Sacrifices
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Sacrifices
Sacrifice is the offering of material possessions or the lives of animals or humans to a deity as an act of propitiation or worship. Evidence of ritual animal sacrifice has been seen at least since ancient Hebrews and Greeks, and possibly existed before that. Evidence of ritual human sacrifice can also be found back to at least pre-Columbian civilizations of Mesoamerica as well as in European civilizations. Varieties of ritual non-human sacrifices are practiced by numerous religions today. Terminology The Latin term ''sacrificium'' (a sacrifice) derived from Latin ''sacrificus'' (performing priestly functions or sacrifices), which combined the concepts ''sacra'' (sacred things) and ''facere'' (to do or perform). The Latin word ''sacrificium'' came to apply to the Christian eucharist in particular, sometimes named a "bloodless sacrifice" to distinguish it from blood sacrifices. In individual non-Christian ethnic religions, terms translated as "sacrifice" include the Indic '' ...
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Qorban
In Judaism, the korban ( ''qorbān''), also spelled ''qorban'' or ''corban'', is any of a variety of sacrificial offerings described and commanded in the Torah. The plural form is korbanot, korbanoth or korbans. The term Korban primarily refers to sacrificial offerings given from humans to God for the purpose of doing homage, winning favor, or securing pardon. The object sacrificed was usually an animal that was ritually slaughtered and then transferred from the human to the divine realm by being burned on an altar. After the destruction of the Second Temple, sacrifices were prohibited because there was no longer a Temple, the only place allowed by halakha for sacrifices. Offering of sacrifices was briefly reinstated during the Jewish–Roman wars of the second century AD and was continued in certain communities thereafter. When sacrifices were offered in ancient times, they were offered as a fulfillment of Biblical commandments. Since there is no longer a Temple, modern ...
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Human Sacrifice
Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual, which is usually intended to please or appease gods, a human ruler, an authoritative/priestly figure or spirits of dead ancestors or as a retainer sacrifice, wherein a monarch's servants are killed in order for them to continue to serve their master in the next life. Closely related practices found in some tribal societies are cannibalism and headhunting. Human sacrifice was practiced in many human societies beginning in prehistoric times. By the Iron Age with the associated developments in religion (the Axial Age), human sacrifice was becoming less common throughout Africa, Europe, and Asia, and came to be looked down upon as barbaric during classical antiquity. In the Americas, however, human sacrifice continued to be practiced, by some, to varying degrees until the European colonization of the Americas. Today, human sacrifice has become extremely rare. Modern secular laws treat human sacrific ...
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Animal Sacrifice
Animal sacrifice is the ritual killing and offering of one or more animals, usually as part of a religious ritual or to appease or maintain favour with a deity. Animal sacrifices were common throughout Europe and the Ancient Near East until the spread of Christianity in Late Antiquity, and continue in some cultures or religions today. Human sacrifice, where it existed, was always much rarer. All or only part of a sacrificial animal may be offered; some cultures, like the ancient and modern Greeks, eat most of the edible parts of the sacrifice in a feast, and burnt the rest as an offering. Others burnt the whole animal offering, called a holocaust. Usually, the best animal or best share of the animal is the one presented for offering. Animal sacrifice should generally be distinguished from the religiously prescribed methods of ritual slaughter of animals for normal consumption as food. During the Neolithic Revolution, early humans began to move from hunter-gatherer cultures to ...
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Sacrifice Scene Louvre G402
Sacrifice is the offering of material possessions or the lives of animals or humans to a deity as an act of propitiation or worship. Evidence of ritual animal sacrifice has been seen at least since ancient Hebrews and Greeks, and possibly existed before that. Evidence of ritual human sacrifice can also be found back to at least pre-Columbian civilizations of Mesoamerica as well as in European civilizations. Varieties of ritual non-human sacrifices are practiced by numerous religions today. Terminology The Latin term ''sacrificium'' (a sacrifice) derived from Latin ''sacrificus'' (performing priestly functions or sacrifices), which combined the concepts ''sacra'' (sacred things) and ''facere'' (to do or perform). The Latin word ''sacrificium'' came to apply to the Christian eucharist in particular, sometimes named a "bloodless sacrifice" to distinguish it from blood sacrifices. In individual non-Christian ethnic religions, terms translated as "sacrifice" include the Indic '' ...
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Sacrifice (chess)
In chess, a sacrifice is a move that gives up a piece with the objective of gaining tactical or positional compensation in other forms. A sacrifice could also be a deliberate exchange of a chess piece of higher value for an opponent's piece of lower value. Any chess piece except the king may be sacrificed. Because players usually try to hold on to their own pieces, offering a sacrifice can come as an unpleasant surprise to one's opponent, putting them off balance and causing them to waste precious time trying to calculate whether the sacrifice is sound or not, and whether to accept it. Sacrificing one's queen (the most valuable piece), or a string of pieces, adds to the surprise, and such games can be awarded . Types of sacrifice Real versus sham Rudolf Spielmann proposed a division between sham and real sacrifices: * In a ''real sacrifice'', the sacrificing player will often have to play on with less than their opponent for quite some time. * In a ''sham sacrifice'' ...
