironically not that

by naremu 3y ago

While it's interesting and something I hadn't heard about, Carthage's potential religious human sacrifice aspect of culture, this comment is ironically not that far off from historical views/curiosities of rival societies. I'm reminded of how most all the hallmarks we attribute to the Spartans turns out to be literal hearsay of the time (much of it emanating from...yep, times of conflict/rivalry). Although they were apparently intentionally secretive, it's pretty easy to imagine some not-anthropologist merchants passing along gossip which gets taken in by the rival permanent settlements. Not that Carthage is free from accusation, but I'm reading some historians actually claim Romans found the religious ceremony of sacrifice to be abhorrent, as opposed to the more general infanticide that was recorded throughout the larger region (including Rome) for presumably a more eugenic/pragmatic purpose.

smallnamespace 3y ago
The Spanish also had many accounts of Mayan child sacrifice. These accounts were often dismissed by historians on suspicion of prejudice. We've more recently found archaeological evidence of the Mayan practice on a massive scale. Sometimes dismissing evidence because of perceived bias is simply incorrect.
- naremu 3y ago
  To be fair, I haven't ever heard suspicions of prejudice as an argument to discredit Spanish expedition's writings on the matter, presumably as I've heard the accounts were often eyewitnessed, unlike typical Roman/Greek depictions of distant places they were frequently declaring cultural and actual war on. I also didn't dismiss potential evidence for Carthage's sacrificial culture, of which there's enough to make the accusation, but really, only that. I don't actually have a horse in the races of dead people, but I do hesitate to perpetuate even ancient culture wars. It's usually just going to make more use of people's tribal desire than their deductive skills, though why people have emotions about ancient, dead societies, I'll never know.

by naremu 3y ago

smallnamespace 3y ago

The Spanish also had many accounts of Mayan child sacrifice. These accounts were often dismissed by historians on suspicion of prejudice. We've more recently found archaeological evidence of the Mayan practice on a massive scale. Sometimes dismissing evidence because of perceived bias is simply incorrect.

naremu 3y ago
To be fair, I haven't ever heard suspicions of prejudice as an argument to discredit Spanish expedition's writings on the matter, presumably as I've heard the accounts were often eyewitnessed, unlike typical Roman/Greek depictions of distant places they were frequently declaring cultural and actual war on. I also didn't dismiss potential evidence for Carthage's sacrificial culture, of which there's enough to make the accusation, but really, only that. I don't actually have a horse in the races of dead people, but I do hesitate to perpetuate even ancient culture wars. It's usually just going to make more use of people's tribal desire than their deductive skills, though why people have emotions about ancient, dead societies, I'll never know.