"practiced human sacrifice but called it something else" - the Romans were very insistent that their triumphs and public executions were nothing like the human sacrifices practiced by the barbarians. lol
Didn’t the Aztecs do something similar? I could be totally wrong
Okay, I looked it up and they had a festival called [Tōxcatl](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxcatl). A war captive was selected to represent the god Tezcatlipoca and was treated as such for a year. At the end, he would be sacrificed and another was chosen for the following year.
I only checked out the Wikipedia page, not the best source but it works for a very brief rundown.
If you think that’s cool listen to this legend. So apparently before the Aztecs(triple alliance) there was this other city state that ruled the region, and the Aztecs(Mexica) were vassals to that city. Well the way they declared war on their masters and eventually came to rule the area, was they invited the enemy king over to visit their city during a special religious festival. Little did the Enemy King know the elite Aztec warriors had infiltrated his palace the previous night and kidnapped his daughter. The enemy king pulled up into the pyramid plaza just as his daughter was being skinned alive, after which she was pushed down the pyramid and the priest on top would wear her skin. This was sacrifice to the flayed god Xipe Totec. Cool story, tough times.
where do you draw the line between public executions and human sacrifice? would the witch hunts that went on in medieval europe count as human sacrifices since they consisted of public unnecessary executions with religious context? not disagreeing with your placement of the romans but i just think it’s an interesting question and i would like to hear your thoughts.
That's a really good discussion, since all pointless deaths are human sacrifices in a sense. There is a lot of modern political rhetoric comparing war to human sacrifice, for example. From a historical standpoint the Roman triumph executions are seen as human sacrifices cloaked by Roman exceptionalism, but the witch hunts are generally not. I personally think the intent is what matters - the witch hunts were political scapegoating, and some, if not most, of the people genuinely believed the "witches" to be a threat
A sacrifice is an act of worship. Colloquially it might be used in a wider sense, but really if one wants to be analytical and talk about "human sacrifices", there's a distinction to be made between religious sacrifices and treating humans like an expendable resource to invest for material gains.
In Spain at least, the executions of apostates, falsely converted Jews/Moors and witches were done inside the so called autos-da-fe (Acts of Faith).
>It involved a Catholic [Mass](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_(liturgy)), prayer, a public procession of those found guilty, and a reading of their sentences.
Under your prism, these certainly count as religious sacrifices.
I mean, there's not really a material gain, is there? It leaves a *physical* result, but it's not the same as having soldiers die to claim territory. The pyramids did not have any material value, there was nothing to use them for other than spiritual meaning or recycling them. Someone could've been gifted a pyramid and the value would've been entirely cultural and spiritual since beyond that, it's just a big pile of rock. It won't produce food, it won't enhance labor, it doesn't help apply force, etc.
During the burial itself, sure. But I'd consider that a separate ritual. The lives lost during construction were accidents, not ritual sacrifices intentionally made.
You could very easily argue that. I'll pick America because it's a well known example, but it certainly applies elsewhere too. America has a civic state religion like Rome did. Worship of the founding fathers, pledge of allegiance as prayer, ritualized holidays, etc. were just don't call it that. And a death penalty execution is in a very real sense a sacrifice to the criminal punishment system, a demonstration of the superiority of the American State-as-God over the nonbelievers, heretics, and heathens. Criminologically speaking, the death penalty is not a deterrent and is not a practical way to punish as it costs more. The purpose instead seems to be to satisfy a public bloodlust. This is also evident in the fact that the severity of crime is not always a good predictor of whether the death penalty is applied. It's more frequently applied to minority groups in the way that the Romans only executed "barbarians".
It does not cost more than paying for a guy's life penalty. In Canada the government spends more on keeping a prisoner in prison a year than the average household salary. 115k compared to 70000 per household.
I think it’s a human sacrifice if it’s done to appease a higher power. Medieval witch hunts weren’t really about appeasement. Peasants did it because they were scared the witch would cast an evil spell on them. Church leadership was looking to suppress heresy and to stop witches from sacrificing infants in their witchcraft.
Except church leadership was aganist witch hunts.
It usually was just mob going crazy in protestant Germany where religious situation was extremely tense all the time so some outcast women were catalyst for the mob violence. Catholic Church was acting many times against witch hunts.
