The skeleton of a teenager lived 3,000 years ago, without the skull and placed between two rows of stones with a stone slab covering the pelvis, it was found in Greece. Nothing strange, were it not for the excavation site: Mount High School, home of the worship of Zeus and often quoted in antiquity for sacrifices, human and animal, that the ancient Greeks ate on it.
So far the evidence of human sacrifice associated with this mountain, including those of Plato, had been dismissed as legends. Hard to believe that the practice of human sacrifice, this for religious reasons among the ancient Romans, Egyptians and Israelites, also concern the cradle of democracy and rational thought.
STRANGE COINCIDENCE. But even if archaeologists urge caution, the finding seems too lucky to be true: the southern mountain top, where it happened, it was home to a sacrificial altar, not a cemetery. Why then bury their own body there?
VICTIMS DESIGNATED. Several classical sources mention the altar of Zeus as used as human sacrifices. According to legend, a boy was slain along with some animals, and the flesh of the victims was then cooked and consumed. But if the animal slaughterhouse had been found traces - from the XVI century BC and up to 300 BC, it was here sacrificed tens of thousands of animals - until a few weeks ago had not been found human remains.
OPEN QUESTIONS. The human presence in this place dates back more than 5000 years ago. To date, there was no evidence of a cult of Zeus, but it remains difficult to understand why, otherwise, a community would have to live on a top so exposed and barren. So far, only 7% of the altar of Mount Lyceum was unearthed. Further excavations perhaps clarify the mystery.
SACRIFICES. The practice of human sacrifice belongs to the history of many peoples, including the Sumerians, Egyptians, Phoenicians, Dorians, Aztecs. In particular, they accomplished all the Nordic peoples, from the Germans to the Gauls. In Rome they were banned from 97 BC
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