Tartessos
Encyclopedia
Tartessos or Tartessus was a harbor city and surrounding culture on the south coast of the Iberian peninsula
(in modern Andalusia
, Spain
), at the mouth of the Guadalquivir
River. It appears in sources from Greece and the Near East starting in the middle of the first millennium BC, for example Herodotus
, who describes it as beyond the Pillars of Heracles (Strait of Gibraltar). Roman authors tend to echo the earlier Greek
sources, but from around the end of the millennium there are indications that the name Tartessos had fallen out of use, and the city may have been lost to flooding, though several authors attempt to identify it with cities of other names in the area. Archaeological discoveries in the region have built up a picture of a more widespread culture, identified as Tartessian.
The Tartessians were rich in metal. In the 4th century BC the historian Ephorus
describes "a very prosperous market called Tartessos, with much tin carried by river, as well as gold and copper from Celtic lands". Trade in tin
was very lucrative in the Bronze Age
, since it is an essential component of true bronze, and comparatively rare. Herodotus refers to a king of Tartessos, Arganthonios
, presumably named for his wealth in silver.
The people from Tartessos became important trading partners of the Phoenicians, whose presence in Iberia dates from the 8th century BC, and who nearby built a harbor of their own, Gades (present-day Cádiz
).
) and flows out to sea outside the Pillars of Hercules, the modern Strait of Gibraltar
.
According to Pytheas
, in the 4th century BC, as reported by Strabo
in the 1st century AD, the Turduli
occupied the area that was Tartessos which was the Baetis
River (Guadalquivir
River Andalusia
Spain
).
Pausanias
, writing in the 2nd century AD, helpfully identified the river and gave details of the location of the city:
The river known in his day as the Baetis is now the Guadalquivir
. Thus, Tartessos may be buried, Schulten
thought, under the shifting wetlands. The river delta has gradually been blocked by a sandbar that stretches from the mouth of the Rio Tinto, near Palos de la Frontera
, to the riverbank that is opposite Sanlúcar de Barrameda
. The area is now protected as the Parque Nacional de Doñana
.
In the 1st century AD, Pliny incorrectly identified the city of Carteia as the Tartessos mentioned in Greek sources while Strabo
just commented [Some, however, call Tartessus the Carteia of to‑day]. Carteia is identified as El Rocadillo, near S. Roque, Province of Cádiz, some distance away from the Guadalquivir. In the 2nd century AD Appian thought that Karpessos (Carpia
) was previously known as Tartessos.
n necropolis
in which human remains were unearthed and stones found with illegible characters. It may have been colonized by the Phoenicians for trade because of its richness in metals.
A later generation turned instead to identifying and localizing "orientalizing" features of the Tartessian material culture within the broader Mediterranean horizon of an "Orientalizing period
" recognizable in the Aegean and Etruria.
J.M. Luzón was the first to identify Tartessos with modern Huelva
, based on discoveries made in the preceding decades. Since the discovery in September 1958 of a rich gold treasure at El Carambolo, three km west of Seville
and at La Joya, Huelva, archaeological surveys have been integrated with philological and literary surveys and the broader picture of the Iron Age in the Mediterranean basin to provide a more informed view of Tartessic culture on the ground, concentrated in western Andalusia
, Extremadura
and in southern Portugal
from the Algarve to the Vinalopó River in Alicante
.
Alluvial tin was panned in Tartessian streams from an early date. The spread of a silver standard in Assyria
increased its attractiveness (the tribute from Phoenician cities was assessed in silver). The invention of coinage in the 7th century BC spurred the search for bronze and silver as well. Henceforth trade connections, formerly largely in elite goods, assumed an increasingly broad economic role. By the Late Bronze Age, silver extraction in Huelva Province
reached industrial proportions. Pre-Roman silver slag is found in the Tartessian cities of Huelva Province. Cypriot and Phoenician metalworkers produced 15 million tons of pyrometallurgical residues at the vast dumps of Riotinto. Mining and smelting preceded the arrival, from the 8th century BC onwards, of Phoenicians and then Greeks, who provided a stimulating wider market and whose influence sparked an Orientalizing phase in Tartessian material culture (ca.750-550 BC) before Tartessian culture was superseded by the Classic Iberian culture.
"Tartessic" artifacts linked with the Tartessos culture have been found, and many archaeologists now associate the "lost" city with Huelva
. In excavations on spatially restricted sites in the center of modern Huelva, sherds of elite painted Greek ceramics of the first half of the 6th century BC have been recovered. Huelva contains the largest accumulation of imported elite goods and must have been an important Tartessian center. Medellín
, on the Guadiana River, revealed an important necropolis.
Elements specific to Tartessian culture are the Late Bronze Age fully evolved pattern-burnished wares and geometrically banded and patterns "Carambolo" wares, from the 9th to the 6th centuries BC; an "Early Orientalizing" phase with the first Eastern imports, beginning about 750 BC; a "Late Orientalizing" phase with the finest bronze casting and goldsmiths' work; gray ware turned on the fast potter's wheel
, local imitations of imported Phoenician red-slip wares.