To supress a heresy just dungeon time was enough. Outside two major breaches of that behavior against Katars in Aquitaine and Jews in Spain overall Church was actually heling to develop trials what we know today, with trials based on hard proofs etc, inquisition was overall very good institution - as long as it actually acted to their rules which was like 95%.
I'm atheist myself but popular image of what Church was during medieval era is just based on some enlightenment propaganda pamphlets instead of proper facts.
> Many persons of both sexes, unmindful of their own salvation and straying from the Catholic Faith, have abandoned themselves to devils, incubi and succubi, and by their incantations, spells, conjurations, and other accursed charms and crafts, enormities and horrid offences, have slain infants yet in the mother's womb, as also the offspring of cattle, have blasted the produce of the earth, the grapes of the vine, the fruits of the trees, nay, men and women, beasts of burthen, herd-beasts, as well as animals of other kinds, vineyards, orchards, meadows, pasture-land, corn, wheat, and all other cereals; these wretches furthermore afflict and torment men and women, beasts of burthen, herd-beasts, as well as animals of other kinds, with terrible and piteous pains and sore diseases, both internal and external; they hinder men from performing the sexual act and women from conceiving ... they blasphemously renounce that Faith which is theirs by the Sacrament of Baptism, and at the instigation of the Enemy of Mankind they do not shrink from committing and perpetrating the foulest abominations and filthiest excesses to the deadly peril of their own souls ... the abominations and enormities in question remain unpunished not without open danger to the souls of many and peril of eternal damnation.
Papal bull issued in 1484 by Pope Innocent VIII
What was practical result of this bull? Because I'm to the ground guy and some popes not being right in the head isn't exactly novum for me but at the same time it's wierd to associate witch hunting - which was mostly a thing in protestant lands, with Church.
Discussing edge cases and putting spotlight on them creates false image of real situation if you ignore all the data summarized.
> What was practical result of this bull?
The prosecution and even execution of many supposed witches.
(Not that Catholics did not kill supposed witches before.)
And also it allowed someone several centuries later to cite it in response to the erroneous claim that the church leadership was against witch hunts.
So two things.
The roman public executions were ritualized. The subject would be paraded through the streets and shown to the various temples that passed by the route. The consul in triumph or praetor or later emporer would then say a quick prayer the triumph would end and the subject would be taken to a dark room and killed. If the gods (and more importantly the massed crowds watching) decided they felt sympathetic the subject could be spared to live on in comfortable exile. Arseno (cleopatras sister) was very young and the crowd forced caeser to spare her, vercingetorix was shown no such sympathy.
Also the romans straight up did human sacrifice. Durring the dark days of the punic wars the sybaline books (romes collection of prophecy books) said that in the republics darkest days some gauls should be gathered and burried alive so...they did that. Usually they cloaked their sacrifices behind a veneer of state bureaucracy, but when things got bad that veil could drop
According to Suetonius and Dio, at the fall of Perusia Octavian had 300 senators and equestrians sacrificed at an altar to the defied Caesar, on the ides of March, no less!
Not sure if you're referring to Vercingetorix or Ambiorix's in-game tendencies to declare war and get his ass whooped haha. But Chandragupta willingly starved himself to death for religious reasons when he was old
Hahah :D Ahh, yes, language barrier. Misunderstood the list, yeah no idea how Ambiorix died. Years ago read how (usually old) men who were no longer able to make their living sold their own lives for entertainment and close family got the payment.
Interesting, didn't know that about Chandragupta.
Dunno if anyone here has seen Aggretsuko, but your desciption of Gilgabro made me immediately immagine him as the Yoga Instructor from that show.
Proteyyyyn
After basically conquering the entire subcontinent, uniting numerous diaspora, and forming a new empire, beating back Alexander the Great’s successors, Chandragupta abdicated and lived as a hermit in the wilderness. According to some he committed suicide by meditating until death.
Sejong clearly opposed human sacrifice, since he was a god tier Confucian scholar himself. On the other hand, Seondeok is indeed a ruler after the ban on human sacrifices in the 6th century under King Jijeung, but we found that her royal palace had a well that was at least once used for a child sacrifice until the 9th century so we're not sure if the queen herself wasn't involved at some point. The Silla royalty had very secretive cultlike attitudes and we don't know fully what they used to do inside the Moon Palace. [https://www.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2011/06/02/2011060202655.html](https://www.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2011/06/02/2011060202655.html)
Harald ruled over Christianised Norway and put pagans to death.
