Carthaginian baby-killers again

[Erpingham]

So it is not Roman propaganda.  Punic treachery, yes.  Punic cowardice, yes.  Punic incineratory infanticide, no.

Thanks for that Patrick - I had always thought they did, so it is interesting to find I've bought into a myth.

As I've said, I don't agree with this left-leaning conspiracy, but it does make an interesting case study in how we judge the past according to our own standards. 

[aligern]

Well there is judging the past according to your own standards and there is portraying the past in a way that supports a political view of the present and of how the future should be. idon't think this applies only to archaeologists, but to many people in public life who are determined that debate and vocabulary shall only be in terms and language that predicate an answer that fits their point of view.
I could elaborate, but it would be OT unless we have more specific examples introduced.
Might I cite, for example Cruikshank's point of view on the battle of Dunnichen 685, where it is considerably overwritten as if it was the foundation point of Scotland:-))
We are , of course, in the year  in which there will be a great deal of this and in this case, not left leaning.
Roy

[Mark G]

Ill have to look that up.  A foundation point 200 years before mcalpine beggars belief.

[Patrick Waterson]

As I've said, I don't agree with this left-leaning conspiracy, but it does make an interesting case study in how we judge the past according to our own standards.

I do not agree with them either. 

But I do wish they would keep political correctness and revisionism out of history.

I could elaborate, but it would be OT unless we have more specific examples introduced.

Introducing a specific example or examples in a new thread might be acceptable, assuming members can swap thoughts without it developing into a political argument (given the general good nature of our members I think we can do this).  The focus might be on how cultural standards impact historical research undertaken and conclusions reached, and in what way and to what extent this can (or does) distort our perception of the past.

[Erpingham]

But I do wish they would keep political correctness and revisionism out of history.

Political correctness by all means but revisionism?  If we do not keep looking at history in different ways, we can become set in our ways and fail to incorporate new information or insights.

When I was at university (back in Noah's day) we studied a phenomenon in European prehistory called the Great Elm Decline.   The pollen record showed across Northern Europe a reduction in Elm trees.  The text book explanation was that farmers had all become convinced that the best winter fodder was elm leaves so had destroyed all the elm trees.  Leaving aside the fact that historical tree fodder was harvested from trees without killing them (not very sustainable) we were in the middle of a Europe wide pandemic called Dutch Elm disease.  Now, there is no reason to think Dutch Elm disease was the cause but it doesn't seem to have occured to older archaeologists that there might be tree pandemics.  Now we see them everywhere all the time and a revisionist would have to stop us jumping to that conclusion.  Maybe a bit of a digression but hopefully less politically charged

[aligern]

I'd be up for.  a thread on the drivers of changing historical interpretations.
To an extent it is acceptable  to revise the past in light of current need, as long as there is a solid grounding in fact, or rather that the facts are not distorted or ignored. After all there is no written history that is totally free of bias.

Roy

[Dave Beatty]

I guess I live in a cave.  I was not aware that the Carthaginian sacrifice of children to Baal was passe.  Good to hear that the PC rewrite of history is being exposed for what it is.

On a related exposure note, I the Romans, like the Spartans, left unwanted children in the fields to die of exposure.  This was quite common in antiquity (and disturbingly common today).

http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/familyanddailylife/qt/072707exposure.htm relates.

See also "Child-Exposure in the Roman Empire," by W. V. Harris. The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 84. (1994) and "The Exposure of Infants in Roman Law and Practice," by Max Radin The Classical Journal, Vol. 20, No. 6. (Mar., 1925) etc etc.

[Mark G]

Absolutely, but equally ,lets keep straw men out of it.
So far the only cruikshank ive found is Dan, who is about as close to an historian as Michael Gove or Charles Clarke.
Not at all sources worth giving a fart for!

[aligern]

Try Cruickshank?
Roy

[Erpingham]

Could it be this?

Cruickshank, Graeme (1991), The Battle of Dunnichen: an account of the Pictish victory at the Battle of Dunnichen, also known as Nechtansmere, fought on 20th May 685, Balgavies, Angus: Pinkfoot Press

A quick google search finds him described as an Edinburgh-based historian and a specialist in Pictish history.