Characteristic Tartessian bronzes include pear-shaped jugs, often associated in burials with shallow dish-shaped braziers with loop handles, incense-burners with floral motifs, fibulas, both elbowed and double-spring types, and belt buckles.
No precolonial necropolis sites are identified. The change from a late Bronze Age pattern of circular or oval huts scattered on a village site to rectangular houses with dry stone foundations and plastered wattle walls took place during the 7th and 6th centuries BC, in settlements with planned layouts that succeeded one another on the same site. At Cástulo (Jaén), a mosaic
of river pebbles from the end of the 6th century BC is the earliest mosaic in Western Europe. Most sites were inexplicably abandoned in the 5th century BC.
Tartessic occupation sites of the Late Bronze Age
that were not particularly complex, in which a domestic mode of production seems to have predominated" is one mainstream assessment. An earlier generation of archaeologists and historians took a normative
approach to the primitive Tartessians' adoption of Punic styles and techniques, as of a less-developed culture adopting better, more highly evolved cultural traits, and finding Eastern parallels for Early Iron Age material culture in the Tartessian sites. A younger generation have been more concerned with the process through which local institutions evolved.
The emergence of new archaeological finds in the city of Huelva is prompting the revision of these traditional views. Just in two adjacent lots adding up to 2,150 sq. m. between Las Monjas Square and Mendez Nuñez Street, some 90,000 ceramic fragments of both indigenous and Phoenician and Greek imported wares were exhumed, out of which 8,009 allowed scope for a type identification. This pottery, dated from the 10th to the early 8th centuries precedes finds from other Phoenician colonies; together with remnants of numerous activities, the Huelva discoveries reveal a great industrial and commercial emporion on this site lasting several centuries. Similar finds in other parts of the city make it possible to estimate the protohistoric habitat of Huelva in some 20 hectares, which constitutes a considerable extension for a site in the Iberian Peninsula in that period.
Calibrated carbon 14 dating carried out by Groningen University on associated cattle bones as well as dating based on ceramic samples permit an itinerary of several centuries through the state of the art of craft and industry since the 10th century BC, as follows: pottery (bowls, plates, craters, vases, amphorae, etc.), melting pots, casting nozzles, weights, finely worked pieces of wood, ship parts, bovid skulls, pendants, fibulae, anklebones, agate, ivory –with the only workshop of the period so far proven in the west-, gold, silver, etc.…
The existence of foreign produce and materials together with local ones permits to recognize the old Huelva harbor as a major hub for the reception, manufacturing and shipping of diverse products of different and distant origin. The analysis of written sources and the products exhumed, including inscriptions and thousand of Greek ceramics, some of which are works of excellent quality by known potters and painters, tends to identify this habitat not only with Tarshish
mentioned in the Bible, in the Assyrian stele of Esharhaddon and perhaps in the Phoenician inscription of the Nora Stone
, but also with the Tartessos of Greek sources –interpreting the Tartessus river as equivalent to the present-day Tinto river and the Ligustine Lake to the joint estuary of the Odiel and Tinto rivers flowing west and east of the Huelva Peninsula.
Further articles published in several specialized magazines are spreading the news of the spectacular finds which continue to be unearthed in the city of Huelva to this day.
pre-Roman
language once spoken in southern Iberia
. The oldest known indigenous texts of Iberia, dated from the 7th to 6th centuries BC, are written in Tartessian. The inscriptions are written in a semi-syllabic writing system and were found in the general area in which Tartessos was located and in surrounding areas of influence. Tartessian language texts were found in Southwestern Spain
and Southern Portugal
(namely in the Conii areas of the Algarve and southern Alentejo. This variety is often referred as Southwest script
). The affiliation of Tartessian is uncertain. According to a new proposal by John T. Koch and others, however, Tartessian
may have been the earliest written Celtic language.
gave currency to a view of Tartessos that made it the Western, and wholly European source of the legend of Atlantis
. A more serious review, by W.A. Oldfather, appeared in The American Journal of Philology. Both Atlantis and Tartessos were believed to be advanced societies which collapsed when their cities were lost beneath the waves; supposed further similarities with the legendary society make a connection seem feasible, though virtually nothing is known of Tartessos, not even its precise site. Other Tartessian enthusiasts imagine it as a contemporary of Atlantis, with which it might have traded.
In 2011, a team led by Richard Freund claimed to have found strong evidence for the location in Doñana National Park based on underground and underwater surveys, and the existence of what they characterized as "memorial cities" rebuilt in Atlantis's image.
Spanish scientists have dismissed Freund's claims claiming that he was sensationalising their work. The anthropologist Juan Villarías-Robles, who works with the Spanish National Research Council, said "Richard Freund was a newcomer to our project and appeared to be involved in his own very controversial issue concerning King Solomon's search for ivory and gold in Tartessos, the well documented settlement in the Donaña area established in the first millennium BC" and described his claims as 'fanciful'.
