Rituals performed at the open-air precinct dedicated to Ba'l and Tinnit in Carthage (the so-called tophet) are among the most studied yet least understood components of their society. This single precinct has produced more than 90 percent of the entire Phoenician-Punic epigraphic corpus, due to its trove of enigmatic votive inscriptions set above infant burials, which some modern scholars have used to imagine a Carthaginian identity based upon supposed rituals of infant sacrifice, while others clear them of all such allegations—an intractable and polarizing debate.

In this presentation, Garnand focuses instead on the role that rituals related to motherhood and infancy play in the formation of cultural identity and their relation to this precinct.