How They Did It - The Religion of Ancient Carthage DOCUMENTARY

Today, the religion of Carthage has long been forgotten. Yet in its time, this ancient belief system once permeated across much of the Mediterranean, with practitioners spread far and wide from the Near East to North Africa, Sicily, Italy, Spain, and beyond. However, precious little information has survived the destruction of Carthage, and what written records we have all come from non-punic sources. This has unfortunately left us with a mysterious and heavily biased portrayal of this ancient pagan religion. Luckily, modern archaeology and research have done much to help us put together the pieces of this puzzle. Today, let us explore the fascinating reconstruction of the religion of Carthage. This video was sponsored by Magellan TV. They're an awesome documentary streaming service run by filmmakers with a selection of over 2,000 videos to choose from amongst the categories of history, science, nature, space, and more. When it comes to history documentaries, Magellan has the richest and most varied content anywhere. Ancient, modern, current, war, biography, and even related genres of science and crime which are historical in nature. If you like our content, I can highly recommend you check out the documentary series Blood on the Altar which covers the fascinating history of the Carthaginians and their enigmatic religion. Magellan TV is compatible with Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Google Play, and iOS which means you can watch it anytime, anywhere on your television, laptop, or mobile device. Sign up today to get a one month free membership trial by visiting the link in the description below or going to try.magellantv.com. As with all things Carthaginian, we must first begin our discussion with the Phoenicians from which they trace their origins. Theirs was an even older religion which had developed slowly in the milieu of the Bronze Age Levant with influences from neighboring Mesopotamia and Egypt. Broadly speaking it was a polytheistic religion with a wide pantheon of gods which were associated with various natural phenomena or served as embodiments of certain traits. At their head was the supreme pair of El and Asherah. Beneath them were a host of other gods which might take a single form or be split into various manifestations. These gods were powerful entities capable of intervention in human affairs with both favor and malice. Thus followers adopted a broadly reciprocal religious practice, making prayers, offerings, and sacrifices to ensure they remained in the good graces of the gods. Often this was done on the level of the city-state with many rites being intermingled with the workings of public institutions. However it would be impractical to please every conceivable deity. Communities therefore tended to focus their attention on a few chief figures or aspects of gods from the wider pantheon. In the Phoenician cities these principal divinities were called Ba'alim or lords of a city. The particular elevation of one deity over another would be a rather organic process which changed over time based on the needs of a group. As an example the chief Ba'al of Ugrit was Hadad, god of storm and rain, the Ba'al of Sidon was Eshmun, god of healing, and the Ba'al of Byblos was Ba'alat Gebal, goddess of fertility. But perhaps the most important for our story will be the religion of the city of Tyre and their chief Ba'al Melkart. After all it would be this leading Phoenician power which planted many colonies in the west and gave birth to Carthage passing on many of its cultural traditions. There is much more to discuss when it comes to the religion of the Phoenicians and that of the Near East but for the purposes of this episode we will now turn our attention to its evolution in the west. As we have stated the religion of Carthage was derived from the religion of the Phoenicians thus the early colonists would have brought with them many of the gods and traditions of their ancestors. These beliefs were reinforced over the years by the close tie which was maintained between Carthage and its mother city. In fact delegations were routinely sent back to Tyre to partake in religious ceremonies and make offerings to the gods. However change was inevitable. The Punic pantheon saw internal transformation as various existing deities and their aspects rose or fell in popularity. For instance one of the major trends was the elevation of the goddess Tanit over Melkart. The Punic pantheon also saw external transformation as a result of contact with the surrounding culture of the Libyans, Numidians, Greeks, Italians, Sardinians, and Iberians. New gods were adopted in their entirety or might be equated and merged with existing ones. This process of syncretism worked both ways as various groups commingled over the centuries. For example we see many new temples and cults springing up in areas of cross-pollination like Sicily where the Punic god Melkart was hybridized with the Greek god Heracles. Thus the Carthaginian religion would have ultimately evolved a character of its own distinct from its Phoenician