There is no people whose culture, at an early stage of development, did not include human sacrifice. Accompanied by numerous servants, Egyptian pharaohs, Sumerian kings and Chinese rulers preferred to leave for another world. In Phenicia, in order to appease the god Baal, children from noble families were sacrificed. Sacrificial massacres were carried out by the Scythians, Gauls and Normans. In ancient Kyiv, people were chosen by lot to sacrifice to idols. Human sacrifices among the American Indians reached incredible proportions. In India, quite recently, there was a custom of burning a widow at the grave of her husband. Even the Greeks and Romans, the progenitors of modern European civilization, fearlessly made sacrifices to their gods, preferring, however, to kill either prisoners or criminals. Oleg Ivik’s wonderful book tells about all this.