Carthage tophet
The Carthage tophet is an ancient sacred area dedicated to the Phoenician deities Tanit and Baal, located in the Carthaginian district of Salammbô, Tunisia, near the Punic ports. This tophet, a "hybrid of sanctuary and necropolis", contains a large number of children's tombs which, according to some interpretations, were sacrificed or buried here after their untimely death. The area is part of the Carthage archaeological site, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The question of the fate of these children is closely linked to Phoenician and Punic religion, but above all to the way in which religious rites – and beyond that, Phoenician and Punic civilization – were perceived by the Jews in the case of the Phoenicians, or by the Romans during the conflicts that pitted them against the Punics. Indeed, the term "tophet" was originally used to designate a place near Jerusalem, synonymous with hell: this name, taken from biblical sources, leads to a macabre interpretation of the rites supposed to take place there. Recent works have been inspired on this site's history, such as Gustave Flaubert's novel Salammbô, which gave its name to the district where the sanctuary was discovered. Also, the comic strip Le Spectre de Carthage, part of the adventures of Alix written by Jacques Martin, gets inspiration from here.
The major difficulty in determining the cause of the burials lies in the fact that the only written sources reporting the rite of child sacrifice are all foreign to the city of Carthage. As for the archaeological sources – stelae and cippes – they are open to multiple interpretations. As a result, the debate between the various historians who have studied the subject has been lively for a long time, and has yet to be completely settled. The utmost caution is therefore called for, as the ancient historian is faced with written and archaeological sources that are, if not divergent, at least open to interpretation.
Discovery and excavation history
Early stages
The existence of stelae on the site has been known for a considerable period, with the earliest documented references dating back to 1817.These stelae were scattered throughout the Carthage archaeological site due to the dispersal that occurred following its destruction in 146 BC and the subsequent urban development activities that disturbed the soil during the construction of the Roman city. Over time, the Carthage site became a target for significant exploitation, including the quarrying of building materials, including marble. This contributed to the gradual deterioration of the main monuments. Between 1825 and 1827, Jean-Émile Humbert a Dutch soldier and archaeologist, sent cippi and votive bases to the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden. The Archaeological Museum of Kraków also has some very fine Punic stelae from the site.A special place in Carthage's history must also be given to the cargo of the Louvre and the sinking of the Magenta, flagship of the Mediterranean fleet, which sank at Toulon on October 31, 1875, following a fire followed by an explosion. On board were over 2,000 Punic stelae and other artefacts, including the statue of Empress Sabina, wife of the Roman Emperor Hadrian. The archaeological finds had been loaded at La Goulette, and came from the excavations of Pricot de Sainte-Marie, an interpreter for the French General Consulate. Following the shipwreck, the divers recovered some of the steles and the statue, while the archaeological pieces were dispersed among various collections, including the Bibliothèque nationale de France. As for the wreck, it was dynamited so as not to impede access to the port. At a depth of twelve meters, what remained of the wreck gradually silted up. Three archaeological campaigns were carried out in 1995–1998 by Max Guérout and the Groupe de recherche en archéologie navale to recover steles and the head of the statue. In April–May 1995, the head of the statue of Sabine was found, followed in April–May 1997 by some 60 fragments of stelae and fragments of the statue. Finally, in 1998, 77 fragments or steles were brought back to the surface.
Jean Herszek Spiro, a pastor and one-time professor at Sadiki College, was one of the pioneers of this field. He returned to Lausanne with 19 stelae, and wrote a book on Les inscriptions et les stèles votives de Carthage. We have no indication of the discovery of the tophet in either Pricot de Sainte-Marie's or Spiro's excavations. In the case of the former, the discovery of steles reused in walls dating from the Roman period was all that was mentioned. All these remains, originally from the tophet, had been moved in antiquity, and no one was looking for a precise location where they could have been grouped together. Spiro's archaeological collections were mainly epigraphic in nature. A fortuitous discovery was to change our understanding of a whole section of the topography of Punic Carthage.
