Ancient World Review

Human Sacrifice In Iron Age Europe

"Around a hundred bodies have been found in ... Irish bogs to date, some male, some female, and those of children too. Some were thought to be there by accident, perhaps as a result of falling into the bog and drowning. Others were considered to be formal (and some not so formal) burials, and others appear to be rather more sinister." Source: Irish Central.

The ritual sacrifice dramatized in this video shows the execution of Old Croghnan Man, a bog body currently on display in the National Museum of Ireland, which, among other things, has an exhibit called Kingship & Sacrifice. According to the museum's website, "the exhibition is centred on a new theory that connects human sacrifice with sovereignty and kingship rituals during the Iron Age. Research has indicated that other material connected with these rituals include: items of regalia; items associated with equestrian [horse] procession; weapons; feasting utensils; boundary markers; items associated with corn and milk production, such as quern stones and butter deposits known as ‘bog butter’."

One possible human sacrifice from this period is known as Tollund Man, "a naturally mummified corpse of a man who lived during the 4th century BC, during the period characterised in Scandinavia as the Pre-Roman Iron Age. He was found in 1950, preserved as a bog body, on the Jutland peninsula. The man's physical features were so well-preserved that he was mistaken at the time of discovery for a recent murder victim. Twelve years before Tollund Man's discovery, another bog body, Elling Woman, had been found in the same bog." (Wikipedia)

I think this describes Tollund Man, but I'm not sure.

"Scholars tend to agree that Tollund Man’s killing was some kind of ritual sacrifice to the gods—perhaps a fertility offering. To the people who put him there, a bog was a special place. While most of Northern Europe lay under a thick canopy of forest, bogs did not. Half earth, half water and open to the heavens, they were borderlands to the beyond. To these people, will-o’-the-wisps—flickering ghostly lights that recede when approached—weren’t the effects of swamp gas caused by rotting vegetation. They were fairies. The thinking goes that Tollund Man’s tomb may have been meant to ensure a kind of soggy immortality for the sacrificial object." Source: Smithsonian.

"'At an appointed time all tribes meet ….. in a forest consecrated by their ancestors, surrounded by fear, sacred from the dawn of time. There, on behalf of those assembled, they celebrate the commencement of their barbaric cult with a human sacrifice.'

"This is how the Roman historian Tacitus described the situation among the Semnones, a Germanic tribe, in the 1st century AD. This could provide the explanation of what happened to the woman from Huldremose, Tollund Man and Grauballe Man. More than a hundred bog bodies have been found in Denmark, which date from the period 800 BC to 200 AD. The cause of death has only been established in a small number of cases, where people have been strangled, hung or had their throats cut. Like the woman from Huldremose, the bodies were carefully placed in a bog afterwards, which points toward a sacrifice or another ritual act rather than an attack." Source: National Museum of Denmark.

Closed captions helpful.

"For Europeans dating as far back as the Neolithic period 6,000 years ago, bogs were both resources and possibly ominous supernatural portals, according to Ulla Mannering, an expert in ancient textiles at the National Museum of Denmark." Source: National Geographic (2014).

"The bogs' peat, which could be burned for heating homes, was valuable in tree-scarce Denmark, and an ore called bog iron was made into tools and weapons.

"Among prehistoric people, 'when you take things, you also offer things,' said Mannering.

"This may be why the Danish villagers would deposit 'gifts' of clothes, old shoes, slaughtered animals, battered weapons, and, for a period of 500 years, people into the black abyss of the bogs."

Related: Medieval Christian Book Discovered in Ireland Bog.

Did The Maya Really Sacrifice Their Ballgame Players?

According to new research, the scenario described in this video may not be accurate.

"Imagine a crowd roaring as royalty take to the ball court, rubber ball in hand in a sport so spectacular, it symbolized good versus evil. The ballgame played by the Maya, Aztec and neighboring cultures is famous for its ubiquity in Mesoamerica before interloping Europeans shut it down. But many mysteries and misconceptions continue to dog people's understanding of the game." Source: Live Science.

"For instance, did the game's winners or losers get sacrificed at the end of the game? And were the hoops on the ball courts treated like modern-day basketball nets?

"The answer to both questions is no; the players were most likely not sacrificed, and the ball wasn't meant to go through the hoop, although it likely happened from time to time, said Christophe Helmke, an associate professor at the Institute of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies at the University of Copenhagen."

Note: "The Mesoamerican ballgame was a sport with ritual associations played since 1400 BC by the pre-Columbian people of Ancient Mesoamerica. The sport had different versions in different places during the millennia, and a newer more modern version of the game, ulama, is still played in a few places by the indigenous population." (Wikipedia)

This modern version of the game looks like a more restricted form of soccer. Some human sacrifices would probably liven it up.

