Child Sacrifice on Constitution Avenue
Notes from January 5, 2021
I’ve repeated the story many times about my awakening as the official photographer for January 6th’s “Stop the Steal” event, but it was on January 5th, when the seed-crystal was dropped in my Psyche. I knew that the next day was going to be busy, and so to get a lay of the land, I took my friend, Pat Moise, to “walk the plant,” go to all of the locations where planned events were SUPPOSED to take place the next day. First, we went to the “Elipse,” where bulletproof glass was being installed, then walked down Constitution Ave. to the Supreme Court.
My head was completely into planning, and I wasn’t paying attention to much more than calculating how much time it would take to get from point A to point B, when Pat said, “Look at the hermaphrodite,” and pointed high above us to the pediment of the building we were walking by. I never paid much attention to the pediments in D.C. Most are positioned so you need to be quite far from the building to get a good look.
I said, “How do you know that’s a hermaphrodite?“ and Pat pointed down the street, look there’s Hermes, and there’s Aphrodite. What do you get when you put Hermes together with Aphrodite? A Herm-Aphrodite!” and pointed to the figure above us. I stopped for a few minutes to snap a few quick photos, then we continued walking towards the Supreme Court.
We had a short conversation, trying to puzzle out why there was a hermaphrodite statue on a federal building, but it was very cold, and I wanted to keep walking.
As we continued walking down Constitution Avenue, we passed the National Archives Building, and there was another hermaphrodite, this time holding a baby, wrapped in a sheaf of wheat in one arm, and an urn with a snake in the other. Its inscription reads “THE HERITAGE OF THE PAST IS THE SEED THAT BRINGS FORTH THE HARVEST OF THE FUTURE,“ above a winged solar disk.
I was researching Phœnician child sacrifice yesterday, in a book titled “In Search of the Phoenicians,” by Josephine Quinn, and noticed that the shape of the urns that contained the remains of human infants was the same shape as the urn held by the hermaphrodite “Heritage” statue in front of the National Archive. In addition, the winged globe on the pedestal indicated Phœnician “heritage.”
Based on the visual evidence, the text In Search of the Phoenicians, and other sources, if we interpret these symbols as retaining their historical and iconographic meanings, the statue transforms from a generic allegory into a coherent tableau of the Carthaginian religious child-sacrifice ritual.
Here is an analysis of what the symbols signify when read through the lens of the Phoenician history described in the text:
The Urn and Child: The Molk (Sacrifice)
In the context of the National Archives, exoteric meaning is assumed to represent “records” and “future generations.” However, in the esoteric semantic language of Phoenician archaeology, their combination is specific and functional.
The Symbolism: In her book, Quinn explains that the urn was the defining vessel of the tophet sanctuary, used specifically to hold the “cremated infants” buried there.1
The Meaning: Holding the child and the urn together signifies the ritual of molk (sacrifice/offering). Quinn’s book notes that inscriptions on tophet markers describe the offering of a person or citizen as a molk, a term also found in the Hebrew Bible to describe child sacrifice.2 The statue is not nurturing the child; she is presenting the child for the ritual that ends in the urn.
The Winged Globe: Divine Authority (Baal/Tanit)
The “winged globe” or “winged solar disk” on the base is in Phoenician culture a theological marker.
The Symbolism: The book documents this symbol appearing on specific religious structures, such as a “naiskos” (small shrine) from the Phoenician city of Sidon, “topped by a winged sun disk.”3 It also appears on markers in the tophet at Sulcis in Sardinia.4
The Meaning: In Phoenician iconography, this symbol marked a space or object as sacred to the supreme deities, often Baal Hammon or his consort Tanit. Its presence on the statue’s base effectively labels the figure sitting above it as a deity or high priestess operating under divine authority.
The Sheaf of Wheat: The Transaction
Wheat is the critical link that explains the purpose of the urn and the child in Phoenician religious logic.
The Symbolism: The book notes that later tophet markers in Roman North Africa frequently depicted “fruit, grain, and vegetal motifs” alongside religious symbols.5
The Meaning: The book indicates that these sacrifices were votive offerings made to ensure fertility and prosperity — literally, the harvest. The inscription on the statue base (”THE SEED THAT BRINGS FORTH THE HARVEST”) aligns with the sacrificial logic described in the text: the “Seed” (the child) is given to the god to ensure the “Harvest” (prosperity/wheat).
The Serpent (Uraeus)
While the statue holds wheat, the snake (serpent) connects deeply to the winged globe symbol.
The Symbolism: The book notes that the winged solar disk was usually depicted with a “frieze of cobra heads (uraei)” or “upright cobras.”6
The Meaning: In the Phoenician “Egyptianizing” style, the snake was a divine protector. If the figure is viewed as a Phoenician entity, the snake is the implied companion to the winged globe, reinforcing the figure’s divine status.
The Symbolic Narrative
Is the statue on Constitution Avenue, “Heritage,” guarding history? Or is it a representation of the Tophet ritual: A divine figure (Tanit) sits enthroned atop the winged solar disk (divine authority), holding the sacrificial victim (child) and the funerary vessel (urn) required for the rite, while clutching the wheat that represents the agricultural prosperity expected in exchange for the offering.
Josephine Quinn argues that the Tophet was a complex institution with specific religious, civic, and social functions that helped define a unique community identity.
