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Hey, I was just listening to my voicemails, and I think you might be interested in this one.
“Hi. My name is Patrick, and I live in Germany. I love your programs, especially,
but not limited to, when you take apart fact and fiction in our history. I don’t remember
if you’ve ever done a piece on Tartessos, but what I’d really be interested in is learning
more about what scientific consensus tells us about what Bronze Age Spain was actually like.
As a layman, I feel like my knowledge of the history of Spain only really starts with the
Punic Wars almost, and I’d like to close that gap but don’t really know where to start. Thanks.”
And thank you for your question, Patrick.
Let me give you a little background on the Iberian peninsula. During the late bronze and early iron
age, it was actively inhabited by an immense variety of peoples. A big shift happened in
the 11th century BCE, when Indo-European peoples of Celtic origin started arriving in the region,
but they left the earlier Iberian peoples, still culturally in the Bronze Age, practically intact
in the south and west. During the 1st millennium BCE, there was intense contact, especially in
the east and south of the peninsula, between these indigenous peoples and colonizing peoples from the
eastern Mediterranean: Phoenicians, Greeks, and Carthaginians. So dozens of different groups are
known to have coexisted in Iberia during the 1st millennium BCE. These groups can be divided into
4 major linguistic groups. Broadly speaking, following ethnic-linguistic criteria, there
were the "pre-Indo-European-Iberian" peoples, which are commonly called simply the Iberians;
the "Aquitani” or Proto-Vascan" peoples, who were precursors to
the Basques. They were pre-Indo-European like the Iberians, while culturally they are more
similar to the people of northern Spain and southwestern France; the “Turdetani" people,
who may be connected to the Tartessians; and the "Indo-European Celtic" people.
Indo-European peoples came from Eastern Europe and one division of them entered the Iberian
Peninsula through the Pyrenees in search of lands where they could settle. This occurred
from the end of the 11th century to the end of the 6th century BCE. The level of technological
development of this varied group of peoples, the Celtiberians, as they are often called,
was relatively lower than those of the Iberian south, although with great disparity
among them, as they were in a transition zone, both culturally and geographically.
Now let’s talk about the foreign colonies. At the end of the second millennium BCE,
the Phoenicians founded their first colonies in the south of the Peninsula,
among which Gádir (modern Cádiz) stands out. The Greeks arrived on the Iberian
Peninsula around the 7th century BCE, although their activities are not well documented until
the 6th century BCE. They founded colonial enclaves, including Emporion and Mainake,
from where they established commercial and cultural contacts with neighboring indigenous
peoples. The Carthaginians, who had themselves once been a Phoenician colony, arrived later,
between the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, and they created colonies such as Ebusus and Carthage Nova.
The Phoenicians, Greeks, and Carthaginians had reached a degree of technical development
beyond that of the peoples of the western Mediterranean, while at the same time they
found in that region increasingly scarce and expensive raw materials. Metals such as silver,
gold, copper and tin encouraged them to venture further and further west. Within the western
Mediterranean, the area of greatest interest in terms of obtaining metals was the south
of the Iberian Peninsula, both for its mines (Murcia, Almeria, Sierra Morena or Huelva) and
for its position as a crossroads and exit of the Atlantic routes, especially to the north,
towards Galicia and the British Isles, through the Strait of Gibraltar. The south of the
Peninsula was rich in copper, gold and silver, and was strategically located on the tin route.
So the south was chosen to found commercial establishments.
As I mentioned earlier, this was the area inhabited by the so-called Iberian peoples,
and they were the ones influenced by the colonizing peoples. They maintained an
agricultural and livestock exploitation based on cereals, which in some areas was diversified with
olive trees and even included irrigation. Mining was the basis of a metallurgy of bronze, iron, and
precious metals, highly demanded by the colonizing peoples. The commercial development of surpluses,
which included the use of currency, stimulated social hierarchization and the formation of
an aristocratic warrior elite, which demanded imported luxury goods to consolidate its prestige.
Locally, artistic programs of a certain sophistication were developed,
and alphabets of Phoenician or Greek origin were used for the writing of some texts.
Pliny the Elder's description of the Hispanic southeast coast, is full of praise:
Greek historians recorded the existence of the people of Tartessos in this area,
whose wealth was based on agriculture, livestock, fishing, the exploitation
of the copper mines of Huelva and the control of tin from the Atlantic route.
We have a plethora of Greco-Roman sources, which remained shrouded in mythical mysteries,
confused and contradictory. The philosopher Aristotle refers to Tartessos as a river.
The Greek geographer Strabo declares that the ancients knew the river Guadalquivir,
the Great River, under the name of Tartessos. So does Pausanias. On the other hand, the Roman
writer Avienius identifies Tartessos as a rich city, protected by walls and supplied by a river.
In his impressions, Appian affirms that Tartessos was a city on the coast that
in his time was known as Carpessus. However, there is no consensus in classical works about
the nature of Tartessos, whether it was a region, a kingdom, a city, or a river.
