Archaeology Odyssey

Seleucus built 15 other cities named Antioch. Since both Seleucus’s father and son were named Antiochus, scholars have disputed who was the actual eponym of any particular city, the father (as was the more common practice) or the son.

For more information on the meaning of the word “Moloch,” see Lawrence E. Stager and Samuel R. Wolff, “Child Sacrifice at Carthage—Religious Rite or Population Control?” BAR 10:01.

Many of the stones marking the burial niches where the urns were laid are inscribed with the triangular symbol of Tanit. The disk (or double disk) with extended lines on top of the symbol of Tanit may be the symbol of Ba’al Hammon.

Similar, though smaller, Tophets have been found at Punic sites in Sicily, Sardinia and Mallorca.

Referring to the Phoenicians—and their language—in the western Mediterranean, the term “Punic” derives from the Latin adjective punicus, a transliteration of the Greek Phoinikos (Phoenician), which derives from the Greek word for purple (as in purple dye).

See Barry B. Powell and P. Kyle McCarter, Jr., “An Odyssey Debate: Who Invented the Alphabet?” AO 01:01.

A handful of horoscopes from Uruk suggest that there may have been a different routine there, drawing not on records of observation but on calculations based on mathematical theories of the motions of heavenly bodies.

See Birgit Brandau, “Can Archaeology Discover Homer’s Troy?” AO 01:01.