Ancient Apocalypse - Ancient types sacrificing and eating children? Really?

[likelysuspect]

Ive just started watching a series on Iplayer about the downfall of various ancient civilisations and only halfway through the series to find each one seems to end or have some degree of cannabilism and child sacrifice of some degree

I mean I know its good drama and people love a bit of blood and gore but as I get older I find it harder to believe that these things happen.

AIBU to believe its a bit exaggerated, I mean how come we hear about it in very very very ancient civilisations but not really in later ones. I dont recall this about the Romans, ME peoples or the Chinese dynasties. (for example)

Have you looked at Aztec history?

They 100% did conduct sacrifices/child sacrifices.

I know it's hard to believe and probably sounds sensational but it DID happen 😬😳

I was also going to mention the Aztecs. That was only 500 years ago.

I know about Aztec history, I know about the civilisations in these programmes and knew about/know about/understood about child sacrifice and cannibals etc etc

Taken it as a given

But not having revisited this type of thing in decades (its not my area of interest as I prefer Roman/medieval history),,, Im now watching these programmes in my now advanced age and its making me wonder - really, really? Can I really believe that?

And why didnt that practice carry on then?

Oh hold on, I clearly dont know about them then, I think Im thinking of the Mayans

A common error Im sure, muddling up Mayans and Aztecs.

Theres loads of infanticide in greek/roman history. Plutarch has a bit about the Spartans and their infanticide (throwing newborns off a cliff) and it wasn't massively uncommon to leave a child out to die of exposure.

King Herod ordered killing of the male under 2s around the time of Jesus birth.

Then the old testament is full of child sacrifice events.

Greek/roman mythology starts off with Chronos (Saturn) eating his children.

Have you heard of the Indian practice of suttee? Widows would be burned alive on their husbands funeral pyre. It was only outlawed in 1829, but continued for many decades after.

This is true, I wonder why I didnt remember this.

The Mayan empire also ended 500 years ago. Basically, both were destroyed by the arrival of the Spanish to the Americas

Oh god I have heard of this as well.

I wonder why Ive wiped all this stuff from my head!!

I thought it was all much much older and something a bit 'one off', not connected to the modern world or modern human. Whereas I see the Romans and Greeks as part of the modern world so to speak, but I dont see the Egyptians as part of the modern world, isnt that funny

I thought the Mayan's were pre medival, so around 1000AD

I’m no expert but doesn’t everything we know about the aztecs come from people who may have had a teensy reason to discredit them?

yes we wiped out an entire civilization but they were really baddies.

They were there then, but they were still there when the Spanish arrived.

It was only extremely recently in the history of civilisation that all human lives are treated as equal and important. And this still isn't everywhere in the world. Horrific practices went on across the world and were seen as pretty normal up until around 100/200 years ago in the west eg slavery and all the awful things that went with that. Once some people are not thought of as people, things like sacrificing people isn't a stretch.

I would be taking it all with a very large pinch of salt. Chances are it very rarely happened, but it makes good drama for the telly of course. The everyday lives of the ancients were probably very boring indeed, and would make a very boring programme otherwise.

It's like all those wildlife programmes where everything gets killed by predators all the time. Honestly, if it happened as often as that, no prey creatures would ever survive long enough to reach maturity and breed. They show numerous chases and kills on the programmes because it is 'thrilling' to watch. Apparently.
I spent a fortnight on safari in Kenya many years ago, saw thousands upon thousands of animals and not one single chase, let alone a kill.

There are human sacrifices reported in the 19th and 20th century. That’s pretty recent.

Yes I often say this as well when people are talking about practices in the past as if its 'wrong'. The concept of human rights is almost just frm yesterday in the great scheme of things.

It might be the babies that I find more shocking. Or the eating. Im not sure I can believe that.

I thought there have been a couple of cases in the UK in recent years where it was suspected that a child had been a victim of child sacrifice. There was that case of the torso of a poor boy found in the river.

I don't you have any idea how violent ancient civilisations were.

Prey animals are always in much larger numbers than predators, to account for so many getting preyed upon.

It goes on to this day. In southern Africa children are sometimes stolen and murdered for witchcraft.

Here's a handy guide to the various cultures that went in for it globally

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice

But something needs to die every single time a predator eats.

Adam is the name the police have given that boy. Absolutely awful crime, I remember when it was first one the news and have never forgotten it.

Also the Maya and Incas though it was rarer there.

I do love a handy guide to human sacrifice. Its the sort of thing I might pin to the fridge

That made me proper LOL

@SpaceRaccoon I tried looking at that page once. "tried" being the keyword there.