Discovery of 1921
In 1921, the so-called "priest stele" was unearthed as part of the clandestine archaeological digs that were very common at the time. A limestone stele, over a metre high, depicting an adult wearing a typical kohanim hat, a Punic tunic and holding a young child in his arms, was offered by an outfitter to enlightened antiquities enthusiasts Paul Gielly and François Icard, civil servants stationed in Tunisia. Faced with a piece that seemed to confirm in every respect the biblical data and certain classical authors, the two enthusiasts were moved and decided to put an end to the clandestinity so that no discovery could escape the notice of archaeologists and historians. They bought the land and excavated it until the autumn of 1922.The first American excavation, led by Francis Willey Kelsey and Donald Benjamin Harden in 1925, provided a comprehensive understanding of the site's organization. Sadly, Kelsey's death in 1927 brought this excavation session to an end. Father Gabriel-Guillaume Lapeyre, a white father, excavated a neighboring site in 1934–1936 and collected a variety of archaeological and epigraphic material, but without the stratigraphic details needed to understand the context of the discovery.
Recent excavations: from Pierre Cintas to Unesco's international campaign
"Cintas Chapel" and places of worship
From the end of World War II onwards, Pierre Cintas carried out excavations on the site and, in 1947, discovered one of the features that caused such controversy at the time: the feature known as the "Cintas chapel" in honour of its discoverer. Surrounded by masonry in a chamber measuring approximately 1 m², what was interpreted as a high-period foundation deposit was made up of ceramic pieces of various origins dating from the 7th century BC, the earliest evidence of the Phoenician presence on this land. They have been extensively studied and were deposited in crevices in the native soil. The meandering dating of the ceramics in particular, some of which were clearly Aegean, means that the date was lower than that first proposed by Cintas.Latest American excavations
These latest excavations, linked to the international campaign led by UNESCO, took place between 1976 and 1979 under the aegis of the American Schools of Oriental Research and Lawrence Stager.As a result of the excavations, it was proven that the site had been in continuous use for six centuries, with an estimated surface area of 6,000 m2, 20,000 urns having been discovered in various strata:
The remains discovered during the initial excavations were subjected to forensic analysis, the results of which caused more confusion than provided answers to the nagging questions posed by specialists.
Site topography and archaeological findings
Site characteristics
"To dig is to destroy": this common adage of archaeologists is even more valid in the case of the tophet, due to the nature of the site, "a series of superimposed layers of earth, urns and ex-voto" and the superimposition of steles. It should also be pointed out that the site's perimeter was not precisely known, due to the upheaval of the Carthage site since Roman times and the intense urbanization that meant that the tophet was then located in a residential area. Situated at the southern end of the city, close to the commercial port, the site was in a particularly unhealthy, marshy location. During excavations, archaeologists reached a level of brackish water.The tophet, like that of Motya, was located away from the living and even from the necropolis stricto sensu, and shared four characteristics with the other tophets:
First and foremost, the site is pristine, with no archaeological layers predating the arrival of the Phoenician merchants having been found during the various archaeological excavations. The same applies to the other tophets that have been identified and excavated in the Phoenician-Punic world.
The site is also located in the open air, although the best-known image of the tophet is that of the part located under Roman vaults, which was uncovered during the Kelsey excavations. This image, which admittedly corresponds fairly closely to a place where the much-hated sacrifice would have taken place, is not the space as it appeared at the time, delimited and in the open air.
The third characteristic of a tophet is the fact that the site is usually entirely enclosed: at Carthage, however, the tophet enclosure was only partially recognized at the time of Pierre Cintas's excavations. However, this enclosure seems to have been overrun as early as the 5th century BC. As for the precise surface area of the tophet, it is highly unlikely that it will ever be known, given the urban spread of contemporary Carthage, particularly in the coastal zone.
The final feature of the site is its dual function: votive and funerary. Evidence of this dual function is to be found in the fact that the term "molk" is very rarely found in the stelae inscribed with epigraphs, the others being associated with funerary urns with no other indication.