The Sewer of Babies
The sewer of babies is a rather gross name for a sad and challenging archaeological find. Under the ruins of a Roman bathhouse in Ashkelon, Israel, archaeologists discovered the remains of more than 100 infants. At first, archaeologists on the site assumed they were finding animal bones and remains, perhaps from meals. They soon realized they were incorrect.
Forensic anthropologists have carefully analyzed the remains of these infants. All remains analyzed appeared healthy, with no clearly definable cause of death. The more than 100 sets of remains found in the sewer were all less than one week old. It is quite important to place the Roman attitude toward newborns in context. Newborn infants were not considered fully human and infanticide was widely practiced, and socially-speaking, it was relatively accepted.
The most common means of infanticide was exposure. The newborn was placed in an open area; these babies could be left to die, or claimed by other families and adopted to be raised in a different family. While infanticide through exposure was relatively common, the babies found in the sewer did not die from exposure. These babies were intentionally killed, and disposed of within the sewer beneath the bathhouse. They may even have simply been thrown into the drain.
While the finding of a large number of newborn infants is unusual in itself, DNA testing has revealed, where possible, an unusually high ratio of male to female infants. Naturally 20 male infants are born to every 21 females, but in a sample of 19 of the infant skeletons, 14 were male and only five female. Based on this, it appears that significantly more male newborns were killed than female.
Why were so many newborns discarded in this sewer? There are several theories, but none quite fit. Some have suggested that prostitutes were more likely to discard male infants, and that these were, therefore, the discarded infants of prostitutes. This argument is the most common, but prostitutes of the time did have access to abortion procedures and herbal medicines, so full-term pregnancies were uncommon. By this time, in addition, unwanted infants could be sold to slave traders, making killing them economically impractical. There is no clear explanation for this gruesome archaeological find.