PHOENICIAN COLONIZATION. ii) 



We have frequently heard how terrible was the mode of 

 sacrificing infants and children to Baal, Moloch, or Chemosh, but 

 it was not restricted to the young ; in fact, the more valued or 

 beloved the offering was the more acceptable to the gods it was 

 considered to be. In the third chapter of the second book of 

 Kings we read how in the days of Jehoshaphat, King of Judah, 

 when he and the Kings of Israel and Edom were fighting against 

 the King of Moab, the latter was so hard pressed that " he 

 took his eldest son, that should have reigned in his stead, and 

 offered him for a burnt-offering on the wall." 



About B.C. 311, Agathocles, the tyrant of Syracuse, besieged 

 Carthage, and it is said that 200 children belonging to the best 

 families were slain to propitiate the god Moloch or Baal 

 Hammon. In his temple burned a furnace, into which human 

 victims were cast. A true cremation ! 



In Mr. Harper's very interesting book, " The Bible and 

 Modern Discoveries," he says on page 1 1 z " Scattered all over 

 the Sinai peninsula are rude stone buildings, which the Arabs 

 say were erected by the Israelites to protect themselves from 

 mosquitoes. They call these stone buildings Nawamis. They 

 are rude in construction, circular at base, rising like a cone, and 

 having a very small entrance door." The beehive huts in 

 Portland seem to be identical in construction with them. 



Mr. Harper says that " stone circles, like the so-called 

 Druidical circles, are frequently found." Writing about the 

 examination of the ruins of Heshbon, on page 124, he says " On 

 the hilltop they found the oldest stone monuments as yet found 

 in Syria. Cromlechs were numerous. Ruins of a cairn with a 

 circle of stones of moderate size surrounding it the circle 

 40 feet in diameter. Lower down the hill another circle, 

 200 yards in diameter, consisting of two rows of stones, with an 

 interval of eight feet between them. There is a second group of 

 cromlechs on the north side of Wady Heshbon, about a mile 

 away. All these, 1 6 in number, are so placed as to obtain a view 

 of the hill east of them ; and all are placed on the east slope, 

 none on the west. All this points to the fact that Heshbon was 