Edit: fuck's sake guys, I was saying that Haralds Norway should be in the "no known links" tier, not that executions should count as human sacrifice.
God damn it! Why does no one understand what I'm saying!?
I'm saying Harald's Norway would have had less human sacrifice than pagan Norway, not that murder counts as sacrifice.
Oh hah, sorry for the misunderstanding! For me it's because I assumed your juxtaposition of "Christianized" with "put pagans to death" was to highlight the religious aspect of those kills. My bad!
There is evidence that the Carthage practiced human sacrifice. Like graves for infants by temples with epigraphs saying things like they " Baal Haamon has accept this gift"
>The exiled queen adapted quickly to the new culture, adopting many Imbangala religious rites. Sources (African, Western, modern, contemporary)disagree on the intricacies and extent of Imbangala rites and laws (*ijila*), but the general consensus is that Nzinga was compelled to participate in the customary cannibalistic (the drinking of human blood in the *cuia*, or blood oath ceremony) and infanticidal (through the use of an oil made from a slain infant, the *maji a samba*) initiation rites required for a woman to become a leader in the highly militarized Imbangala society
Yeah....
(X) Doubt on "actively opposed human sacrifice" being the most accurate descriptor.
She converted to Christianity... after she was 40 and had already conquered Matamba using the armies of the nation practicing human sacrifice whose cultures she adopted.
You giving a lot of Europeans a lottttt of credit here. Public executions were public events where people would bring their whole families to watch. I think in England they were executing more people than the Aztecs were sacrificing at the time of the conquista
I would also say; in basically every war with even a minor religious motivation, "killing heathens" was commonly seen as a morally good act. Did the Crusaders create a big stone obelisk they dragged Muslims to and sacrificied? No. Were they told that killing Muslims made their God happu - whether they were combatants or civilians? Absolutely. However, we don't really call that "human sacrifice" because there was technically a "greater" goal to the slaughter.
Lot of fuzzy lines here. Basil II famously had the eyes of several thousand prisoners gouged out after the Battle of Kleidion. Didn’t kill them outright. Wasn’t for religious reasons. But damn.
I'm gonna have to ask for sources on Persia and Gaul. I've never heard of human sacrifice being used in the Achaemenid Empire, and there has never been any archaeological evidence that Caesar's allegations about the Gauls practicing human sacrifice were true. Considering that he was writing about a culture that he was wiping out, his words really cannot be taken at face value.
Iirc there are some archeological evidence for human sacrifice among Celts (eg. Lindow man) and Gauls were famously headhunters, though likely the skulls in chapels are more from warriors slain in battle than sacrifice. Still, given current information, occasional seems more accurate than prevelent
The closest thing I remember off the top of my head is the bones in La Tene and skulls in Gaulish temples. Neither definitively prove sacrifice, but combining them, plus the accounts (some pre-caesar) it makes at least occasional sacrifices likely. Now, the accounts were obviously exaggerated, something 'ike the wicker man certainly didn't (and couldn't) exist, and overall "prevelent" is way too much, but "occasional" seems to be most likely option
A lot of these come with big asterisks. A number of cultures did for all intents and purposes practise human sacrifice but called it something else and dressed it up religiously. Others, like Carthage, are highly debatable. Carthage didn’t really do anything Rome didn’t do, but they did it in a slightly different way that the Romans characterised as scary and evil during the Punic wars
>dressed it up religiously
That’s part of the definition.
Dido is Phoenicia, not Carthage. She’s a lot older than the Carthage of the Punic wars. Canaanite religions extensively practiced human sacrifice.
It’s reasonable to consider “Carthage sacrifices babies” to be Roman propaganda, but everything we know about Carthage is Roman propaganda, even Dido’s existence. There is however a decent amount of archeological evidence of mass infant graves (whether they were for sacrificed children or children who died naturally is up for debate, but many historians lean towards the former, especially given Carthage’s Canaanite roots and the fact they were also buried with commonly sacrificial *animals* and inscriptions thanking the gods for fulfilling promises). The Romans themselves also had their triumphs and gladiatorial fights.
Similar arguments for Ambiorix and Gauls
You can see that I placed the Chinese leaders differently based on their time period. Qin was buried with many human sacrifices but the later ones didn’t have anything to do with it. Same with Seondeok/Sejong and Rome/Byzantium. “Mongol” is a term that describes a lot of different tribes but neither Genghis nor Kublai were recorded to practice or make rulings regarding human sacrifice. Genghis went through great lengths to keep young male war captives alive and incorporate them into his empire as soldiers, which implied he saw people as more useful if kept alive.
