Research Article: Phoenician Religion [further Considerations]

With regard to the mlk-sacrifice, both the definition of the word mlk and the nature of the actual sacrifice are still under debate. There was an underworld deity named M-l-k (variously vocalized) in many Mesopotamian and Syro-Palestinian god lists and personal names from the late third millennium BCE on, and there existed an Akkadian term maliku designating shades of the dead or chthonic deities who received funeral offerings in texts from the same time period. However, there is no evidence that either the god or the shades are to be connected to child sacrifice or to the later Phoenician sacrificial term mlk. It is not necessary to assume that, by his nature, a god of the netherworld would receive such a sacrifice, and indeed the god Mlk at Ugarit (possibly pronounced Milku) receives only typical animal offerings (e.g., KTU 1.111). In addition, the later Phoenician or Punic mlk-sacrifice is given...
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