On Sacrifice

What was it like to live in a culture where blood sacrifice was a part of everyday life? Sacrifice was ubiquitous across all human cultures until very recently, but we have lost that visceral knowledge of how it felt and what it meant and as a result have a gap in our models of how people in the past experienced the world. Why were people in the ancient world cutting the throats of bulls, digging into their guts, catching their blood?

Nobody sacrifices fish or dogs - it’s always a domestic animal, a cow, an ox or a goat, bonus points for it being a magnificent specimen in its prime. You wash it, decorate it then lead it to the altar in a procession. The altar is in front of the temple, whose doors are open so the god can see. There will be a priest, perhaps a flute player, some burly attendants who maneuver the animal, a butcher and perhaps ...