[aligern]

Yes, that's the man. he has a good article in 'Alba' on the  Aberlemno stone and has written two books about Dunnichen.
I like the book by Fraser on Dunnichen which is more balanced, but there are some good thoughts in Cruikshank.
Roy

[Mark G]

Ok, found him.
Not as bad as portrayed Roy.  But quite weak, none the less.
Its not a "from this point we are Scotland", just a "had the other guy won, Scotland may not have come about",
Which is the usual sort of discovery channel gibberish that crops up, but hardly worth getting too excited about .

[aligern]

Fraser's book on. dunnichen is better.
Here's a quote from Cruickshank's Dunnichen, revised 1999 p43
At the height of the debate Geoffrey Barrow (formerly professor of Scottish History at Edinburgh University) said in the Scotsman  that the Battle of Dunnichen 'ranks  alongside Bannockburn in importance' and no one who has studied the subject would disagree with that opinion.

Roy
I am looking at Dunnichen at the moment as I am planning a scenario for it with Mark Fry for the Bournemouth competition. Its main attraction is that we know a little bit about it, especially if the Aberlemno stone can be taken as representative of the battle.
Dunnichen is on a path which eventually leads to a united Scotland, which needs a Pictish kingdom that is united so that McAlpin can take it over and create a dominant bloc in Scotland. However, after Dunnichen the Picts win battles and so do the Northumbrians. Northumbrian decline is IMO more to do with their internal problems in England and the geography of their kingdom than one battle in the seventh century. Cruickshank gives Bridei, the Pict King, five war aims which is more than stretching a point. The battle took place in Pictish territory  and likely Ecgfrith was doing the invading. Most likely Bridei's aim was to fend off an attack from his brother in law who was responding to Bridei stopping tribute payments.
Most likely had Bridei lost tribute would have been reimposed, but the more united Pictland  that Bridei had built was always likely to be united whether by Picts, Scots or Norse and Northumbria would either be split and the Northern half be absorbed or , just maybe  the Durham and Northumberland section become part of Scotland.
What I feel Crickshank does is see Northumbria as England, which it wasn't because that nationality was still  negotiable at the time. The Northumbrian/ Anglian settling of the area up to the Forth is as much part of Scotland as the other components, which is no doubt why there are Scots today with names such as Wilson.

[Duncan Head]

So it is not Roman propaganda.  Punic treachery, yes.  Punic cowardice, yes.  Punic incineratory infanticide, no.

Quintus Curtius and Justin were Romans, and I would class Tertullian and Augustine as Roman, too. But the main sources of the child-sacrifice topos do seem to have been Greeks.

It is concerning that there is such a politically correct consensus amongst academics.

It is disappointing that some people prefer to accept innuendo about "politically correct consensus" rather than engaging with the real difficulties of the source material.

http://www.livescience.com/23298-carthage-graveyard-not-child-sacrifice.html summarises a recent anti-sacrifice article and suggests that one of the key arguments is a scientific disagreement about the effect of cremation on infant teeth.

"The inscriptions are unequivocal: time and again we find the explanation that the gods 'heard my voice and blessed me'. It cannot be that so many children conveniently happened to die at just the right time to become an offering – and in any case a poorly or dead child would make a pretty feeble offering if you're already worried about the gods rejecting it."
...
Although hundreds of remains were found, there were far too few to represent all the stillbirth and infant deaths of Carthage. According to Quinn, there were perhaps 25 such burials a year, for a city of perhaps 500,000 people.

So there are too many infant burials to be convincing, but not enough for all the infant deaths in Carthage? Personally I'm inclined to the child-sacrifice side of the argument, but even so I am not so far impressed by the quality of Quinn's arguments.

[aligern]

http://phoenicia.org/childsacrifice.html
Has a description of the case against Carthaginian child sacrifice juxtaposed with an piece describing Roman infanticide in a brothel.  Dare we presume that the site is a cheerleader for Phoenician values:-))

Roy