origins. Let's now take a look at its pantheon, its holy places, and its practices. We will begin with the pantheon of Carthage by discussing the major and minor gods. The first one to mention is the god Melkart. As we stated he was the chief patron of Tyre with some mythologies tying him to the founding of the city and the gifting of the first boat to its inhabitants. He was thus closely associated with the royal house of Tyre as well as the important naval activities of trade, travel, and colonization. It's for this reason that he would eventually be conflated with Heracles the great traveler and colonizer. In fact the association was so strong that Herodotus claims that the temple of Heracles on Greek Thassos actually began as a temple of Melkart built by the Phoenicians. Another important god to mention will be Baal. While the name Baal most literally means god or lord and can be used as a general descriptor, it appears that the Phoenicians came to see Baal as a divine figure who was worshiped in aspects. Each of these represented a different facet of the god's personality with power over things like agriculture or war. In Carthage the most important aspect to be worshiped was Baal Haman. Yet despite his massive popularity and position at the head of the pantheon we don't actually know what he was the god of. Baal Haman is often depicted as a bearded man with ram's horns with the evidence suggesting he was likely tied to ideas of the sun, fire, rebirth, and fertility. But we really aren't sure. In this context it's best to consider Baal Haman as an all-purpose god whose chief role was to protect and watch over the city of Carthage and its inhabitants. Yet he did not do so alone. Baal Haman was joined at the head of the pantheon by his consort Tanit, often referred to as the face of Baal. She seems to have also been viewed as a protector of the city of Carthage with references to her as a fertility goddess and even a goddess of war like Athena. In this capacity she is commonly represented as a lion. Tanit may have first emerged as an aspect of the supreme goddess Astarte but eventually developed her own following. She began appearing as an important deity in Carthage around the 5th century BC and quickly took a leading role, even eclipsing Baal Haman at times. Indeed, though the pair often appear together, her name frequently comes first in inscriptions where they are both mentioned. Tanit's widespread popularity is also attested to by the sheer volume of her visual representations found across the Punic world which show the goddess praying with her hands up under a crescent moon. Besides these three gods, there were dozens of others. However, information about them is fleeting. In these matters it proves useful to see who they were paired with in the better understood Greek pantheon. For instance, Eshmun, who is often associated with Asclepius, appears to have been a god of healing, beauty, and love, while Reshef, who is associated with Apollo, appears to have been a god of fire, thunder, and plague. The roles of other gods are similarly vague and we can only really tie them to simple ideas. Semes was a sun god, Koudis a god of the new moon, Kes a god of full moon, Kusor a god of intellect, and Hawat a god of the dead. Beyond this, we have references to yet more divinities known to us only by names like Poumai, Sakun, and Arish. As we can see, the full pantheon of Carthage was quite extensive to the point that even people at the time must have struggled to remember them all. This is a notion that seems a bit odd to modern audiences who are used to living in a largely monotheistic world. We must however remember that back in the day, the polytheistic past was exploding with divinities and people had an open mind about expanding their worldview. For example, the Carthaginians adopted Demeter and her daughter Kore from the Greeks while simultaneously adopting Isis from the Egyptians. As we stated before, other cultures also borrowed from the Carthaginians. In Sardinia, for instance, the locals adopted the minor god Sid as their patron deity, taking the place of Babi, a Noragic god in the area. Now that we've covered the pantheon, let's turn to the way people interacted with their gods. The first question will be to ask, where were these gods? Well according to most people from antiquity, they inhabited the world around us. But while one might happen to bump into one randomly, the most likely setting for an encounter was a sacred place in nature or near a temple. It appears that the Carthaginians recognized springs, rivers, and other waters as holy places. For instance, the general Hannibal swears on these in his oath with Philip V of Macedon. Temples and shrines were also important locations which might be dedicated to a single god, several aspects of a god, or even multiple gods. These structures were the most direct manifestation of the Punic religion and were often closely tied to the state. As such, temples were frequently masterpieces of engineering and beauty. On Carthage's Bursa Hill, for instance, one would have found the spectacular temple of Eshmun, visible for all to