345 As to the excavations at Gezer, see R. A. Stewart Macalister, _Reports on the Excavation of Gezer_ (London, N.D.), pp. 76-89 (reprinted from the _Quarterly Statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund_); _id._, _Bible Side-lights from the Mound of Gezer_ (London, 1906), pp. 57-67, 73-75. Professor Macalister now inclines to regard the socketed stone as a laver rather than as the base of the sacred pole. He supposes that the buried infants were first-born children sacrificed in accordance with the ancient law of the dedication of the first-born. The explanation which I have adopted in the text agrees better with the uninjured state of the bodies, and it is further confirmed by the result of the Austrian excavations at Tell Ta’annek (Taanach) in Palestine, which seem to prove that there children up to the age of two years were not buried in the family graves but interred separately in jars. Some of these sepulchral jars were deposited under or beside the houses, but many were grouped round a rock-hewn altar in a different part of the hill. There is nothing to indicate that any of the children were sacrificed: the size of some of the skeletons precludes the idea that they were slain at birth. Probably they all died natural deaths, and the custom of burying them in or near the house or beside an altar was intended to ensure their rebirth in the family. See Dr. E. Sellin, “Tell Ta’annek,” _Denkschriften der Kaiser. Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Klasse_, l. (Vienna, 1904), No. iv. pp. 32-37, 96 _sq._ Compare W. W. Graf Baudissin, _Adonis und Esmun_, p. 59 n.3. I have to thank Professor R. A. Stewart Macalister for kindly directing my attention to the excavations at Tell Ta’annek (Taanach). It deserves to be mentioned that in an enclosure close to the standing stones at Gezer, there was found a bronze model of a cobra (R. A. Stewart Macalister, _Bible Side-lights_, p. 76). Perhaps the reptile was the deity of the shrine, or an embodiment of an ancestral spirit. M84 Semitic custom of sacrificing a member of the royal family. The burning of Melcarth at Tyre. Festival of “the awakening of Hercules” at Tyre. _ 346 The Dying God_, pp. 166 _sqq._ See Note I., “Moloch the King,” at the end of this volume. 347 Philo of Byblus, quoted by Eusebius, _Praepar. Evang._ i. 10. 29 _sq._; 2 Kings iii. 27. 348 See above, p. 15. 349 Philo of Byblus, in _Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum_, ed. C. Müller, iii. pp. 569, 570, 571. See above, p. 13. 350 See above, p. 16. 351 Sophocles, _Trachiniae_, 1191 _sqq._; Apollodorus, _Bibliotheca_, ii. 7. 7; Diodorus Siculus, iv. 38; Hyginus, _Fab._ 36.