Sidney Oldall Addy, The Hall of Waltheof — IX. Foundation Sacrifice (1893)
“ He shall lay the foundation thereof in his firstborn, and in his youngest son shall he set up the gates of it.—Joshua, vi, 26. MODERN research has shown that there has existed, and perhaps still exists, in various parts of the world, a practice of burying human beings alive beneath the foundations of buildings. ”
Sidney Oldall Addy, The Hall of Waltheof — IX. Foundation Sacrifice (1893)
“ In so long a period the bones of a little child would hardly escape dissolution, and all that can be said is that there is no evidence whether the coffin was placed there as a symbol of the foundation sacrifice, or whether a child was actually buried there alive. But one of these two things must have happened, and if such sacrifices had ceased to be made at the time when the church was built, the position of the coffin nevertheless shows that children were once built in alive in England to ensure the stability of churches or other buildings. ”
Sidney Oldall Addy, The Hall of Waltheof — IX. Foundation Sacrifice (1893)
“ For example "a seventeenth-century account of Japan mentions the belief that a wall laid on the body of a willing human victim would be secure from accident: accordingly, when a great wall was to be built, some wretched slave would offer himself as foundation, lying down in the trench to be crushed by the heavy stones lowered upon him." ”