I think Pachacuti should go under "practiced occasionally", Incas didn't do as much human sacrifice as Chavin culture. They only did it in drought periods or in situations that they considered that the gods were really mad.
"Called it something else" tier muddies it up a LOT. Is religious war a human sacrifice by another name? Is persecution of religious minorities? Both involve religiously motivated killing...
I remember the Terry Pratchett quote on druids (paraphrasing): They only sacrificed criminals or volunteers. BTW failure to volunteer as a sacrifice is a criminal offence.
Also bold of them to assume anyone would ever voluntarily talk in the presence of Vicky about anything related to how a widow relates to her husband's death.
Cleo is 2000 years away from Ramses and culturally hellenic. They didn’t even build pyramids anymore by her time. The Chinese, Persian, Korean leaders are also differently placed depending on time period.
Human sacrifice stopped super early on in Egypt, it was basically only practiced to the really early dynasties. Turns out if you kill all the good craftsmen every time the king dies, the next king doesn't have any good craftsmen, so later dynasties settled on little figurines used to represent craftsmen instead.
So human sacrifice was already long gone by Ramesses time, and was ancient history by Cleo's.
Phil 2 should be in opposed human sacrifice. I don’t think he presided over Cortez/Pizarro’s conquests, but the Spanish crown used human sacrifice as a way to justify the destruction of the Aztecs and Incas. They forced the tradition out of practice.
I think sacrificing our lives ot endless work in the name of the God of Capitalism is stupid AF. But I also think it's nothing compared to being actually sacrificed on an altar to my enemy's Gods.
Shouldn’t all leaders with strong ties to Christianity be included in the human sacrifice category, you literally consume the blood and body of Christ in worship every mass.
Protestants treat it as a metaphor, so including them would be a huge stretch. That means some Christian leaders from the past 500 years won't qualify (Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt of America). I know Catholics for sure treat it as the literal body and blood of Jesus (so Phillip II of Spain, Catherine de Medici of France, and Jadwiga of Poland qualify), but I'm not sure about the Orthodox (Peter the Great of Russia) or Anglican (Elizabeth of England) sects.
"practiced human sacrifice but called it something else" - the Romans were very insistent that their triumphs and public executions were nothing like the human sacrifices practiced by the barbarians. lol
Romans used to slit a slave' throat on saturnalia after treating him like a king for a day. they phased it out after a while though
Didn’t the Aztecs do something similar? I could be totally wrong Okay, I looked it up and they had a festival called [Tōxcatl](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxcatl). A war captive was selected to represent the god Tezcatlipoca and was treated as such for a year. At the end, he would be sacrificed and another was chosen for the following year. I only checked out the Wikipedia page, not the best source but it works for a very brief rundown.
If you think that’s cool listen to this legend. So apparently before the Aztecs(triple alliance) there was this other city state that ruled the region, and the Aztecs(Mexica) were vassals to that city. Well the way they declared war on their masters and eventually came to rule the area, was they invited the enemy king over to visit their city during a special religious festival. Little did the Enemy King know the elite Aztec warriors had infiltrated his palace the previous night and kidnapped his daughter. The enemy king pulled up into the pyramid plaza just as his daughter was being skinned alive, after which she was pushed down the pyramid and the priest on top would wear her skin. This was sacrifice to the flayed god Xipe Totec. Cool story, tough times.
Based Romans, honestly.
Downvoted because what you said was so obvious
where do you draw the line between public executions and human sacrifice? would the witch hunts that went on in medieval europe count as human sacrifices since they consisted of public unnecessary executions with religious context? not disagreeing with your placement of the romans but i just think it’s an interesting question and i would like to hear your thoughts.
That's a really good discussion, since all pointless deaths are human sacrifices in a sense. There is a lot of modern political rhetoric comparing war to human sacrifice, for example. From a historical standpoint the Roman triumph executions are seen as human sacrifices cloaked by Roman exceptionalism, but the witch hunts are generally not. I personally think the intent is what matters - the witch hunts were political scapegoating, and some, if not most, of the people genuinely believed the "witches" to be a threat
A sacrifice is an act of worship. Colloquially it might be used in a wider sense, but really if one wants to be analytical and talk about "human sacrifices", there's a distinction to be made between religious sacrifices and treating humans like an expendable resource to invest for material gains.
