Throwing Virgins into the Sea and Other Ways to Appease the Gods: The Ancient Reasons behind Virgin Sacrifice
When the going got tough, it was believed sacrificing a virgin to the gods—by throwing them into the sea, burying them alive, or leaving them for hungry monsters—was the best plan.
Virgin sacrifice could be done for a number of widely accepted reasons: from winning a war, to appeasing an angry deity, or merely to protect architecture. For a time, the practice seemed to be widely recognized as many cultures show traces of virgin sacrifice in their mythologies and religious texts.
The Ancient Egyptians throwing a Virgin into the Nile, 1884 (Public Domain)
