Stone sacrificial monuments -- stelae and cippi -can, more reliably than objects in other media, be identified as the products of Phoenician craftsmen since they occur in uniquely Phoenician cemeteries and are not easily portable. The cemeteries were repositories for the cremated remains of infants, children and animals. To date, nine tophets have been excavated in North Africa, Sicily and Sardinia. Most have monuments and burials. At Carthage the taller shape (stela) in limestone replaces the cubic shape (cippus) usually carved of sandstone and sometimes stuccoed and painted. At other tophets variations of the cubic form predominate. As a vastly influential city, Carthage served as a source of artistic inspiration to other Phoenician cities in the west until quite late. By the late third century, however, carvers of Carthaginian stelae had ceased to innovate and to borrow foreign motifs. Some motifs were borrowed from Egypt, others were entirely local, and many, at least after the late fifth century BC, were based on Greek models. Artisans in various cities preferred different shapes of monuments and favored certain motifs over others, sometimes executing the designs differently. Sulcis in Sardinia favored the motif of a woman holding a tambourine (Bartolini 1986). Many Carthaginian craftsmen preferred incision to relief, whereas Italian carvers worked more frequently in relief.

Certain motifs were widespread, however, and occur at all or most tophets. The Sign of Tanit, named by modern scholars after the goddess mentioned along with Ba'al in dedicatory inscriptions on some stelae, decorated the earliest monuments and remained popular throughout the first millennium. The motif probably depicts the goddess with her arms raised in greeting. In the late fifth or fourth century BC the caduceus motif, probably representing the wand of Greek Hermes as conductor of souls to the underworld, appeared on stelae from many sites, perhaps under Carthaginian influence. Craftsmen at Carthage in particular adopted many Greek decorative and representational motifs at this time.

The raised hand, Sign of Tanit, and caduceus wand are among the most common motifs on late Carthaginian stelae and are often depicted together, perhaps in a symbolic shorthand illustrating worshiper and goddess in the ritual setting of tophet -- sacrifice. The quality of these stelae, aside from the general artistic decline in late Carthaginian monuments already noted, varies greatly. Carvers of stelae copied single motifs and whole groups of motifs from the same models or pattern books, with widely differing results depending on the skill of the individual artisans. A number of stelae must have been prefabricated.