Comment: I'm not sure how reliable this new research is. There does seem to be solid archaeological evidence for human sacrifice at these ball games:

"The association between human sacrifice and the ballgame appears rather late in the archaeological record, no earlier than the Classic era. The association was particularly strong within the Classic Veracruz and the Maya cultures, where the most explicit depictions of human sacrifice can be seen on the ballcourt panels — for example at El Tajín (850–1100 CE) and at Chichen Itza (900–1200 CE) — as well as on the well-known decapitated ballplayer stelae from the Classic Veracruz site of Aparicio (700–900 CE). The Postclassic Maya religious and quasi-historical narrative, the Popol Vuh, also links human sacrifice with the ballgame." (Wikipedia)

Ultimately the question seems to boil down to how you interpret the archaeological evidence:

"In addition to the association between the game and the gory Popol Vuh, this 'human sacrifice' myth [?] stems from artwork on some ball courts featuring skulls and bones. 'But the question is, 'Are those references to the underworld and that mythical event? Are they supposed to be taken literally?' I think it's an open question,' Helmke said." (Live Science)

The Ancient Maya & Human Sacrifice

I'm not sure who produced this hilariously lurid documentary or when it was made.

"For a long time, it was commonly held by Mayanist [sic] experts that the 'pacific' Maya of Central America and southern Mexico did not practice human sacrifice (1). However, as more images and glyphs have come to light and been translated, it appears that the Maya frequently practiced human sacrifice in religious and political contexts." Source: Thought Company.

"Sacrifices played a vital part in Maya ritualism. Animals such as iguanas, crocodiles, turtles, dogs, peccaries, jaguars, and turkeys were occasionally sacrificed, and ... these offerings involved either whole animals -- alive, freshly killed, or cooked -- or in some cases only their hearts. But the supreme sacrifice was human life itself, and all too frequently humans were consigned to be slaughtered in the course of elaborate rituals." -- Maya, the Riddle and Rediscovery of a Lost Civilization, Charles Gallenkamp, Third Revised Edition, 1985, p. 109.

(1) "The prevalent theory on the ancient Maya at the beginning of the 20th century held on to the notion that they had a predominantly peaceful society, idealizing the indigenous culture much like a noble savage. This view erroneously shifted as the result of poorly documented analysis of iconography and the content of Maya script." Source: Wikipedia.

Comment: The myth of the Noble Savage living a peaceful life in harmony with nature and his neighbors has the distinction of being wrong in every case that I'm aware of. It may not be the worst idea ever conceived, but it's definitely one of the most inaccurate.

Ancient Greek Ritual Animal Sacrifice

"Preparatory: An animal was led to the altar, usually in a procession. The participants assembled in a circle, rinsed their hands in lustral [purifying] water, and took a handful of barley grain from a basket. Water was sprinkled on the victim to force it to 'nod' agreement to its own sacrifice. The main sacrificer (not necessarily a priest) then cut hair from the victim, put it on the altar fire, and uttered a prayer which defined the return that was desired [...] for the offering. The other participants threw forwards their barley grains.

"The kill. The victim's throat was cut with a knife; larger victims had been stunned with a blow from an axe first. Women participants raised the cry known as ololyge [shrill cry]. In Attic practice, it was important to 'bloody the altar;' small animals were held over it to be killed, the blood from larger ones was caught in a bowl and poured over it."

Treatment of the meat. There were three stages to the treatment of the meat after the sacrifice. "First the god's portion, typically the thigh bones wrapped in fat with (in Homer) small portions of meat cut 'from all the limbs' set on top, was burnt on the altar fire. Wine was poured on as it burnt. [...] Then the entrails were roasted on skewers and shared among all the participants. Finally the rest of the meat was boiled and distributed [...]; in contrast to the entrails, this boiled meat was occasionally taken away for consumption at home, though a community feast on the spot was the norm. Omens were often taken both from the burning of the god's portion and from the condition of the entrails."

Source: "Sacrifice, Greek," Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd Ed. Revised.

Comment: Blood sacrifice, especially animal sacrifice, was an integral part of religious practice all over the ancient world. This is something that modern "neopagans" don't seem to grasp. A true pagan revival would necessarily mean a revival of these ancient rituals and it would also mean dropping all of the "belief systems" of modern paganism.

Real pagan religions, especially in the Mediterranean region, were entirely ritualistic. They weren't dogmatic or ideological. For instance, adherents didn't have to subscribe to a particular set of teachings like they do with Christianity. They didn't have to be believers to sacrifice to the gods; that's why Roman aristocrats who thought the gods were just superstitions useful for controlling the masses could serve as priests without being hypocrites.