Simcha Jacobovici
, involved in the production of a documentary on Freund's work for the National Geographic Channel
, stated that the biblical Tarshish
(which he believes is the same as Tartessos
) was Atlantis, and that "Atlantis was hiding in the Tanach". Aren Maeir
, a professor of archeology at Bar-Ilan University said “a lot of people have made many crazy claims about Atlantis – it’s one of those classic places where you have a lunatic fringe looking for all types of things. And Richard Freund is known as someone who makes ‘sensational’ finds. I would say that I am exceptionally skeptical about the thing, but I wouldn’t discount it 100% until I see the details, which haven’t been published as far as I know...every few years we hear something like this from him... And the fact that it’s on National Geographic doesn’t mean much. Unfortunately, over the past years they’ve had many questionable programs.".
The enigmatic Lady of Elx, an ancient bust, of a high artistic quality, of a woman found in southeastern Spain, has been tied with Atlantis and Tartessos, though the statue displays clear signs of being manufactured by later Iberian cultures
.
in the Hebrew Bible
with Tartessos, though others connect it to Tarsus
in Anatolia or other places as far as India. (See entry for Jonah
in the Jewish Encyclopedia.) Tarshish, like Tartessos, is associated with extensive mineral wealth (Iberian Pyrite Belt
).
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...
(in modern Andalusia
Andalusia
Andalusia is the most populous and the second largest in area of the autonomous communities of Spain. The Andalusian autonomous community is officially recognised as a nationality of Spain. The territory is divided into eight provinces: Huelva, Seville, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga, Jaén, Granada and...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
), at the mouth of the Guadalquivir
Guadalquivir
The Guadalquivir is the fifth longest river in the Iberian peninsula and the second longest river to be its whole length in Spain. The Guadalquivir is 657 kilometers long and drains an area of about 58,000 square kilometers...
River. It appears in sources from Greece and the Near East starting in the middle of the first millennium BC, for example Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
, who describes it as beyond the Pillars of Heracles (Strait of Gibraltar). Roman authors tend to echo the earlier Greek
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
sources, but from around the end of the millennium there are indications that the name Tartessos had fallen out of use, and the city may have been lost to flooding, though several authors attempt to identify it with cities of other names in the area. Archaeological discoveries in the region have built up a picture of a more widespread culture, identified as Tartessian.
The Tartessians were rich in metal. In the 4th century BC the historian Ephorus
Ephorus
Ephorus or Ephoros , of Cyme in Aeolia, in Asia Minor, was an ancient Greek historian. Information on his biography is limited; he was the father of Demophilus, who followed in his footsteps as a historian, and to Plutarch's claim that Ephorus declined Alexander the Great's offer to join him on his...
describes "a very prosperous market called Tartessos, with much tin carried by river, as well as gold and copper from Celtic lands". Trade in tin
Tin
Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn and atomic number 50. It is a main group metal in group 14 of the periodic table. Tin shows chemical similarity to both neighboring group 14 elements, germanium and lead and has two possible oxidation states, +2 and the slightly more stable +4...
was very lucrative in the Bronze Age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
, since it is an essential component of true bronze, and comparatively rare. Herodotus refers to a king of Tartessos, Arganthonios
Arganthonios
Arganthonios was a king of ancient Tartessos .This name, or title, appears to be based on the Indo-European word for silver and money *arģ-, found in Celtiberian arkanta, Old Irish airget, Latin argentum, Sanskrit rajatám. Tartessia and all of Iberia was rich in silver. Similar names Arganthonios...
, presumably named for his wealth in silver.
The people from Tartessos became important trading partners of the Phoenicians, whose presence in Iberia dates from the 8th century BC, and who nearby built a harbor of their own, Gades (present-day Cádiz
Cádiz
Cadiz is a city and port in southwestern Spain. It is the capital of the homonymous province, one of eight which make up the autonomous community of Andalusia....
).
Location
Several early sources, such as Aristotle, refer to Tartessos as a river. Aristotle claims that it rises from the Pyrene Mountain (which we can identify as the PyreneesPyrenees
The Pyrenees is a range of mountains in southwest Europe that forms a natural border between France and Spain...
) and flows out to sea outside the Pillars of Hercules, the modern Strait of Gibraltar
Strait of Gibraltar
The Strait of Gibraltar is a narrow strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Spain in Europe from Morocco in Africa. The name comes from Gibraltar, which in turn originates from the Arabic Jebel Tariq , albeit the Arab name for the Strait is Bab el-Zakat or...
.
According to Pytheas
Pytheas
Pytheas of Massalia or Massilia , was a Greek geographer and explorer from the Greek colony, Massalia . He made a voyage of exploration to northwestern Europe at about 325 BC. He travelled around and visited a considerable part of Great Britain...