see from miles around. Down the side of the hill, closer to the dockyard and the agora, lay the temple of Reshef, which was said to be covered in resplendent gold with a massive statue of gilded bronze inside. Throughout the rest of the city and beyond were countless other magnificent facilities. While we have few records of them today, it is certain that given the wealth of Carthage, these would have been lavishly decorated in a manner similar to the Greeks. Okay, so we've found the gods, or at least gotten within earshot of them. Now what? Well, now it's time to earn their favor. This could be done in a variety of ways, including prayer, offerings, and sacrifice. Prayers likely would have followed a similar format to the Hellenistic ones, whereby a person would recite an invocation, a claim, and a request. The invocation was a summons to the god or gods, listing them by their name and their attributes. The claim involved stating why the god should pay attention to you, and finally the request listed what you hoped to receive from them. Offerings, meanwhile, were things given to the gods as tributes. These votives might include food, money, or other valuables. Small statues in particular seem to have been quite common as archaeologists find them almost everywhere. Finally, sacrifice was the third and perhaps most important interaction with the gods. This involved the ritual killing of animals like rams, bulls, and lambs. Given the symbolic importance of fire and smoke in the Punic religion, these sacrifices would have been burnt, alongside other special offerings like sacred plants. Many ancient sources also tell us that the practice of sacrifice even extended to humans, and in particular infants. These are said to have been ritualistically killed and burned in sacred areas called tofets, their ashes collected in urns and buried. Scholarly debate still surrounds this particular topic, and we'll be taking a look at this more in depth in another video. Simply put, we must take the propagandic account of non-pagan Carthaginians with a grain of salt. However, there does appear to be enough archaeological data to support this idea to some degree, and it is likely that child sacrifice was practiced at least as a measure of last resort when the city found itself in great peril. All of these activities we've mentioned would have been accompanied by a great deal of religious customs. Individuals may have been able to perform some of their own, but more often than not, priests would be involved to regulate and facilitate the process. According to our records, Carthage had a rather large bureaucracy of priests. At the very top would be the chief of priests, or rab kohanim. Beneath them were the head priests of the various temples, along with their acolytes. Serving Carthage's pantheon was highly prestigious, and thus priests and priestesses were most frequently from wealthy families. Curiously, they are supposed to have been completely clean-shaven from head to toe, though they are sometimes also depicted with normal body hair. Below them we should imagine a huge staff of people ready to keep the sacred machine running. Attendants, clerks, sacred barbers, butchers, and more. Added to this support system were the Carthaginian associations, which were large social groups which participated in communal activities like feasting, public maintenance, and religious administration. This highly organized system would have been operational throughout the year, with many important festivals and rites to be performed to ensure the well-being of the state. As an indication of what was at play here, we can look at the annual celebration of Melkart in Tyre. This event, known as the Egersis, involved a highly choreographed ritual whereby each spring an effigy of the god was placed on a giant raft before being ritually burnt as it drifted out to sea while hymns were sung by the assembled crowds. However, not everything operated on such a large scale. Private practice also occurred on the micro-level as people sought out the help of gods in their everyday lives. Some might have picked the most relevant god for their needs, while others made a habit of turning to one in particular. It is often thought that particular families, or at least the aristocracy, paid special reverence to their chosen patron god. Beyond this, we know very little about the beliefs of the Carthaginians. Some clues to their theology can be found by looking at burial sites where tomb deposits point to the belief in an afterlife. However, what form it took and what criteria were required to get there are unknown. Unfortunately, this sort of mystery extends to much of the rest of the religion of ancient Carthage. Nonetheless, we hope that you've appreciated our attempt to bring to life its secrets. Stay tuned for more episodes on the fascinating history of Carthage. A huge thanks is owed to our patrons for funding the channel and to the researchers, writers, and artists who made this video possible. Be sure to like and subscribe for more history, and check out these related videos about our fascinating past. See you in the next one!