Human Sacrifice

Human sacrifice is the deliberate killing of one or more humans as part of a ritual act undertaken for religious, political or social purposes. Historically, such rituals were believed to appease gods or ancestral spirits, ensure prosperity, invoke justice, accompany a ruler into the afterlife or maintain social order. Closely related practices include cannibalism carried out for ritual reasons and headhunting performed for prestige, spiritual power or communal identity. In ancient societies across the world, human sacrifice served as an expression of religious belief, political authority and cultural tradition.
By the Iron Age and the Axial Age, many regions of Africa, Europe and Asia saw a decline in the practice, which increasingly came to be viewed as barbaric. In contrast, in parts of the Americas human sacrifice persisted until the colonial period. In the modern era, human sacrifice is virtually nonexistent, with secular law identifying it unequivocally as murder. Major contemporary religions condemn the act; for instance, Hindu texts such as the Shrimad Bhagavatam warn of severe consequences for those who undertake human sacrifice or cannibalism.

Evolution and Religious Context

Human sacrifice has appeared in numerous cultural contexts and often parallels the broader logic of religious sacrifice. As with animal offerings, sacrifices of humans were believed to placate gods, bring good harvests or protect communities. Major motivations included:

• Securing divine favour, particularly in times of drought, war or crisis.
• Marking the inauguration of major structures, such as temples or bridges.
• Ensuring fertility, exemplified in agricultural sacrifices such as those dedicated to the Aztec god Xipe Totec.
• Honouring rulers, in the form of retainer sacrifices in which servants were killed to accompany their master into the afterlife.

Ancient writers noted widespread practices: Minucius Felix described sacrificial rites among peoples of Pontus, Egypt and Gaul, and recorded Roman traditions of burying human victims alive. These accounts illuminate the breadth of ritual killing across ancient civilisations.
Numerous societies also employed divinatory sacrifice, seeking omens in the victim’s body or death spasms. Headhunting, distinct from outright sacrifice but often ritualised, served religious and social functions in tribal cultures, symbolising martial prowess or community protection.

Historical Practices

Human sacrifice was not limited to a single cultural area and appeared in forms ranging from isolated ritual killings to large-scale ceremonial events.

• East Asia: Japanese legends recount hitobashira (“human pillars”), in which individuals—often maidens—were buried alive in the foundations of buildings for protection. Comparable traditions existed in the Balkans, such as the stories associated with the Building of Skadar and the Bridge of Arta.
• Mesoamerica: Human sacrifice is famously associated with the Aztec Empire. At the 1487 reconsecration of the Templo Mayor, chroniclers reported tens of thousands of victims, with modern estimates ranging from 10,000 to over 80,000. Sacrifice was deeply tied to warfare, cosmology and statecraft.
• Greek mythology: The legend of Iphigeneia illustrates sacrificial themes: Agamemnon agreed to sacrifice his daughter to appease Artemis before embarking on the Trojan War.
• Eurasian steppe cultures: Peoples such as the Mongols and Scythians practised retainer sacrifice so that servants, concubines or soldiers would accompany deceased leaders into the afterlife.

Human sacrifice could also reinforce social cohesion, acting as a form of civil religion by removing criminals or outcasts deemed dangerous to the community. In other cases, however, the practice produced violence that destabilised societies.
Myths and religious texts frequently preserve memories of earlier sacrificial traditions. The Binding of Isaac in Genesis, for example, is often interpreted as signalling a cultural transition away from human offerings. In Vedic India, the Purushamedha ritual represented human sacrifice symbolically, indicating an early decline of literal practice.

Ancient Near East

As early agricultural civilisations developed in the Near East, fertility rituals dominated religious life. Scarcity of arable land and dependence on rainfall contributed to practices linking blood with soil fertility. Archaeological evidence from early Levantine and Mesopotamian cultures suggests that ritual killing—sometimes of humans—was associated with attempts to ensure agricultural success.

Ancient Egypt

Evidence of human sacrifice in Egypt comes primarily from the Early Dynastic Period at Abydos. Retainer burials around royal tombs indicate that servants and officials were killed to accompany kings into the afterlife. Although many skeletons show no signs of violence, the deaths may have been voluntary or induced by drugs. By around 2800 BCE, the practice ceased, replaced by the burial of servant statuettes (shabti) intended to serve the deceased symbolically. The scale of early retainer burials varied, with kings such as Djer having hundreds of attendants interred near their tombs.

Biblical and Near Eastern Traditions

Biblical narratives reflect awareness of human sacrifice among neighbouring peoples. In 2 Kings 3:27, the King of Moab sacrifices his heir during a siege, an act that prompts the withdrawal of the Israelite army. While Israelite law condemned offerings to deities such as Moloch, such sacrifices appear to have been viewed in the broader ancient Near East as extreme measures taken in moments of dire need.
Legal and religious texts also refer to individuals condemned under herem—a form of irrevocable dedication to destruction—who could not be redeemed. These accounts illustrate complex moral attitudes towards ritual killing in the region.

Decline and Transformation

By the late first millennium BCE many societies abandoned human sacrifice. Writers such as Pliny the Elder reported that Rome formally banned the practice in 97 BCE, although it had already become rare. Replacement rituals included:

• Animal sacrifice, offering a less extreme means of placating deities.
• Effigy sacrifice, such as the Roman Argei, which involved symbolic substitutes.

In other cultures, changes in religious doctrine, ethical considerations and state consolidation led to the cessation of sacrificial rituals.

Later Historical Echoes

Even after formal abolition, echoes of sacrificial traditions persisted. In some oral traditions of Europe and Asia, stories of foundations requiring a sacrificed human being reflect past beliefs about protection and divine favour. In classical sources, the continuation of symbolic rites indicates the cultural endurance of earlier practices.

Modern Perspectives

In contemporary societies, human sacrifice is universally proscribed. Secular legal systems classify it as murder, and nearly all major religions reject the practice categorically. Modern scholarship emphasises understanding human sacrifice within its cultural, religious and historical context rather than as an isolated act of violence. Anthropological studies highlight how such rituals once expressed beliefs about cosmic order, social hierarchy and communal identity.