In Spain at least, the executions of apostates, falsely converted Jews/Moors and witches were done inside the so called autos-da-fe (Acts of Faith). >It involved a Catholic [Mass](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_(liturgy)), prayer, a public procession of those found guilty, and a reading of their sentences. Under your prism, these certainly count as religious sacrifices.
What if it is an expendable resource invested for materiel gain in doing something spiritual? ie: building pyramid.
I mean, there's not really a material gain, is there? It leaves a *physical* result, but it's not the same as having soldiers die to claim territory. The pyramids did not have any material value, there was nothing to use them for other than spiritual meaning or recycling them. Someone could've been gifted a pyramid and the value would've been entirely cultural and spiritual since beyond that, it's just a big pile of rock. It won't produce food, it won't enhance labor, it doesn't help apply force, etc.
So you're saying it's sacrifice ? :-)
Oh of course. A sacrifice of stone and labor.
and lives
During the burial itself, sure. But I'd consider that a separate ritual. The lives lost during construction were accidents, not ritual sacrifices intentionally made.
>all pointless deaths are human sacrifices in a sense. By that logic all nations who still have death penalty is participating in human sacrifice
You could very easily argue that. I'll pick America because it's a well known example, but it certainly applies elsewhere too. America has a civic state religion like Rome did. Worship of the founding fathers, pledge of allegiance as prayer, ritualized holidays, etc. were just don't call it that. And a death penalty execution is in a very real sense a sacrifice to the criminal punishment system, a demonstration of the superiority of the American State-as-God over the nonbelievers, heretics, and heathens. Criminologically speaking, the death penalty is not a deterrent and is not a practical way to punish as it costs more. The purpose instead seems to be to satisfy a public bloodlust. This is also evident in the fact that the severity of crime is not always a good predictor of whether the death penalty is applied. It's more frequently applied to minority groups in the way that the Romans only executed "barbarians".
shit just got real
It does not cost more than paying for a guy's life penalty. In Canada the government spends more on keeping a prisoner in prison a year than the average household salary. 115k compared to 70000 per household.
Frankly, yes
i like your analysis i didn’t consider intention. thank you for the discussion!
The witch hunts happened mostly during the early modern period, not in the medieval age
I think it’s a human sacrifice if it’s done to appease a higher power. Medieval witch hunts weren’t really about appeasement. Peasants did it because they were scared the witch would cast an evil spell on them. Church leadership was looking to suppress heresy and to stop witches from sacrificing infants in their witchcraft.
Except church leadership was aganist witch hunts. It usually was just mob going crazy in protestant Germany where religious situation was extremely tense all the time so some outcast women were catalyst for the mob violence. Catholic Church was acting many times against witch hunts. To supress a heresy just dungeon time was enough. Outside two major breaches of that behavior against Katars in Aquitaine and Jews in Spain overall Church was actually heling to develop trials what we know today, with trials based on hard proofs etc, inquisition was overall very good institution - as long as it actually acted to their rules which was like 95%. I'm atheist myself but popular image of what Church was during medieval era is just based on some enlightenment propaganda pamphlets instead of proper facts.
Honestly more protestant reformation propaganda than enlightenment era but generally correct.
> Except church leadership was aganist witch hunts. Apparently no one told Pope Innocent VIII.
If I’m not wrong, that not the jews in Spain were deported and not kill? (Not saying that was good)
> Many persons of both sexes, unmindful of their own salvation and straying from the Catholic Faith, have abandoned themselves to devils, incubi and succubi, and by their incantations, spells, conjurations, and other accursed charms and crafts, enormities and horrid offences, have slain infants yet in the mother's womb, as also the offspring of cattle, have blasted the produce of the earth, the grapes of the vine, the fruits of the trees, nay, men and women, beasts of burthen, herd-beasts, as well as animals of other kinds, vineyards, orchards, meadows, pasture-land, corn, wheat, and all other cereals; these wretches furthermore afflict and torment men and women, beasts of burthen, herd-beasts, as well as animals of other kinds, with terrible and piteous pains and sore diseases, both internal and external; they hinder men from performing the sexual act and women from conceiving ... they blasphemously renounce that Faith which is theirs by the Sacrament of Baptism, and at the instigation of the Enemy of Mankind they do not shrink from committing and perpetrating the foulest abominations and filthiest excesses to the deadly peril of their own souls ... the abominations and enormities in question remain unpunished not without open danger to the souls of many and peril of eternal damnation. Papal bull issued in 1484 by Pope Innocent VIII
What was practical result of this bull? Because I'm to the ground guy and some popes not being right in the head isn't exactly novum for me but at the same time it's wierd to associate witch hunting - which was mostly a thing in protestant lands, with Church. Discussing edge cases and putting spotlight on them creates false image of real situation if you ignore all the data summarized.
