Temple of Baalat
About
Southeast of the Summer Baths, Thuburbo Maius kept a small porticoed sanctuary to Baalat, a Punic goddess who was chief deity of Byblos in Phoenicia. The shrine shows how thoroughly Carthaginian religion outlasted Carthage in inland Africa. Its surviving colonnaded form dates to the Roman imperial period, in the 2nd or 3rd century CE. In 117 CE this exact structure had not yet been built, though the cult it served was already centuries old.
What happened here
The building itself is a house for the god, and most people never go inside. Everything public happens on the steps and at the altar in front: an animal led up, examined, killed cleanly, its organs read, the meat divided and eaten. The priest covers his head and a flute player keeps up a noise so no ill-omened word is heard. Worshippers leave what they can afford — a terracotta figure, a coin, a model of the body part they want healed — and the accumulated clutter is periodically cleared and buried on site. On festival days the doors are opened and the cult statue is dressed, garlanded, and sometimes carried out through the streets. The temple also holds money, which is why towns keep their treasury in one.
Sources
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