This publication project, directed by Dr. Brien Garnand, will publish all field diaries and images from the Kelsey excavations as part of the final report of the ASOR Punic Project excavations at the Carthaginian tophet (or tofet, literally "place of burning," a.k.a. Sanctuary or Precinct of Tanit, or of Baal and Tanit; propriété Regulus-Salammbô; Tophet de Salammbô).
The vast majority of inscriptions written in Phoenician/Punic and the vast majority of the art historical and iconographical repertoire derived from stelae originate from the Carthage tophet; most of the key amuletic and ceramic typologies and chronologies have also been derived from Carthage tophet artifacts. Votive precincts dedicated to Bacl Ḥammon and Tinnit, found throughout the Central Mediterranean, are paradoxically the most studied and yet the most poorly understood component of Phoenician society. In fact, since the mid-‐1980s a polarizing debate has divided Phoenician Studies, with some adhering to the traditional interpretation that these sites witnessed ritual infanticide, while revisionists interpret them as sites of purification and child burial. But in either case, their interpretations lack quantitative data and lack qualitative contexts. In fact, out of the many excavations undertaken since the turn of the last century in Carthage and North Africa (Hadrumetum, Cirta), in Sicily (Motya) and in Sardinia (Tharros, Sulcis, Mt. Sirai), incredibly ours will be the first and only final archaeological report to have ever appeared for any tophet.
The stelae in the Kelsey-‐Stager plot have previously been studied as artifacts (Picard, Bartoloni) and somewhat impressionistically in context (Brown, Benichou Safar). In contrast, our contextual analysis demands recovery of the stratigraphic and spatial relationships between stelae, urns, and their contents, and to that end we have created a precise topographical plan using a total station.