Modern neopagans will never take the step into real paganism, however. They're too "civilized," whatever that means, so they will never advance beyond the stage of role-playing when they get together at sites like Stonehenge to celebrate the solstices and equinoxes. Whether this is a good thing or not depends on your point of view.

The Origins Of Animal Sacrifice

The origin of animal sacrifice is a mystery, but the practice dates back to prehistoric times:

"During the Neolithic Revolution, early humans began to move from hunter-gatherer cultures toward agriculture, leading to the spread of animal domestication. In a theory presented in Homo Necans, mythologist Walter Burkert suggests that the ritual sacrifice of livestock may have developed as a continuation of ancient hunting rituals, as livestock replaced wild game in the food supply." Source: Wikipedia. "... Ancient Egypt was at the forefront of domestication, and some of the earliest archeological evidence suggesting animal sacrifice comes from Egypt. The oldest Egyptian burial sites containing animal remains originate from the Badari culture of Upper Egypt, which flourished between 4400 and 4000 BC."

Note: "References to animal sacrifice appear in the New Testament, such as the parents of Jesus sacrificing two doves (Luke 2:24) and the Apostle Paul performing a Nazirite vow even after the death of Christ." (Wikipedia) The Nazirite vows included  "three offerings: a lamb as a burnt offering (olah), a ewe as a sin-offering (hatat), and a ram as a peace offering (shelamim)..."

Aztec Allies Ritually Disfigured Remains Of Captured Spaniards

Spanish only, unfortunately. Video shows the ruins of Zultepec / Tecoaque (see below).

"New research suggests an Aztec-allied town ceremonially disfigured the bodies of captive Spaniards during one of the worst defeats in the Spanish Conquest of 1519-21, experts said Wednesday." Source: Archaeology News Network.

"The heads of the captive Spanish women were strung up on skull racks alongside those of men. An analysis of the bones revealed the women were pregnant, and in pre-Hispanic practice that may have qualified them as “warriors.” Another sacrificial offering included one woman’s body that was cut in half near the remains of a dsimembered child of 3 or 4."

Note: "The National Institute of Anthropology and History said the offerings were excavated at the Zultepec-Tecoaque site just east of Mexico City. Zultepec was an Aztec-allied town that in 1520 captured a convoy of about 15 male Spaniards, 50 women and 10 children, 45 foot soldiers who included Cubans of African and indigenous descent, and about 350 allies from indigenous groups in what is now Mexico. All were apparently sacrificed over the space of months."

The Eucharist & Cannibalism

Comment: The Eucharist or Holy Communion is clearly an act of symbolic cannibalism, so it's not too surprising that the Romans, acting on vague reports of Christian rituals, would have accused the new cult of practicing actual cannibalism.

The negative Roman view of the early Christians was partly based on distorted rumors about their practices. For instance, the Christians were accused of incest because they called each other "brother and sister." And the charges of cannibalism were especially repulsive.

The Romans would have associated the stories of how Christians ate the flesh and drank the blood of their god with sieges, barbaric eastern cults and legends from Greek mythology: the Thyestean Feast, for instance, in which Atreus killed Thyestes' sons, cooked them and served them to their unknowing father. The stories aren't the same, of course, but the difference between the Communion and real cannibalism would have been lost on the practical-minded Romans.

In this case, it's hard to blame the Romans because the new religion did practice cannibalism. Symbolic cannibalism. And it still does.

Christians do what they can to obfuscate this strange practice, but it's hard to explain away the real significance of what they're doing. When Christians take communion, they are participating in an act of ritual magic in which the bread and wine are miraculously transformed into the actual body and blood of Christ. If that isn't symbolic cannibalism, I don't know what is.

Ritual cannibalism, whether it's symbolic or real, is designed to produce a spiritual transformation. For example, warrior societies often believed -- and some still believe -- that they could absorb the power of their enemies by eating them. In the same way, the follower of a god could literally absorb the spirit and power of the god through an act of sacred cannibalism.

The Communion, a ritual with ancient pagan roots, is surrounded by a fog of mystery and mystical jargon designed to obscure its real meaning, and some theologians, in typical fashion, defend it by claiming that it simply can't be understood. According to New Advent, for instance, "the Church honors the Eucharist as one of her most exalted mysteries, since for sublimity and incomprehensibility it yields in nothing to the allied mysteries of the Trinity and incarnation." [Emphasis added]

In other words, Christianity is a mystery religion.