, in the 4th century BC, as reported by Strabo
Strabo
Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...
in the 1st century AD, the Turduli
Turduli
The Turduli were an ancient Celtiberian tribe of Lusitania, akin to the Lusitanians. They lived in the south of modern Portugal, in the east of the province of Alentejo, along the Guadiana valley , and Extremadura proper...
occupied the area that was Tartessos which was the Baetis
Baetis
Baetis is a genus of mayflies of the family Baetidae. It contains at least twelve species.-Species:* Baetis alpinus — Pictet, 1845* Baetis alternata — Say, 1824* Baetis atrebatinus* Baetis buceratus* Baetis fuscatus...
River (Guadalquivir
Guadalquivir
The Guadalquivir is the fifth longest river in the Iberian peninsula and the second longest river to be its whole length in Spain. The Guadalquivir is 657 kilometers long and drains an area of about 58,000 square kilometers...
River Andalusia
Andalusia
Andalusia is the most populous and the second largest in area of the autonomous communities of Spain. The Andalusian autonomous community is officially recognised as a nationality of Spain. The territory is divided into eight provinces: Huelva, Seville, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga, Jaén, Granada and...
Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
).
Pausanias
Pausanias (geographer)
Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical...
, writing in the 2nd century AD, helpfully identified the river and gave details of the location of the city:
They say that Tartessus is a river in the land of the Iberians, running down into the sea by two mouths, and that between these two mouths lies a city of the same name. The river, which is the largest in Iberia, and tidal, those of a later day called BaetisBaetisBaetis is a genus of mayflies of the family Baetidae. It contains at least twelve species.-Species:* Baetis alpinus — Pictet, 1845* Baetis alternata — Say, 1824* Baetis atrebatinus* Baetis buceratus* Baetis fuscatus...
, and there are some who think that Tartessus was the ancient name of CarpiaCarpiaCarpia was an Iberian city which is said to be the site of the ancient city Tartessos, which disappeared around 600 BCE, or the refoundation of the sunken city.- History :...
, a city of the IberiansIberiansThe Iberians were a set of peoples that Greek and Roman sources identified with that name in the eastern and southern coasts of the Iberian peninsula at least from the 6th century BC...
.
The river known in his day as the Baetis is now the Guadalquivir
Guadalquivir
The Guadalquivir is the fifth longest river in the Iberian peninsula and the second longest river to be its whole length in Spain. The Guadalquivir is 657 kilometers long and drains an area of about 58,000 square kilometers...
. Thus, Tartessos may be buried, Schulten
Adolf Schulten
Adolf Schulten was a German historian and archaeologist.Schulten was born in Elberfeld, Rhine Province, and received a Doctorate in Geology from the University of Bonn in 1892. He studied in Italy, Africa and Greece with support from the Institute of Archaeology...
thought, under the shifting wetlands. The river delta has gradually been blocked by a sandbar that stretches from the mouth of the Rio Tinto, near Palos de la Frontera
Palos de la Frontera
Palos de la Frontera is a town and municipality located in the southwestern Spanish province of Huelva, in the autonomous community of Andalusia. It is situated some from the provincial capital, Huelva...
, to the riverbank that is opposite Sanlúcar de Barrameda
Sanlúcar de Barrameda
Sanlúcar de Barrameda is a city in the northwest of Cádiz province, part of the autonomous community of Andalucía in southern Spain. Sanlúcar is located on the left bank at the mouth of the Guadalquivir River opposite the Doñana National Park, 52 km from the provincial capital Cádiz and...
. The area is now protected as the Parque Nacional de Doñana
Doñana National Park
-Conservation:In 1989 the surroundings of the national park were given more protection when a buffer zone was declared a natural park under the management of the regional government. The two parks, national and natural, have since been classified as a single natural landscape.In 1994 UNESCO...
.
In the 1st century AD, Pliny incorrectly identified the city of Carteia as the Tartessos mentioned in Greek sources while Strabo
Strabo
Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...
just commented [Some, however, call Tartessus the Carteia of to‑day]. Carteia is identified as El Rocadillo, near S. Roque, Province of Cádiz, some distance away from the Guadalquivir. In the 2nd century AD Appian thought that Karpessos (Carpia
Carpia
Carpia was an Iberian city which is said to be the site of the ancient city Tartessos, which disappeared around 600 BCE, or the refoundation of the sunken city.- History :...
) was previously known as Tartessos.
Archaeological discoveries
The discoveries published by Schulten in 1922 first drew attention to Tartessos and shifted its study from classical philologists and antiquarians, to investigations based on archaeology, though attempts at localizing a capital for what was conceived as a complicated culture in the nature of a centrally controlled kingdom ancestral to Spain were inconclusively debated. Subsequent discoveries were widely reported: in September 1923 archaeologists discovered a PhoeniciaPhoenicia
Phoenicia , was an ancient civilization in Canaan which covered most of the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent. Several major Phoenician cities were built on the coastline of the Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550...
n necropolis
Necropolis
A necropolis is a large cemetery or burial ground, usually including structural tombs. The word comes from the Greek νεκρόπολις - nekropolis, literally meaning "city of the dead"...
in which human remains were unearthed and stones found with illegible characters. It may have been colonized by the Phoenicians for trade because of its richness in metals.