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Aztecs
The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica from the 14th to the 16th centuries. Aztec culture was organized into city-states ('' altepetl''), some of which joined to form alliances, political confederations, or empires. The Aztec Empire was a confederation of three city-states established in 1427: Tenochtitlan, city-state of the Mexica or Tenochca; Texcoco; and Tlacopan, previously part of the Tepanec empire, whose dominant power was Azcapotzalco. Although the term Aztecs is often narrowly restricted to the Mexica of Tenochtitlan, it is also broadly used to refer to Nahua polities or peoples of central Mexico in the prehispanic era, as well as the Spanish colonial era (1521–1821). The definitions of Aztec and Aztecs ha ...
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Blót
(Old Norse) and or ( Old English) are terms for "blood sacrifice" in Norse paganism and Anglo-Saxon paganism respectively. A comparanda can also be reconstructed for wider Germanic paganism. A ' could be dedicated to any of the Germanic gods, the spirits of the land, and to ancestors. The sacrifice involved aspects of a sacramental meal or feast. Etymology The word is an Old Norse strong neuter noun (genitive ). The corresponding Old English neuter (genitive ) may be influenced by Old Norse; the Old English gospels have prefixed "sacrifice". The reconstructed Proto-Germanic form of the noun is "sacrifice, worship". Connected to this is the Proto-Germanic strong verb with descendants in Gothic (), Old Norse , Old English and Old High German , all of which mean "to sacrifice, offer, worship". The word also appears in a compound attested in Old Norse as "house of worship" and in Old High German as "temple". With a different nominative affix, the same stem is fou ...
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Yajna
Yajna ( sa, यज्ञ, yajña, translit-std=IAST, sacrifice, devotion, worship, offering) refers in Hinduism to any ritual done in front of a sacred fire, often with mantras.SG Nigal (1986), Axiological Approach to the Vedas, Northern Book, , pages 80–81 Yajna has been a Vedic tradition, described in a layer of Vedic literature called Brahmanas, as well as Yajurveda. The tradition has evolved from offering oblations and libations into sacred fire to symbolic offerings in the presence of sacred fire ( Agni). Yajna rituals-related texts have been called the ''Karma-kanda'' (ritual works) portion of the Vedic literature, in contrast to ''Jnana-kanda'' (knowledge) portion contained in the Vedic Upanishads. The proper completion of Yajna-like rituals was the focus of Mimansa school of Hindu philosophy. Yajna have continued to play a central role in a Hindu's rites of passage, such as weddings. Modern major Hindu temple ceremonies, Hindu community celebrations, or monastic in ...
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Kourbània
''Kourbania'' ( el, το κουρμπάνι, pl. from tr, kurban, from Arabic قربان ''kurban'' 'sacrificial victim') is a Christianized animal sacrifice in parts of Greece. It usually involves the slaughter of lambs as "kourbania" offerings to saints. In antiquity the sacrifice was offered for health or following an accident or illness, as a votive offering promised to the Lord by the community, or by the relatives of the victim. Writing in 1979, Stella Georgoudi stated that the custom survived in "some villages of modern Greece" and was "slowly deteriorating and dying out". A similar custom from North Macedonia and Bulgaria known as ''kurban'' is celebrated on St. George's day. Description The practice involves the blood sacrifice (θυσία, ''thusia'') of a domestic animal to either a saint, taken as the tutelary of the village in question, or dedicated to the Holy Trinity or the Virgin. The animal is slaughtered outside the village church, during or after the D ...
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Santería
Santería (), also known as Regla de Ocha, Regla Lucumí, or Lucumí, is an African diasporic religion that developed in Cuba during the late 19th century. It arose through a process of syncretism between the traditional Yoruba religion of West Africa, the Roman Catholic form of Christianity, and Spiritism. There is no central authority in control of Santería and much diversity exists among practitioners, who are known as ''creyentes'' ("believers"). Santería is polytheistic and revolves around deities called ''oricha''. Deriving their names and attributes from traditional Yoruba divinities, they are equated with Roman Catholic saints. Each human is believed to have a personal link to a particular oricha who influences their personality. Various myths are told about these oricha, who are regarded as subservient to Olodumare, a transcendent creator deity. Olodumare is believed to be the ultimate source of ''aché'', a supernatural force permeating the universe that can be ma ...
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Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. Within this region pre-Columbian societies flourished for more than 3,000 years before the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Mesoamerica was the site of two of the most profound historical transformations in world history: primary urban generation, and the formation of New World cultures out of the long encounters among indigenous, European, African and Asian cultures. In the 16th century, Eurasian diseases such as smallpox and measles, which were endemic among the colonists but new to North America, caused the deaths of upwards of 90% of the indigenous people, resulting in great losses to their societies and cultures. Mesoamerica is one of the five areas in the world where ancient civilization arose independently (see cradle of civ ...
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Ancient Rome
In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC), Roman Republic (509–27 BC) and Roman Empire (27 BC–476 AD) until the fall of the western empire. Ancient Rome began as an Italic settlement, traditionally dated to 753 BC, beside the River Tiber in the Italian Peninsula. The settlement grew into the city and polity of Rome, and came to control its neighbours through a combination of treaties and military strength. It eventually dominated the Italian Peninsula, assimilated the Greek culture of southern Italy (Magna Grecia) and the Etruscan culture and acquired an Empire that took in much of Europe and the lands and peoples surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. It was among the largest empires in the ancient world, with an estimated 50 to 90 million inhabitants, roughly ...
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