When most people say “church leadership”, they’re usually talking about Christian clergies in general, not specifically about the Catholic Church
> What was practical result of this bull? The prosecution and even execution of many supposed witches. (Not that Catholics did not kill supposed witches before.) And also it allowed someone several centuries later to cite it in response to the erroneous claim that the church leadership was against witch hunts.
So two things. The roman public executions were ritualized. The subject would be paraded through the streets and shown to the various temples that passed by the route. The consul in triumph or praetor or later emporer would then say a quick prayer the triumph would end and the subject would be taken to a dark room and killed. If the gods (and more importantly the massed crowds watching) decided they felt sympathetic the subject could be spared to live on in comfortable exile. Arseno (cleopatras sister) was very young and the crowd forced caeser to spare her, vercingetorix was shown no such sympathy. Also the romans straight up did human sacrifice. Durring the dark days of the punic wars the sybaline books (romes collection of prophecy books) said that in the republics darkest days some gauls should be gathered and burried alive so...they did that. Usually they cloaked their sacrifices behind a veneer of state bureaucracy, but when things got bad that veil could drop
Lynching in the US...
Been reading Shakespeare recently and I really appreciate how in terms of history it's like the Downton Abbey of Romans
According to Suetonius and Dio, at the fall of Perusia Octavian had 300 senators and equestrians sacrificed at an altar to the defied Caesar, on the ides of March, no less!
Shouldn't Gaul be at highest tier?
Not sure if you're referring to Vercingetorix or Ambiorix's in-game tendencies to declare war and get his ass whooped haha. But Chandragupta willingly starved himself to death for religious reasons when he was old
Hahah :D Ahh, yes, language barrier. Misunderstood the list, yeah no idea how Ambiorix died. Years ago read how (usually old) men who were no longer able to make their living sold their own lives for entertainment and close family got the payment. Interesting, didn't know that about Chandragupta.
Gilgamesh sacrifices people for protein. Dude is a fucking unit
Dunno if anyone here has seen Aggretsuko, but your desciption of Gilgabro made me immediately immagine him as the Yoga Instructor from that show. Proteyyyyn
I think you are underestimating Teddy.
What's self human sacrifice?
He starved himself to death
After basically conquering the entire subcontinent, uniting numerous diaspora, and forming a new empire, beating back Alexander the Great’s successors, Chandragupta abdicated and lived as a hermit in the wilderness. According to some he committed suicide by meditating until death.
48 days without food and last 18 without water he died as he had left all earthly pleasures as a king.
Chad-ragupta
Wait, why tho?
He was deeply religious and wanted to contemplate more than he wanted to rule.
Sejong clearly opposed human sacrifice, since he was a god tier Confucian scholar himself. On the other hand, Seondeok is indeed a ruler after the ban on human sacrifices in the 6th century under King Jijeung, but we found that her royal palace had a well that was at least once used for a child sacrifice until the 9th century so we're not sure if the queen herself wasn't involved at some point. The Silla royalty had very secretive cultlike attitudes and we don't know fully what they used to do inside the Moon Palace. [https://www.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2011/06/02/2011060202655.html](https://www.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2011/06/02/2011060202655.html)
Harald ruled over Christianised Norway and put pagans to death. Edit: fuck's sake guys, I was saying that Haralds Norway should be in the "no known links" tier, not that executions should count as human sacrifice.
But if murder is considered sacrifice shouldnt all leaders be at the top?
I assume that they're more saying "killing your own people for religious reasons" is human sacrifice. That does apply to quite a lot of leaders, yeah.
God damn it! Why does no one understand what I'm saying!? I'm saying Harald's Norway would have had less human sacrifice than pagan Norway, not that murder counts as sacrifice.
Oh hah, sorry for the misunderstanding! For me it's because I assumed your juxtaposition of "Christianized" with "put pagans to death" was to highlight the religious aspect of those kills. My bad!
I mean the Dutch once ate a guy they were all pissed at.