A later generation turned instead to identifying and localizing "orientalizing" features of the Tartessian material culture within the broader Mediterranean horizon of an "Orientalizing period
Orientalizing Period
In the history of ancient Greece, the Orientalizing period is the cultural and art historical period informed by the art of Anatolia, Syria, Assyria, Phoenicia and Egypt, which started during the later part of the 7th century BCE. It encompasses a new, Orientalizing style, spurred by a period of...
" recognizable in the Aegean and Etruria.
J.M. Luzón was the first to identify Tartessos with modern Huelva
Huelva
Huelva is a city in southwestern Spain, the capital of the province of Huelva in the autonomous region of Andalusia. It is located along the Gulf of Cadiz coast, at the confluence of the Odiel and Tinto rivers. According to the 2010 census, the city has a population of 149,410 inhabitants. The...
, based on discoveries made in the preceding decades. Since the discovery in September 1958 of a rich gold treasure at El Carambolo, three km west of Seville
Seville
Seville is the artistic, historic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia and of the province of Seville. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir, with an average elevation of above sea level...
and at La Joya, Huelva, archaeological surveys have been integrated with philological and literary surveys and the broader picture of the Iron Age in the Mediterranean basin to provide a more informed view of Tartessic culture on the ground, concentrated in western Andalusia
Andalusia
Andalusia is the most populous and the second largest in area of the autonomous communities of Spain. The Andalusian autonomous community is officially recognised as a nationality of Spain. The territory is divided into eight provinces: Huelva, Seville, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga, Jaén, Granada and...
, Extremadura
Extremadura
Extremadura is an autonomous community of western Spain whose capital city is Mérida. Its component provinces are Cáceres and Badajoz. It is bordered by Portugal to the west...
and in southern Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
from the Algarve to the Vinalopó River in Alicante
Alicante
Alicante or Alacant is a city in Spain, the capital of the province of Alicante and of the comarca of Alacantí, in the south of the Valencian Community. It is also a historic Mediterranean port. The population of the city of Alicante proper was 334,418, estimated , ranking as the second-largest...
.
Alluvial tin was panned in Tartessian streams from an early date. The spread of a silver standard in Assyria
Assyria
Assyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the mid–23rd century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...
increased its attractiveness (the tribute from Phoenician cities was assessed in silver). The invention of coinage in the 7th century BC spurred the search for bronze and silver as well. Henceforth trade connections, formerly largely in elite goods, assumed an increasingly broad economic role. By the Late Bronze Age, silver extraction in Huelva Province
Huelva (province)
Huelva is a province of southern Spain, in the western part of the autonomous community of Andalusia. It is bordered by Portugal, the provinces of Badajoz, Seville, and Cádiz, and the Atlantic Ocean. Its capital is Huelva....
reached industrial proportions. Pre-Roman silver slag is found in the Tartessian cities of Huelva Province. Cypriot and Phoenician metalworkers produced 15 million tons of pyrometallurgical residues at the vast dumps of Riotinto. Mining and smelting preceded the arrival, from the 8th century BC onwards, of Phoenicians and then Greeks, who provided a stimulating wider market and whose influence sparked an Orientalizing phase in Tartessian material culture (ca.750-550 BC) before Tartessian culture was superseded by the Classic Iberian culture.
"Tartessic" artifacts linked with the Tartessos culture have been found, and many archaeologists now associate the "lost" city with Huelva
Huelva
Huelva is a city in southwestern Spain, the capital of the province of Huelva in the autonomous region of Andalusia. It is located along the Gulf of Cadiz coast, at the confluence of the Odiel and Tinto rivers. According to the 2010 census, the city has a population of 149,410 inhabitants. The...
. In excavations on spatially restricted sites in the center of modern Huelva, sherds of elite painted Greek ceramics of the first half of the 6th century BC have been recovered. Huelva contains the largest accumulation of imported elite goods and must have been an important Tartessian center. Medellín
Medellín (Spain)
Medellín is a village in the province of Badajoz, Extremadura, Spain, notable as the birthplace of Hernán Cortés in 1485 and the site of the Battle of Medellín, during the Peninsular War...
, on the Guadiana River, revealed an important necropolis.
Elements specific to Tartessian culture are the Late Bronze Age fully evolved pattern-burnished wares and geometrically banded and patterns "Carambolo" wares, from the 9th to the 6th centuries BC; an "Early Orientalizing" phase with the first Eastern imports, beginning about 750 BC; a "Late Orientalizing" phase with the finest bronze casting and goldsmiths' work; gray ware turned on the fast potter's wheel
Potter's wheel
In pottery, a potter's wheel is a machine used in asma of round ceramic ware. The wheel may also be used during process of trimming the excess body from dried ware and for applying incised decoration or rings of color...
