Carthage inherited the foundations of religion from Phoenicia.
The supreme pair of gods were Tanit and Baal Hammon, they are considered the most typical figures of the Carthaginian pantheon. The goddess Astarta was very popular in early times. In the midst of its cosmopolitan era, the pantheon of Carthage consisted of a large number of deities from the neighboring civilizations of Greece, Egypt and the city-states of the Etruscans.
The patron saint of the city of Tire – Melkart, the god of healing Eshmun and Anat, sister and beloved god Balu were especially honored.
For the administration of worship, each deity had its own temple.
The peculiarity of the religious worldview of the Carthaginians was that even with the worship of gods they did not call their own names, and their names were replaced by “lord”, “goddess”, “patron”, “protector” and the like.
Along with the gods of the Carthaginians revered heroes.
Priesthood
The surviving Punic texts speak of an organized class of temple priests and minions who performed various functions at different prices. The priests, unlike the rest of the population, were clean-shaven. In the first centuries of Carthage, ritual celebrations included rhythmic dances inherited from the Phoenician tradition.
The priesthood was not a hereditary caste, but in practice the priesthood often passed from father to son.
Punic Steles
Limestone zippus and steles are characteristic monuments of the Punic art and religion. They are located throughout the western Phoenician world, continuously historically and geographically. Most of them were created above the urns with the ashes of the victims, which were placed in the shrines under the open sky. Some Carthaginian oaths of stead (some of them are in Egyptian style) depict a priest holding a child. At least one of them is interpreted as a sacrifice of a living child. Identification of the child remains in question.
Animal sacrifices
One of the most important stelae – the Marseilles sacrificial tariff found in the port of Marseilles, was originally located in the temple of Baal-Zaphon in Carthage. The tariff organizes payments to priests for sacrifices and describes the properties of the victims. All victims are male animals, and Porphyry, De Abst. 2.11, believes that the Phoenicians did not sacrifice or did not eat female animals.
Children’s Sacrifices
Most archaeologists recognize that children’s sacrifices have taken place. Lawrence, the head of the excavation of the Carthaginian Tophet in the 1970s, believes that children’s sacrifices took place there. Paolo Ksella from the National Research Council in Rome summed up the textual, epigraphic and archaeological evidence of the sacrifice of babies by the Carthaginians. Some modern scholars, on the contrary, believe that the testimony of children’s sacrifices is fragmentary at best, and most likely is the blood libel of the Romans against Carthage, who was aiming to justify their conquest and destruction of Carthage .
A 2010 study of material from 348 burial urns concluded that systematic children’s sacrifices were not conducted in Carthage.
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Sources:
Lipinski E. Pantheon of Carthage // Herald of ancient history : journal
Brown, Susanna Shelby. Late Carthaginian Child Sacrifice and Sacrificial Monuments in their Mediterranean Context .
Fantar, M’Hamed Hassine. Archeology Odyssey
Greene, Joseph. Punic Project Excavations: Child Sacrifice in the Context of Carthaginian Religion
Ribichini, Sergio. Beliefs and Religious Life // The Phoenicians
Stager, Lawrence. The Rite of Child Sacrifice at Carthage // New Light on Ancient Carthage
Stager, Lawrence E .; Wolff, Samuel R. (January – February 1984). “Child Sacrifice at Carthage: Religious Rite or Population Control?”
Tubb, Jonathan N. Canaanites . – University of Oklahoma Press