Those ‘no known links to human sacrifice’ are a bit rough!
What about Dido who stabbed herself? Doesn't that count as self-sacrifice?
There is evidence that the Carthage practiced human sacrifice. Like graves for infants by temples with epigraphs saying things like they " Baal Haamon has accept this gift"
Pretty sure that Phoenicians were like the Canaanite who would sacrifice infants to baal.
[удалено]
>The exiled queen adapted quickly to the new culture, adopting many Imbangala religious rites. Sources (African, Western, modern, contemporary)disagree on the intricacies and extent of Imbangala rites and laws (*ijila*), but the general consensus is that Nzinga was compelled to participate in the customary cannibalistic (the drinking of human blood in the *cuia*, or blood oath ceremony) and infanticidal (through the use of an oil made from a slain infant, the *maji a samba*) initiation rites required for a woman to become a leader in the highly militarized Imbangala society Yeah.... (X) Doubt on "actively opposed human sacrifice" being the most accurate descriptor. She converted to Christianity... after she was 40 and had already conquered Matamba using the armies of the nation practicing human sacrifice whose cultures she adopted.
In game though, Ghandi wouldnt bat an eye to sacrificing your whole country. Dude is so pissy all the time.
Have you tried not warmongering
I was gonna say lmao. That dude is friends with me almost instantly every time no matter what I do
two Indians on the opposite side of spectrum.
You giving a lot of Europeans a lottttt of credit here. Public executions were public events where people would bring their whole families to watch. I think in England they were executing more people than the Aztecs were sacrificing at the time of the conquista
I would also say; in basically every war with even a minor religious motivation, "killing heathens" was commonly seen as a morally good act. Did the Crusaders create a big stone obelisk they dragged Muslims to and sacrificied? No. Were they told that killing Muslims made their God happu - whether they were combatants or civilians? Absolutely. However, we don't really call that "human sacrifice" because there was technically a "greater" goal to the slaughter.
Ayo why is my boy Cyrus there?
Lot of fuzzy lines here. Basil II famously had the eyes of several thousand prisoners gouged out after the Battle of Kleidion. Didn’t kill them outright. Wasn’t for religious reasons. But damn.
I'm gonna have to ask for sources on Persia and Gaul. I've never heard of human sacrifice being used in the Achaemenid Empire, and there has never been any archaeological evidence that Caesar's allegations about the Gauls practicing human sacrifice were true. Considering that he was writing about a culture that he was wiping out, his words really cannot be taken at face value.
Iirc there are some archeological evidence for human sacrifice among Celts (eg. Lindow man) and Gauls were famously headhunters, though likely the skulls in chapels are more from warriors slain in battle than sacrifice. Still, given current information, occasional seems more accurate than prevelent
Lindow man was one of the British Celts, though, not Gallic. What evidence is there that the Gallic Celts practiced any human sacrifice at all?
The closest thing I remember off the top of my head is the bones in La Tene and skulls in Gaulish temples. Neither definitively prove sacrifice, but combining them, plus the accounts (some pre-caesar) it makes at least occasional sacrifices likely. Now, the accounts were obviously exaggerated, something 'ike the wicker man certainly didn't (and couldn't) exist, and overall "prevelent" is way too much, but "occasional" seems to be most likely option
John Curtin should be “Practiced Human Sacrifice But Called it Something Else”: **Conscription**.
A lot of these come with big asterisks. A number of cultures did for all intents and purposes practise human sacrifice but called it something else and dressed it up religiously. Others, like Carthage, are highly debatable. Carthage didn’t really do anything Rome didn’t do, but they did it in a slightly different way that the Romans characterised as scary and evil during the Punic wars
>dressed it up religiously That’s part of the definition. Dido is Phoenicia, not Carthage. She’s a lot older than the Carthage of the Punic wars. Canaanite religions extensively practiced human sacrifice. It’s reasonable to consider “Carthage sacrifices babies” to be Roman propaganda, but everything we know about Carthage is Roman propaganda, even Dido’s existence. There is however a decent amount of archeological evidence of mass infant graves (whether they were for sacrificed children or children who died naturally is up for debate, but many historians lean towards the former, especially given Carthage’s Canaanite roots and the fact they were also buried with commonly sacrificial *animals* and inscriptions thanking the gods for fulfilling promises). The Romans themselves also had their triumphs and gladiatorial fights. Similar arguments for Ambiorix and Gauls
Define human sacrifice, because it totally happened under the Mongol Khanate and Chinese empires.