, local imitations of imported Phoenician red-slip wares.
Characteristic Tartessian bronzes include pear-shaped jugs, often associated in burials with shallow dish-shaped braziers with loop handles, incense-burners with floral motifs, fibulas, both elbowed and double-spring types, and belt buckles.
No precolonial necropolis sites are identified. The change from a late Bronze Age pattern of circular or oval huts scattered on a village site to rectangular houses with dry stone foundations and plastered wattle walls took place during the 7th and 6th centuries BC, in settlements with planned layouts that succeeded one another on the same site. At Cástulo (Jaén), a mosaic
Mosaic
Mosaic is the art of creating images with an assemblage of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials. It may be a technique of decorative art, an aspect of interior decoration, or of cultural and spiritual significance as in a cathedral...
of river pebbles from the end of the 6th century BC is the earliest mosaic in Western Europe. Most sites were inexplicably abandoned in the 5th century BC.
Tartessic occupation sites of the Late Bronze Age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
that were not particularly complex, in which a domestic mode of production seems to have predominated" is one mainstream assessment. An earlier generation of archaeologists and historians took a normative
Normative
Normative has specialized contextual meanings in several academic disciplines. Generically, it means relating to an ideal standard or model. In practice, it has strong connotations of relating to a typical standard or model ....
approach to the primitive Tartessians' adoption of Punic styles and techniques, as of a less-developed culture adopting better, more highly evolved cultural traits, and finding Eastern parallels for Early Iron Age material culture in the Tartessian sites. A younger generation have been more concerned with the process through which local institutions evolved.
The emergence of new archaeological finds in the city of Huelva is prompting the revision of these traditional views. Just in two adjacent lots adding up to 2,150 sq. m. between Las Monjas Square and Mendez Nuñez Street, some 90,000 ceramic fragments of both indigenous and Phoenician and Greek imported wares were exhumed, out of which 8,009 allowed scope for a type identification. This pottery, dated from the 10th to the early 8th centuries precedes finds from other Phoenician colonies; together with remnants of numerous activities, the Huelva discoveries reveal a great industrial and commercial emporion on this site lasting several centuries. Similar finds in other parts of the city make it possible to estimate the protohistoric habitat of Huelva in some 20 hectares, which constitutes a considerable extension for a site in the Iberian Peninsula in that period.
Calibrated carbon 14 dating carried out by Groningen University on associated cattle bones as well as dating based on ceramic samples permit an itinerary of several centuries through the state of the art of craft and industry since the 10th century BC, as follows: pottery (bowls, plates, craters, vases, amphorae, etc.), melting pots, casting nozzles, weights, finely worked pieces of wood, ship parts, bovid skulls, pendants, fibulae, anklebones, agate, ivory –with the only workshop of the period so far proven in the west-, gold, silver, etc.…
The existence of foreign produce and materials together with local ones permits to recognize the old Huelva harbor as a major hub for the reception, manufacturing and shipping of diverse products of different and distant origin. The analysis of written sources and the products exhumed, including inscriptions and thousand of Greek ceramics, some of which are works of excellent quality by known potters and painters, tends to identify this habitat not only with Tarshish
Tarshish
Tarshish תַּרְשִׁישׁ occurs in the Hebrew Bible with several uncertain meanings:*One of the sons of Javan .* In the Bible Solomon set up a trade with Tarshish and received ivory, apes, and peacocks from Tarshish which are all native to the jungles in India. India's state bird for example is the...
mentioned in the Bible, in the Assyrian stele of Esharhaddon and perhaps in the Phoenician inscription of the Nora Stone
Nora Stone
The Nora Stone or Nora Inscription is an ancient inscription found at Nora on the south coast of Sardinia in 1773. Though its precise finding place has been forgotten, it has been dated by palaeographic methods to the late 9th century to early 8th century BCE and is still considered the oldest...
, but also with the Tartessos of Greek sources –interpreting the Tartessus river as equivalent to the present-day Tinto river and the Ligustine Lake to the joint estuary of the Odiel and Tinto rivers flowing west and east of the Huelva Peninsula.
Further articles published in several specialized magazines are spreading the news of the spectacular finds which continue to be unearthed in the city of Huelva to this day.
Tartessian language
The Tartessian language is an extinctExtinct language
An extinct language is a language that no longer has any speakers., or that is no longer in current use. Extinct languages are sometimes contrasted with dead languages, which are still known and used in special contexts in written form, but not as ordinary spoken languages for everyday communication...
pre-Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
language once spoken in southern Iberia
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...
