Women’s sacrifice in Classical Cyprus? The Kition tariff ( <i>CIS</i> I, 86) revisited according to a Brelichian approach

ABSTRACT This article examines women’s social roles in Classical and early Hellenistic Cyprus through epigraphic evidence, focusing on the participation of twenty-two young girls in a sacrifice recorded in the Kition tariff (fifth–fourth century Bce; CIS I, 86), a Phoenician gypsum tablet often misinterpreted in earlier scholarship. This document, likely issued by the royal administration of Kition—a prominently Phoenician Cypriot city-kingdom with ties to Tyre—records institutional accounts and expenditures. The study reassesses whether the girls were actual sacrificial victims and argues that, rather than being killed, they were more plausibly involved in a substitution rite supported by the royal administration, aligned with Greek ritual models circulating in the Levant, and functioning as pharmaka or scapegoat figures intended to secure communal well-being and reinforce kingship. Particular attention is given to how gender and age shaped ritual efficacy and symbolism, while also addressing the debated question of human sacrifice in Cyprus through the theoretical framework of Angelo Brelich, whose work highlights the relationship between kingship, social hierarchy, and the symbolic role of young women in sacrificial contexts.