Sacrifice, the act of offering something to a god—food, animals, clothing, incense, or even people—was part of the religious practice of many ancient societies. People offered sacrifices to obtain favors or blessings, to atone for wrongdoing, and to ward off disaster.
The earliest form of sacrifice in the world was practiced in the Upper Paleolithic age (c. 35,000–13,500 BCE.) Hunters would bury a young reindeer or cast its body into a lake to secure a bountiful hunting season. Hunters also buried possessions or threw them in the lake along with a doe as proof of their willingness to suffer. Sometimes they hung an older reindeer’s skull and antlers on a pole to mark the earliestknown sacrificial altars.
Human Sacrifice
Early agricultural societies believed the gods controlled the fertility of the earth. To ensure a good harvest, they offered the gods the essence of life itself: human blood. Victims were generally tied to an altar, stabbed to death with a sacrificial knife, and then burned. Fire played a part in the sacrifice rituals of many societies, because of the belief that offerings were conveyed to the gods via the smoke rising from the altar.
In northern and western Europe ancient Celts killed people in sacrifice rituals and buried them in bogs—heavily waterlogged patches of earth. Because bogs have low temperatures and are low in oxygen and rich in tannic acid, the bodies of several sacrifice victims have been found naturally preserved.
Babylonians pushed their victims—slaves, criminals, and children—off the edges of ziggurats (pyramid-shaped temples). There is widespread evidence of human sacrifices in the Moche culture, which flourished on the northern coast of present-day Peru between about 200 and 800 CE. Moche ceramics have scenes of ritual sacrifrices, and archaeologists have found skeletons of sacrificed people with their neckbone cut or broken.
Roman law forbade human sacrifice. Yet the gladiatorial games, in both republican and imperial times, were bloody events ending in the death of most of the participants, largely to appease the violent tastes of the mob. Nevertheless, the Romans drew the line at killing people in the name of the gods: they considered it barbaric. The Romans viewed the rites of the Druids (Celtic priests) with abhorrence and accused them of murdering children.
Animal Sacrifice
By the end of the second millennium BCE, human sacrifice was on the wane in many places. As civilization developed and grew more sophisticated, people tended to place a higher value on human life. Animals were sacrificed instead, their blood poured into bowls and offered to the gods.
The Greeks sacrificed many domesticated animals. They hoped the offerings would please the gods, who would then favor them with good harvests, health, and fortune. Sacrifice was also thought to purify a place. Greeks would sacrifice an animal in order to cleanse an area of evil and make it habitable for the gods. Sacrifices were offered at oracles, during festivals, and at ceremonies initiating people into secret religious societies. Animals sacrificed were often associated with the god being worshiped. Horses were offered to Helios, the sun god thought to travel across the heavens in a chariot. Pregnant sows were sacrificed in honor of Demeter, the goddess of the earth. Valuable bulls were sacrificed to Zeus, one of whose symbols was a bull.
