Abstract
N the Old Testament a curious purification ritual occurs of which the final ceremony is described as follows: Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness: And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness (Leviticus I6, 21 f). It is this ceremony which has given its name to a certain ritual complex: the (e)scapegoat ritual.1 Similar rituals can be found among the Greeks,2 Romans,3 Hittites (? 3), in India,4 and even in mountainous Tibet (? 7). In our study
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