| Abstract
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Material remains and textual sources from throughout the Mediterranean World (Greece, North Africa, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and the Levant) are examined in order to reconstruct ancient perspectives on the practice of human sacrifice. Chapter one begins the dissertation by presenting a theoretical consideration of what constitutes human immolation, concluding that human sacrifice is not only the destruction of an individual in an act directed towards a divinity or immaterial entity, but it is more specifically a slaying done with the direct intent of affecting the suprahuman realm. Based upon this conceptual foundation, the work then moves through the Greek sphere of influence and Phoenician/Punic realm in chapter two to Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Egypt, and SyroPalestine in chapter three to the ancient Israelite traditions in chapter four. It shows that humans, both adults and children, literally or literarily served as sacrificial victims primarily in the areas of warfare, funerary rites, criminal executions, construction projects, purification rituals, and votive expressions.
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