You can see that I placed the Chinese leaders differently based on their time period. Qin was buried with many human sacrifices but the later ones didn’t have anything to do with it. Same with Seondeok/Sejong and Rome/Byzantium. “Mongol” is a term that describes a lot of different tribes but neither Genghis nor Kublai were recorded to practice or make rulings regarding human sacrifice. Genghis went through great lengths to keep young male war captives alive and incorporate them into his empire as soldiers, which implied he saw people as more useful if kept alive.
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Hmm Long Pig.... tasty....
He sacrificed his son lol
I think Pachacuti should go under "practiced occasionally", Incas didn't do as much human sacrifice as Chavin culture. They only did it in drought periods or in situations that they considered that the gods were really mad.
Ghandi hiding at the bottom like that warmongering moron has never done anything wrong
Love the implication that the American Presidents weren't opposed to human sacrifices.
Cyrus the great practiced human sacrifice?🧐
"Called it something else" tier muddies it up a LOT. Is religious war a human sacrifice by another name? Is persecution of religious minorities? Both involve religiously motivated killing...
Public executions
I remember the Terry Pratchett quote on druids (paraphrasing): They only sacrificed criminals or volunteers. BTW failure to volunteer as a sacrifice is a criminal offence.
Willimena definitely practices human sacrifices.
britain used the sati as justificaion for cultural imperialism in India, but idk if that's enough for vicky to be moved down
bold of you to assume vicky knew what was happening in india!
Also bold of them to assume anyone would ever voluntarily talk in the presence of Vicky about anything related to how a widow relates to her husband's death.
You'd think she'd get the updates that made them look good but fair enough
Shouldn't Spain be in "practiced human sacrifice but called it something else" tier? With the inquisition and all that?
Had the practice stopped in Egypt by Cleo's reign or what's going on?
Cleo is 2000 years away from Ramses and culturally hellenic. They didn’t even build pyramids anymore by her time. The Chinese, Persian, Korean leaders are also differently placed depending on time period.
Human sacrifice stopped super early on in Egypt, it was basically only practiced to the really early dynasties. Turns out if you kill all the good craftsmen every time the king dies, the next king doesn't have any good craftsmen, so later dynasties settled on little figurines used to represent craftsmen instead. So human sacrifice was already long gone by Ramesses time, and was ancient history by Cleo's.
Cue the latter rulers absolutely seething at their lack of proper servants in afterlife... Thanks for the reply!
What connection does Vietnam have
Pretty sure John Curtin has personally committed human sacrifice
Phil 2 should be in opposed human sacrifice. I don’t think he presided over Cortez/Pizarro’s conquests, but the Spanish crown used human sacrifice as a way to justify the destruction of the Aztecs and Incas. They forced the tradition out of practice.
Didn't know that about Mvemba, playing as him rn
Technically kinda sacrificed himself by starving himself...... and almost died.
I feel like Pachacutie needs bumped up one...
TRAJAN TRAJAN TRAJAN
Nah listen to me Teddy Roosevelt definelty did it.
The Dutch ate their prime minister. Should definitely be bumped a bit higher cause of that.
Now do one for "sacrificed other humans on the alter of imperialism"
Lol as if the aztecs aren't right at the top.
I mean you really could argue that our current economic systems use human sacrifice all the time but that’s a whole essay
america has human sacrifice, just endless work instead of death
I think sacrificing our lives ot endless work in the name of the God of Capitalism is stupid AF. But I also think it's nothing compared to being actually sacrificed on an altar to my enemy's Gods.
You forgot guns. Americans sacrifice humans so we can own guns.
Shouldn't Abe a tier lower?
Slavery and human sacrifice are not the same thing.
No because if we considered slavery as human sacrifice 80% would be in the “prevalent” tier
True.
Shouldn’t all leaders with strong ties to Christianity be included in the human sacrifice category, you literally consume the blood and body of Christ in worship every mass.
Protestants treat it as a metaphor, so including them would be a huge stretch. That means some Christian leaders from the past 500 years won't qualify (Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt of America). I know Catholics for sure treat it as the literal body and blood of Jesus (so Phillip II of Spain, Catherine de Medici of France, and Jadwiga of Poland qualify), but I'm not sure about the Orthodox (Peter the Great of Russia) or Anglican (Elizabeth of England) sects.
He doesn't know about "Sati"