. The oldest known indigenous texts of Iberia, dated from the 7th to 6th centuries BC, are written in Tartessian. The inscriptions are written in a semi-syllabic writing system and were found in the general area in which Tartessos was located and in surrounding areas of influence. Tartessian language texts were found in Southwestern Spain
Andalusia
Andalusia is the most populous and the second largest in area of the autonomous communities of Spain. The Andalusian autonomous community is officially recognised as a nationality of Spain. The territory is divided into eight provinces: Huelva, Seville, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga, Jaén, Granada and...
and Southern Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
(namely in the Conii areas of the Algarve and southern Alentejo. This variety is often referred as Southwest script
Southwest script
The Southwest Script or Southwestern Script, also known as Tartessian or South Lusitanian, is a Paleohispanic script used to write an unknown language usually identified as Tartessian...
). The affiliation of Tartessian is uncertain. According to a new proposal by John T. Koch and others, however, Tartessian
Tartessian language
The Tartessian language is the extinct Paleohispanic language of inscriptions in the Southwestern script found in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula: mainly in the south of Portugal , but also in Spain . There are 95 of these inscriptions with the longest having 82 readable signs...
may have been the earliest written Celtic language.
"Atlantis"
SchultenAdolf Schulten
Adolf Schulten was a German historian and archaeologist.Schulten was born in Elberfeld, Rhine Province, and received a Doctorate in Geology from the University of Bonn in 1892. He studied in Italy, Africa and Greece with support from the Institute of Archaeology...
gave currency to a view of Tartessos that made it the Western, and wholly European source of the legend of Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
. A more serious review, by W.A. Oldfather, appeared in The American Journal of Philology. Both Atlantis and Tartessos were believed to be advanced societies which collapsed when their cities were lost beneath the waves; supposed further similarities with the legendary society make a connection seem feasible, though virtually nothing is known of Tartessos, not even its precise site. Other Tartessian enthusiasts imagine it as a contemporary of Atlantis, with which it might have traded.
In 2011, a team led by Richard Freund claimed to have found strong evidence for the location in Doñana National Park based on underground and underwater surveys, and the existence of what they characterized as "memorial cities" rebuilt in Atlantis's image.
Spanish scientists have dismissed Freund's claims claiming that he was sensationalising their work. The anthropologist Juan Villarías-Robles, who works with the Spanish National Research Council, said "Richard Freund was a newcomer to our project and appeared to be involved in his own very controversial issue concerning King Solomon's search for ivory and gold in Tartessos, the well documented settlement in the Donaña area established in the first millennium BC" and described his claims as 'fanciful'.
Simcha Jacobovici
Simcha Jacobovici
Simcha Jacobovici is a Canadian film director, producer, free-lance journalist, and writer. He is a three-times Emmy winner for Outstanding Investigative Journalism....
, involved in the production of a documentary on Freund's work for the National Geographic Channel
National Geographic Channel
National Geographic Channel, also commercially abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo, is a subscription television channel that airs non-fiction television programs produced by the National Geographic Society. Like History and the Discovery Channel, the channel features documentaries with factual...
, stated that the biblical Tarshish
Tarshish
Tarshish תַּרְשִׁישׁ occurs in the Hebrew Bible with several uncertain meanings:*One of the sons of Javan .* In the Bible Solomon set up a trade with Tarshish and received ivory, apes, and peacocks from Tarshish which are all native to the jungles in India. India's state bird for example is the...
(which he believes is the same as Tartessos
Tartessos
Tartessos or Tartessus was a harbor city and surrounding culture on the south coast of the Iberian peninsula , at the mouth of the Guadalquivir River. It appears in sources from Greece and the Near East starting in the middle of the first millennium BC, for example Herodotus, who describes it as...
) was Atlantis, and that "Atlantis was hiding in the Tanach". Aren Maeir
Aren Maeir
Aren Maeir is a professor at Bar Ilan University and director of the Tell es-Safi/Gath Archaeological Project . Born in 1958 in Rochester, New York, USA, he moved to Israel in 1969 and has lived there since...
, a professor of archeology at Bar-Ilan University said “a lot of people have made many crazy claims about Atlantis – it’s one of those classic places where you have a lunatic fringe looking for all types of things. And Richard Freund is known as someone who makes ‘sensational’ finds. I would say that I am exceptionally skeptical about the thing, but I wouldn’t discount it 100% until I see the details, which haven’t been published as far as I know...every few years we hear something like this from him... And the fact that it’s on National Geographic doesn’t mean much. Unfortunately, over the past years they’ve had many questionable programs.".
The enigmatic Lady of Elx, an ancient bust, of a high artistic quality, of a woman found in southeastern Spain, has been tied with Atlantis and Tartessos, though the statue displays clear signs of being manufactured by later Iberian cultures
Iberians
The Iberians were a set of peoples that Greek and Roman sources identified with that name in the eastern and southern coasts of the Iberian peninsula at least from the 6th century BC...
.
