The Levantine Roots of the tophet Sanctuary

Abstract

Abstract Phoenician and Carthaginian infant cremation sanctuaries (tophet), attested throughout the central Mediterranean (north Africa, Sardinia and Sicily, and perhaps Malta), up to this point lack convincing archaeological evidence in the Phoenician motherland and the far western Mediterranean. This study collects and re-examines the evidence of its Levantine origin of historical order, (the chronology of the settlements and the almost contemporary installation of tophet precincts in them), epigraphic (the inscription of Nebi Yunis) and literary (biblical testimonies and some Greek and Latin writers). Taken as a whole, this documentation strongly leads us to exclude an explanation of the tophet as a novelty introduced by the migrants, but an ancient traditional institution that derived in all probability from the city of Tyre.