Religious Function: The Votive Offering
Quinn argues that the tophet’s primary religious function was sacrificial and transactional.
Thanks-Offerings: The inscriptions found on Tophet markers typically describe the child as a “thanks-offering,” given because the god (usually Baal Hammon) had “heard the dedicator’s voice” and granted a specific request.
Ritual Performance: The sanctuaries were sites of ritual activity beyond burial. Archaeological evidence includes lamps, masks, incense burners, and images of dancers and drummers, suggesting a “rich variety of ritual activities” took place there.
Divine Appeasement: Literary sources suggest that, during crises such as sieges or epidemics, the rite was performed for the benefit of the entire city to appease angry gods.
Civic and Administrative Function
Quinn suggests the Tophet served as a central “focus for civic identity” and was a public, administered institution rather than a private family plot.
Civic Foundation: Tophets were almost always established alongside the settlements themselves, linking the ritual to the city’s very existence.
Public Administration: Evidence of “public works,” such as resurfacing, service roads, and organized expansion (like the creation of sacred refuse pits or favissae), indicates the sanctuary was actively managed by the community.
Intersection of Society: Quinn describes the Tophet as a unique space where “gods, family, civic society, ritual, sacrifice, and death all came together,” giving it a peculiar power to represent the people as a collective.
Construction of Group Identity (”The Circle of the Tophet”)
A central argument in Quinn’s book is that the Tophet functioned as a boundary marker, creating a distinct “circle” of communities in the central Mediterranean (Carthage, Sardinia, Sicily) that defined themselves against others.
Differentiation from the Homeland: Quinn notes that no equivalent Tophet sites have been found in the Phoenician homeland (the Levant). By institutionalizing a practice that may have been controversial or banned in the East, the settlers created a “cultural independence” and marked their difference from their origins.
Differentiation from Other Migrants: The practice distinguished this specific network of settlers from other Phoenician-speaking migrants in the West (such as those in Gadir or Lixus), who did not practice Tophet rituals.
Moral Distance: The “rare and highly distinctive” nature of child sacrifice created a “moral distance” between these settlers and other Mediterranean powers (Greeks, Romans, Persians), who often viewed the practice with disapproval.
Facilitation of Commerce and Trust
Quinn proposes that this shared, radical religious observance may have cemented a trading network, similar to other religious-commercial diasporas in history.
Building Trust: Shared participation in such an intense and distinctive ritual may have fostered “commercial trust and cooperation” among the dispersed settlements.
The “Puritan” Parallel: She suggests the settlers might be compared to the Puritans or the M’zabites of Algeria — groups in which “religious, social, and commercial links” are intertwined, and whose isolationism or extremism helps maintain the internal cohesion necessary for a successful trade network.
Mellon Auditorium
I’m still researching the iconography on the Mellon Auditorium, but here is another Phœnician connection, over one of the auditorium entrances.
The figure likely depicts Melqart syncretized with Herakles (Hercules), who is famously associated with the Nemean lion skin. Quinn’s book explicitly describes imagery in which Melqart is understood to be the figure wearing a lion-skin headdress.
Here is the specific evidence from the text supporting that depiction:
• Carthaginian Coinage: Around 300 BCE, Carthage minted silver tetradrachms depicting a head of “Herakles” wearing a “lion skin headdress”. In the context of Carthaginian culture, this figure “must under the circumstances have been understood as Melqart”. This imagery was modeled closely on coins issued by Alexander the Great and his successors.
• The “Master of the Lion”: The sources describe limestone statuettes found in Cypriot sanctuaries (6th–4th centuries BCE) that combine the Greek attributes of Herakles with Near Eastern motifs. These figures wear “the skin of the Nemean lion worn as a headdress, with the paws tied together at the chest”. While modern museums often label these Melqart, the text notes that there is no direct evidence that these specific statues represent Melqart (as opposed to a generic “Master of the Lion”), but the visual association is well established.
• Gadir Coinage: Third-century coins from Gadir (modern Cádiz), which was the site of a major Temple of Melqart, depict the head of Herakles in his lion skin; the text states these “must be understood as representing Melqart”.
Therefore, while the “lion mask” is technically the skin of the Nemean lion worn as a hood or headdress, the depiction of Melqart wearing a lion's head is firmly grounded in the historical artifacts described in the book. This visual adoption allowed Phoenician speakers to connect their god Melqart with the Greek hero Herakles.
Mellon Loves (Phœnician) Purple
More D.C. Occult Symbolism.
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Other Links:
Josephine Quinn, In Search of the Phoenicians (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018), 136–37.
Quinn, In Search of the Phoenicians, 141.
Quinn, In Search of the Phoenicians, 112–13.
Quinn, In Search of the Phoenicians, 152, fig. 5.4.
Quinn, In Search of the Phoenicians, 220–21.
Quinn, In Search of the Phoenicians, 113, fig. 4.1; 152, fig. 5.4.
Hi Peter - Is there a specific Substack post where you wrote about your 'awakening' related to January 6th? You have referenced it a couple of times stating that you recognized that you were an asset (as part of your pyramid hierarchy). I have made some assumptions, but am more interested in the specifics given that I follow many on X and Substack that are in your same circle (current and past). Always interested in hearing about individual's more personal interactions with those that some of us only see from afar. I love your work and the frameworks/models that you provide to help bring order to the chaos :) TY!
Ty for the comprehensive all in one.