Sacrificios de niños y sustitutorios de ovicápridos al dios sol sms en el litoral atlántico norteafricano

Abstract

The sacrifice of the summer solstice correspond with the third Phoenician-Punic month, zbh šmš “sacrifice to the Sun”, equivalent to the current month of June, and with the festival of Cronos, the 12th of the month of Hekatombaion, first month of the year in Athens, that also corresponds with the month of June. The city of the Mauretania Tingitana that was coining the mint mqm šmš, we believe was found in Banasa in the basin of the river Sebou, while Thamusida, in the periplus of Ps-Scylax, would correspond to Thimiatérion. Mqm šmš issued currency between the kingdoms of Bocchus I, 118-81 a.C. and Juba II, 25 BC-23 AD. Both monarchs had knowledge of the Canary Islands. In the Top of Punta de Rasca -Beacon of Scratches- or the Christians (Tenerife, Canary Islands), according to a verbal tradition that continued until the XIXth century, the guanches were accomplishing human sacrifices of small children to the sun god Achaman, ‘hmn, during the summer solstice, the night of 21th of June, beginning of the new year between the guanches, that they could be devoted to b‘l hmn, the son of Cronos-Heliums. This relationship to the summer solstice could contribute to specify the date of the child sacrifices celebrated in the tophet of Carthage.