The connection between the Eucharist and cannibalism is so clear that theologians are compelled to try to explain it away using doubletalk, hairsplitting and paradox to deny the obvious:

"If Catholics believe the Eucharist really is the body and blood of Christ, then they believe they are eating human flesh and drinking human blood," according to The Catholic Thing (2011). "But while holy Communion does involve eating human flesh and blood, it is not true that it is cannibalistic." 

In other words, cannibalism is not cannibalism, which, by definition, is the eating of human flesh by another human being.

The article goes on to make several arguments against the idea that the Communion is actually a form of ritual or symbolic cannibalism,  but none of them are very convincing. For instance, cannibals supposedly only eat the dead, but "the Eucharist is life." Therefore, the Communion can't be cannibalistic. Likewise, "the Eucharist is the whole body and blood of Jesus Christ [but] cannibals only take part of their victims." Apparently, you're not a cannibal if you eat the living and clean your plate.

Most of the arguments here are based on mysticism. For example, the Communion isn't cannibalistic because "when a Catholic receives the Eucharist, he is receiving not just flesh but glorified flesh, a resurrected and transfigured 'super body' that foreshadows the new reality of a new Heaven and a new earth." I'm not sure that this is much of an argument, though. It makes it sound like the Eucharist isn't just cannibalism, but the glorified cannibalism of a super-body with transcendental powers.

I could go on with this, but why bother? Eating human flesh and drinking human blood is obviously cannibalistic even if the flesh and blood are purely symbolic. The truth is that the Eucharist is an act of theophagy -- "feeding on a god" -- with roots in very ancient, pre-Christian fertility rituals. Theophagy is "the act of eating one's god, either literally or symbolically," according to the Free Dictionary. And millions of Christians eat their god on a regular basis around the world.

It's not surprising to find a ritual like this at the very heart of a religion which originated as a mystery cult in Hellenized Israel.

Ritually Sacrificed Guinea Pigs Discovered In Peru

"One hundred ritually sacrificed guinea pigs dressed up in jewellery have been discovered at an Inca archaeological site in Peru. The rodents were found to have been adorned with earrings and necklaces, and some of them wrapped up in tiny rugs—the first time such a find has been made." Source: Archaeology News Network.

Unrelated: Guinea pig meat sees gastronomic boom in Peru.

Mass Child Sacrifice Discovered In Peru

"A mass sacrifice at a 15th century archaeological site in Peru saw the ritual killing of over 140 children and over 200 llamas, according to a new study. This is the largest known mass sacrifice of children -- and of llamas -- in the New World." Source: Science Daily. 

"...This study reports the findings of excavations between 2011 and 2016 that revealed hundreds of bodies buried in an area of approximately 700 square meters. The human remains were almost entirely children, and the animal remains, all juvenile, were identified as most likely llamas, but possibly alpacas. Anatomical and genetic evidence indicates the children included boys and girls between 5 and 14 years old. Cut marks transecting the sternums and displaced ribs suggest both the children and llamas may have had their chests cut open, possibly during ritual removal of the heart."

According to National Geographic, "[t]he investigators believe all of the human and animal victims were ritually killed in a single event, based on evidence from a dried mud layer found in the eastern, least disturbed part of the 7,500-square-foot site. They believe the mud layer once covered the entire sandy dune where the ritual took place, and it was disturbed during the preparation of the burial pits and the subsequent sacrifice event."

Researchers believe that this sacrifice, conducted by the pre-Inca Chimu people, may have been conducted in a response to an "El Nino event." (New York Times)

According to Live Science, "... heavy rainfall and flooding from that year's El Niño weather pattern may have prompted Chimú leaders to order the sacrifice, but without more evidence, we'll likely never know the real reason, said study co-researcher John Verano, a professor in the Department of Anthropology at Tulane University in New Orleans."

Ancient Peruvian Shark Fisherman Buried With Extra Limbs

Video from 2018. As for the music, there's nothing like soft jazz to accompany photos of ancient skeletons.

"Dozens of 'very unique' ancient burials have been discovered on the northern Peruvian coast, many of which appear to contain valuable metal objects, whimsical ceramic pots, and—in some cases—additional human limbs." Source: National Geographic (2018).

"According to Victor Campaña, current director of the Las Lomas Rescue Project, more than 50 burials belonging to the [pre-Inca] Virú culture have been discovered in the town of Huanchaco, seven miles north of the regional capital of Trujillo."

Note: These people were probably sacrificial victims. "...a preliminary study indicates that many sets of remains show evidence of trauma, including cut marks and blunt-force injury ... At this time, the archaeologists can only speculate about the motivation behind the unusual Virú burials."