Archaeologists investigating a Bronze Age tomb in ancient Mesopotamia have uncovered signs of child sacrifice. The tomb chamber, which was discovered in 2014, contained the bodies of two 12-year-olds – a boy and a girl, along with hundreds of bronze arrow heads. The remains of eight other people, aged 11-20 years old, were also found carefully arranged outside of the door to the main chamber. Two of these displayed evidence of skeletal trauma from stabbing or cutting, leading researchers to conclude that the eight would have been retainer sacrifices – people sacrificed to accompany and serve the important deceased in the afterlife. Human "retainer" sacrifices like this have been found at the Royal Cemetery of Ur, the hometown of Abraham. Given the presence of retainer sacrifices and the large number of quality items buried in the main chamber, researchers believe the two 12-year-old children were from a family of high social standing. They have linked this burial with the rise in the hierarchical centralized societies in Mesopotamia in the third millennium BC.
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- https://www.dailysabah.com/history/2018/07/01/5000-year-old-tomb-in-southeast-turkey-gives-earliest-evidence-of-child-sacrifice
- https://www.livescience.com/62954-human-sacrifices-mesopotamia.html