Semitic sources may refer to this culture when they use the name Tarshish, which is
characterized by its metalliferous wealth, and which is related to Phoenician navigation.
One of the myths that deals with Tartessos, and inserted this culture in the Greek, is the Labors
of Herakles, more specifically the stealing of the cattle of Geryon, a giant that lived on the island
of Erytheia, which was believed to be off the southern coast of Iberia. Later writers link the
island with Tartessos. According to Herodotus, Arganthonius was a monarch who reigned over
Tartessos for eighty years, living one hundred and twenty, being the first that we have historical
references from Greek sources . According to Herodotus, the Phoceans, upon their arrival in
Tartessos, befriended Arganthonius. Such was the bond between Tartessians and Greeks that the king
invited them to leave Ionia to settle in Iberia. In another passage, when he learned that the
Medes were increasing their power in the East, he financed the construction of walls around Phocaea.
The only certain data are the repeated references to a civilization located
beyond the Pillars of Heracles, today called the Strait of Gibraltar,
which stood out for its wealth, both in its agricultural base and in metals.
Even the name Arganthonios, which means Silver Man, is probably not a real name but
rather related to silver and for Tartessos’ commercial activity. Also notable are the
references to the constitution of a hierarchical society, in which the nobles did not work.
There are few data related to their religion, but it is presumed that, like other Mediterranean
peoples, they also had a polytheistic religion. It is believed that they could also worship a
goddess product of the Phoenician acculturation comparable to Astarte. There could also have been
a male deity, the Phoenician god Baal or Melqart. Sanctuaries of Phoenician style were found in
the archaeological site of Castulo. Several votive offerings were discovered in various
parts of Andalusia and in other more distant parts, such as Salamanca, of unknown origin.
In the southwestern area of the peninsula, archaeologically-speaking, the region
known as Turdetania, close to the mouth of the Guadalquivir river, developed significantly during
the first half of the 1st millennium BCE. But the archaeological verification is very problematic,
given the radical geographical transformation of the environment and the intense occupation of all
the urban centers by the civilizations that followed. Whether or not a city of Tartessos
existed, it is unlikely that it was the capital of a state of large territorial dimensions;
if it was, it is impossible to determine what its effective territory would have been limited
to the riverside cities and the urban, rural and metallurgical centers of the lower Guadalquivir,
or whether it would extend its influence further inland, as far as Córdoba.
The discovery of Troy, Mycenae and Knossos by analyzing of the works of classical authors
encouraged the German professor Adolf Schulten to search for the location of the city of Tartessos
in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula. Through reading ancient sources, such as the poem Ora
Maritima by Avienius, Schulten concluded that the mythical city would be located in Cerro del Trigo,
also known as Doñana. In 1926, he conducted archaeological excavations at the site.
However, he only managed to locate a Roman fishing village.
Schulten’s view has proved untenable. But his work did help chip at some of
the prejudices about the history of Tartessos, encouraging the study of this legendary place.
Some people doubt whether I would ever give credence to legendary stories about
lost civilizations, but when the conclusions are reasonable, I do.
And the existence of Tartessos is an example. Although absolute verification is not there,
and I would not at this point go so far as to say it definitely existed,
I do think it is reasonable to suppose its existence, because it fits the historical context.
A good case has been made that modern Huelva was once Tartessos. Material
evidence there shows that there were silver mines, and that by the Late Bronze Age,
silver extraction reached industrial proportions. Foreign materials have also been found there,
suggesting that the harbor of Huelva was a major trading hub visited by people of many lands.
Anyway, after the battle of Alalia, the Greek-Carthaginian conflict over control
of the western Mediterranean that took place in the waters of Corsica in 537 BCE,
Tartessos disappears from the written sources as an existing civilization, and the material
culture of the area of Tartessian influence enters a stage of decadence too. There are many theories
surrounding this topic, from external causes; like a supposed imposition of Carthaginian territorial
colonization, which would have destroyed Tartessos political entity; to endogenous causes;
like the gradual manifestation of exhaustion of the most easily exploitable veins of tin;
the decline of the Phoenician colonial trade; the rupture of the overland tin route (which got
controlled by the Greeks of Massalia) and would have led the native cultures back to an almost
exclusively agricultural and livestock economy, and to the technological change from bronze to
iron. Nevertheless, the Turdetani, the people inhabiting the area at the arrival of the Romans,
were still seen as the richest and most culturally developed of the entire peninsula.
I hope that answered your question. It was a good one. And if you, viewer, would like to have
a question answered in a video, you can submit one on my voicemail at speakpipe.com/DavidMiano.
And if you would like to support this channel, the best way to do that is to become a patron at
patreon.com/WorldofAntiquity. Alternately, you can press the Super Thanks button.
You might like my little e-booklet, "Why Ancient History Matters." It's designed to persuade people
that the subject is important, even in the modern world. You might also wish to use it
to help spread the word, so feel free to share it with someone you know. It's free for anyone who
wants it. I've left a link in the description box below the video for you to grab a copy.
Catch you later.