"Tarshish"
Since the classicists of the early 20th century, biblical archeologists often identify the place-name TarshishTarshish
Tarshish תַּרְשִׁישׁ occurs in the Hebrew Bible with several uncertain meanings:*One of the sons of Javan .* In the Bible Solomon set up a trade with Tarshish and received ivory, apes, and peacocks from Tarshish which are all native to the jungles in India. India's state bird for example is the...
in the Hebrew Bible
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...
with Tartessos, though others connect it to Tarsus
Tarsus (city)
Tarsus is a historic city in south-central Turkey, 20 km inland from the Mediterranean Sea. It is part of the Adana-Mersin Metropolitan Area, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in Turkey with a population of 2.75 million...
in Anatolia or other places as far as India. (See entry for Jonah
Jonah
Jonah is the name given in the Hebrew Bible to a prophet of the northern kingdom of Israel in about the 8th century BC, the eponymous central character in the Book of Jonah, famous for being swallowed by a fish or a whale, depending on translation...
in the Jewish Encyclopedia.) Tarshish, like Tartessos, is associated with extensive mineral wealth (Iberian Pyrite Belt
Iberian Pyrite Belt
The Iberian Pyrite Belt is a vast geographical area with particular geological features that stretches along much of the south of the Iberian Peninsula, from Portugal to Spain. It is about 250 km long and 30–50 km wide, running northwest to southeast from Alcácer do Sal to Sevilla...
).
See also
- ColaeusColaeusColaeus was an ancient Samian explorer and silver merchant from, who according to Herodotus was the first Greek to arrive at Tartessos circa 640 B.C. He was richly endowed by the city's king Arganthonios and returned him to Greece....
- Atlantic Bronze AgeAtlantic Bronze AgeThe Atlantic Bronze Age is a cultural complex of the Bronze Age period of approximately 1300–700 BC that includes different cultures in Portugal, Andalusia, Galicia, Armorica and the British Isles.-Trade:...
- South-Western Iberian BronzeSouth-Western Iberian BronzeThe South-Western Iberian Bronze is a loosely-defined Bronze Age culture of Southern Portugal and nearby areas of SW Spain . It replaced the earlier urban and Megalithic existing in that same region in the Chalcolithic age....
- Prehistoric IberiaPrehistoric IberiaThe prehistory of the Iberian peninsula begins with the arrival of the first hominins 1.2 million years ago and ends with the Punic Wars, when the territory enters the domains of written history...
- Spanish mythologySpanish mythologySpanish mythology would encompass all the sacred myths of the cultures in the region of Spain. They include Galician mythology, Asturian mythology, Cantabrian mythology, Catalan mythology and Basque mythology...
- TurdetaniTurdetaniThe Turdetani were ancient people of the Iberian peninsula , living in the valley of the Guadalquivir in what was to become the Roman Province of Hispania Baetica...
- TurduliTurduliThe Turduli were an ancient Celtiberian tribe of Lusitania, akin to the Lusitanians. They lived in the south of modern Portugal, in the east of the province of Alentejo, along the Guadiana valley , and Extremadura proper...
- Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian PeninsulaPre-Roman peoples of the Iberian PeninsulaThis is a list of the Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian peninsula .-Non-Indo-European:*Aquitanians**Aquitani**Autrigones - some consider them Celtic .**Caristii - some consider them Celtic ....
- Cancho RoanoCancho RoanoCancho Roano is an archaeological site located in the municipality of Zalamea de la Serena, in the province of Badajoz, Spain. Is located three miles from Zalamea de la Serena in the direction of Quintana de la Serena Quintana, in a small valley along the stream Cagancha.Cancho Roano is the best...
Further reading
- J. M. A. Blazquez, Tartessos y Los Origenes de la Colonizacion Fenicia en Occidente (University of Salamanca) 1968. Assembles of Punic materials found in Spain.
- Jaime Alvar and José María Blázquez, Los enigmas de Tartessos (Madrid:Catedra) 1993. Papers following a 1991 conference.
- F. Gonzalez de Canales Cerisola, Del Occidente Mítico Griego a Tarsis-Tarteso –Fuentes escritas y documentación arqueológica-, Biblioteca Nueva, Madrid, 2004.
- F. Gonzalez de Canales, J. Llompart and L. Serrano, El Emporio Fenicio-Precolonial de Huelva, ca. 900-770 a.C., Biblioteca Nueva, Madrid, 2004.
General
- Almagro-Gorbea. La literatura tartésica fuentes históricas e iconográficas
- Detailed map of the Pre-Roman Peoples of Iberia (around 200 BC)
- Doñana
- Spaniards search for legendary Tartessos in a marsh
- Jewish Encyclopedia: Tarshish, a distant maritime district famed for its metalwork, considered by the contributors in 1901-1906 to be legendary; Old Testament references.
- Tartessos and Argantino information page
- (e-Keltoi 6) Teresa Júdice Gamito, The Celts in Portugal