Abstract
The practice of human sacrifice in ancient Greece has often been ignored by scholars due to the lack of archaeological and visual evidence and the usage of the practice as a literary device in the written record. In reexamining the extant data alongside new archaeological finds, I analyze the development of human sacrifice in Greek cultures from the late Bronze Age to the end of the Classical Period. In addition I examine how the Greeks viewed human sacrifice within their own societies through the written record. Further, I seek the possible origins of human sacrifice in Greece and the confluence of cultural influences in the eastern Mediterranean and Aegean Seas that likely led to the practice’s dissemination west.