Child sacrifice is the ritualistic killing of children in order to please, propitiate or force supernatural beings in order to achieve a desired result. A female child A child (plural: children) is a young human, or someone who has not yet reached puberty (someone who is prepubescent). ... Sacrifice (from a Middle English verb meaning to make sacred, from Old Marcus Aurelius and members of the Imperial family offer sacrifice in gratitude for success against Germanic tribes: contemporary bas-relief, Capitoline Museum, Rome French, from Latin sacrificium : sacer, sacred; sacred + facere, to make) is commonly known as the... The supernatural (Latin: super- exceeding + nature) refers to forces and phenomena which are beyond ordinary scientific understanding. ...

The practice has been believed to be central to some religions, made to a wide variety of gods, goddesses and spirits. These religions often depict the practice in myths as absolutely necessary to save the world from "chaos". In many cases, archaeologists have found evidence that suggests that the prevalence of child sacrifice in a culture (Carthaginian for instance) was probably far less than commonly believed, perhaps only as part of myths from some cultures.

References to child sacrifices have been found since the beginning of human history in many cultures.

• In Greek mythology, King Agamemnon sacrifices his daughter Iphigeneia in order to gain favorable weather for an invasion.
• In the Bible, Abraham is told to sacrifice his son Isaac for the glory of God, though angelic intervention prevents it; the binding of Isaac is one of the most challenging, and perhaps ethically troublesome, parts of the Bible, and has its own entry.
• The Bible implies that the Ammonites offered child sacrifices to Moloch.
• Yoruba myths refer to "twin infanticide" as an ancient practice stopped by divine intervention of Shango.

Archaeology has uncovered physical evidence of child sacrifice at several locations. Some examples include: Perseus with the head of Medusa. ... The sacrifice of Iphigenia by the Illioupersis Painter Iphigeneia (, also Iphigenia and sometimes Iphianassa) was a daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra in Greek mythology. ... Jesus was actually a Sears employee before he got fired and was hired at Wang computers where he was assistant manager for saling Wangs and Wang accesories now but his most famous work is for probly writing the bible and starting up his own company that we now know as... It has been suggested that Abraham (Hebrew Bible) be merged into this article or section. ... It has been suggested that Ishaq be merged into this article or section. ... Michelangelos depiction of God in the painting Creation of the Sun and Moon in the Sistine Chapel This article discusses the term God in the context of monotheism and henotheism. ... The Binding of Isaac, in Genesis 22, is a story from the Hebrew Bible in which God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac on Mount Moriah. ... For the extinct mollusc see Ammonite. ... Moloch or Molech or Molekh representing Hebrew מלך mlk is either the name of a god or the name of a particular kind of sacrifice associated historically with Phoenician and related cultures in north Africa and the Levant. ... The Yoruba (native name Yorùbá) are the largest single ethno-lingusitic group or ethnic nation in Nigeria and the largest single ethnic nation in Africa. ... In Yorùbá mythology, Shango (Xango), or Changó in Latin America, is perhaps the most popular Orisha; he is a Sky Father, god of thunder and the ancestor of the Yoruba. ... Archaeology, archeology, or archæology (from the Greek words αρχαίος = ancient and λόγος = word/speech/discourse) is the study of human cultures through the recovery, documentation and analysis of material remains and environmental data, including architecture, artifacts, biofacts, human remains, and landscapes. ...

• A young child was buried with its skull split by a weapon at Woodhenge. This was interpreted by the excavators as a child sacrifice.^{[citation needed]}
• Sites within Carthage and other Phoenician centers revealed the remains of infants and children in large numbers; initially this was interpreted as evidence for frequent and prominent child sacrifice to the god Ba'al Hammon. However, many historians have disputed this interpretation, suggesting instead that these were resting places for children miscarried or who died in infancy.^{[citation needed]}
• The Incan culture may have sacrificed children. Their frozen corpses are still being discovered in the South American mountains. The first of these corpses, a female child who had died from a blow to the skull, was discovered in 1995 by Johan Reinhard. Other methods of sacrifice included wrapping living children in their burial clothes tightly enough to cause asphyxiation. These findings corroborated the documented stories by Spanish colonizers in the 16th century. The practice itself was called capacocha by the Incans. One theory of why the Incans sacrificed children was that the children were to be emissaries to their deities. Archaeologists corroborated this theory with their own, that the child to be sacrificed met the Emperor and was the guest of honor at a feast before being sacrificed.^{[citation needed]}
• The Moche of northern Peru practiced mass sacrifices of men and boys.^{[citation needed]}
• In Knossos and dating to Minoan Crete, the bones of at least four children (who had been in good health) were found which bore signs that they were butchered in the same way the Minoans slaughtered their sheep and goats, suggesting that they had been sacrificed and eaten.^{[citation needed]}

There is some evidence that such practices extend even to modern times. The bodies of some young children discovered in remote regions of South America, are alleged to have been killed by drug dealers in rituals intended to ward off revenge for their successful cocaine runs.^{[citation needed]} In Africa there have been several allegations of children sacrificed in muti rituals: attempts at witchcraft intended to bring prosperity to those performing the sacrifice.^{[citation needed]} This article concerns Woodhenge in England. ... A map of the central Mediterranean Sea, showing the location of Carthage (near modern Tunis). ... Phoenicia was an ancient civilization in the north of ancient Canaan, with its heartland along the coastal plains of what are now Lebanon and Syria. ... For other meanings of Inca, see Inca (disambiguation). ... South America South America is a continent crossed by the equator, with most of its area in the Southern Hemisphere. ... 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... (15th century - 16th century - 17th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 16th century was that century which lasted from 1501 to 1600. ... Capacocha was the Inca practice of human sacrifice, mainly using children. ... Moche pottery (Image © PROMPERU, used with permission) The Moche civilization (aka the Mochica culture, Early Chimu, Pre-Chimu, Proto-Chimu, etc. ... Knossos Knossos (35°18′N 25°10′E; alternative spellings Knossus, Cnossus, Gnossus, Greek Κνωσσός; see also List of traditional Greek place names) is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete, probably the ceremonial and political center of the Minoan culture. ... The Minoans were an ancient pre-Hellenic civilization on what is now Crete (in the Mediterranean), during the Bronze Age, prior to classical Greek culture. ... This article is about the drug Cocaine. ... A satellite composite image of Africa Africa is the worlds second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia. ... Muti is a generic term for medicine in Southern Africa. ... Witchcraft, in various historical, religious and mythical contexts, is the use of certain kinds of alleged supernatural or magical powers. ...

In modern times, child sacrifice is a term that has also been applied to the military use of children.^{[citation needed]} It can also be applied to embyonic stem cell research, where the embryo, thought by many to be a living human child, is destroyed in order to obtain promised health benefits and scientific progress. Further similarities can be drawn with abortion. Boy soldier in the Tatmadaw, the Myanmar army. ... Mouse embryonic stem cells. ...

See also

• infanticide

In sociology and biology, infanticide is the practice of intentionally causing the death of an infant of a given species, by members of the same species. ...

References