The Covenant of Abraham

Her heart was cleft in twain and under her the earth, And into the abyss her little son fell. (Hungarian ballad 'Kömives Kelemenné'.)

During the excavation of the ruins of Gezer in Palestine a burial place of a very remarkable kind was discovered. Fourteen skeletons were found on the floor of a cylindrical chamber, or rather fourteen and a half. The half-skeleton was that of a girl about fourteen years of age. She had been cut or sawn through the middle 'at the eighth thoracic vertebra and at the front ends the ribs had been divided at this level; it is plain that the section had been made while as yet the bones were supported by the soft parts.' The weapons buried with these corpses suggest that they belonged to the Canaanite race.1 Frazer supposes that the half-skeleton represents a peculiar form of human sacrifice. This interpretation is confirmed by another half-skeleton discovered at the same place. This is the half-skeleton of a boy about seventeen years old, who, like the girl in the cistern, had been cut or sawn through the middle between the ribs and the pelvis and, just as in the case of the girl, only the upper half of the body was found: the lower half was missing. The explanation suggested by Professor Macalister was that we have here the remains of human victims who had been sacrificed and buried under the foundations of a building to give strength and stability to the edifice.2 Possibly the same explanation holds good for the skeletons of infants buried in large jars under the floor of the temple.3

In Hebrew custom itself Sir James Frazer finds two cases in which living beings are cut in twain. One is the covenant of Abraham. 'Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she-goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old and a turtle-dove, and a young