Samizdat

” … But although the Assyrian kings are fond of boasting of their exploits in massacring or torturing their defeated enemies in honour of Assur, we find no allusions in the inscriptions of the historical period to human sacrifice.

That human sacrifices, however, were known as far back as the Accadian era, is shown by a bilingual text (K5139) which enjoins the abgal, or “chief prophet,” to declare that the father must give the life of his child for the sin of his own soul, the child’s head for his head, the child’s neck for his neck, the child’s breast for his breast.

The text not only proves that the idea of vicarious punishment was already conceived of; it also proves that the sacrifice of children was a Babylonian institution.

In the great work on astronomy called The Observations of Bel, we are told that “on the high-places the son is burnt.” The offering was consequently by fire, as in Phoenicia.

The sacrifices were accompanied, sometimes by hymns or incantations, sometimes by prayers. The prayers were all prescribed, and a large number of them have been preserved.”

A.H. Sayce, Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated by the Religion of the Ancient Babylonians, 5th ed., London, 1898, p. 78.