Table Of ContentTARTESSOS
AND THE PHOENICIANS IN IBERIA
Tartessos
and the Phoenicians
in Iberia
SEBASTIÁN CELESTINO
AND CAROLINA LÓPEZ-RUIZ
1
3
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Y entre los muros blancos, juntaron las sangres
MarioMonteforteToledo,1911–2003
Preface, or Why Tartessos Matters
Tartessos is, and has been since the early twentieth century, an
importanttopicinSpanishacademia,evenakeypiecefortherecon-
struction of the pre-Roman history of Iberia, including areas of
Portugal.Itsappearanceinclassicalsources(e.g.,Herodotos,Strabo,
Pliny, and many others) makes it a problem of ancient history, but
ourlackofinternalwrittensourcesotherthanthestill-undeciphered
inscriptionsmeanstheweightoftheinternalevidenceliesinarchae-
ological investigation, and any new pieces of the puzzle (including
epigraphical)arelikelytocomefromthetrenches.Thus,thefieldfalls
between the disciplines of history and prehistory, and has been a
favoriteforancienthistorians,archaeologists,linguists,andepigraph-
ists.Outsideacademiccircles,Tartessosisapopularpointofsouthern
pride,asignpostofsouthernidentity.Hotelsandresidentialcommu-
nities in Seville, Cádiz, and Huelva proudly wear its name, even a
miningcompanyoperatinginRíoTinto.ItisnotraretofindT-shirts
and souvenirs in the streets of Andalusia’s most touristic quarters
(even in the rest of Spain) that also propagate the symbols of the
oldestknownfar-westerncivilization.
On the international stage, however, Tartessos, if at all known,
resonates as no more than a semi-legendary classical name or a
footnote for the Phoenician and Carthaginian western enterprises.
While a lot would have to change for it to gain the international
prestigeandpopularrecognitionofothercontemporarycivilizations,
such as the Etruscans, Tartessos is still under-used in discussions of
theculturaltransformationsintheMediterraneanwestofGreece;one
could say it is the missing piece in an orientalizing horizon that
involved European peoples from Portugal and Spain to Etruria,
Sardinia, and North Africa. Like these other cases, Tartessos is
“good to think with” for anyone interested in colonization, cultural
contact,andethnicity,andhowtodealwithcultureswherewedonot
havetheluxuryofself-generatedwrittenhistoricalnarratives.Inthis
context there is a need to better understand the dynamics between
these local populations that in the eighth century onwards entered
international circuits and embraced their own versions of the new
formsofart,technology,andurbanization.Amongthoseinthewest,
viii Preface,orWhyTartessosMatters
Tartessos in ancient Iberia truly stands out for the importance it
seemed to have had in the Greek imagination, but also as one of
earliest literate indigenous cultures in the west. In other words,
Tartessosisafertilelaboratoryforthecollaborationbetweenarchae-
ologists,historians,andphilologists,andwewanttohighlightinthis
volume the importance of both types of sources (material and writ-
ten)ifwewanttoadvance inourinterpretations.Tartessos,further-
more, developed in a space that defies modern boundaries, as it
crosses regions (Andalusia, Extremadura) and countries (Spain and
Portugal).ThestudyofPhoenicianpresenceintheTagusValleyand
the Algarve has in fact been one of the most exciting areas of
expansionofIberianproto-history(cf.Map7).Tartessosis,therefore,
awelcomeadditiontothestudyoftheMediterraneanasaconduitfor
the interweaving of cultures across historical periodizations and dis-
ciplinary boundaries, a trend that has been promoted by the longe
duréeapproachinthelastdecade.
This book is the result of the collaboration between two scholars
withverydifferentbackgroundsandacommoninterestinTartessos,
the Phoenicians, and the orientalizing and archaic Mediterranean.
Sebastián Celestino comes to this project as one of the foremost
archaeologists in Spain, a most active scholar both in the field and
inscholarlydebatesabouttheperiod.Withanintimateknowledgeof
theLateBronzeAgeandEarlyIronAgearchaeologicallandscapesof
Iberia, Sebastián stands out for his realistic and sound vision of the
challenges and limitations of reconstructing the culture we call Tar-
tessic. Carolina López-Ruiz, on the other hand, is a classicist who
came to Tartessos through her interest in Greek and Phoenician
colonization in the west and in the question of cultural exchange in
the Mediterranean, with a background in philology and cultural
history. These two angles had already converged in a previous col-
laborationbetweenus,andwehopetobringthesamecombinationof
perspectives and skills to this book, highlighting the importance of
drawing from both archaeology and written sources, as well as from
thecurrentdebatesinculturalstudies.
Weembarkedonthisprojectasaresultoftheconvictionthattwo
factors made it necessary: one, the absence of a synthesis about this
topic in English, andtwo,the impassethat Tartessic studies seem to
havereachedinSpainitself.Asifreachingaplateaufollowingmany
decades of intermittent advancements, we feel that archaeologists
and historians are generally trapped in their internal debates on old
Preface,orWhyTartessosMatters ix
conceptualandmethodologicaldifferences,whilenotenoughisbeing
done to integrate Tartessos into the broader international debate on
cultural exchange and colonization in the Mediterranean. We hope
ourcoordinatedeffortwillcontributetobringinginnewperspectives
andstimulatinginternaldialogue.
Atthesametime,wewantedtobringthiscultureofancientIberia
totheattentionoftheAnglophonepublic.SomeworksinEnglishin
thelastdecadehavebroughttheworldofthePhoeniciansintheWest
andinIberiaclosertoagreaterpublic.Themainpointofreferencein
English-speakingcirclesbecame MariaEugeniaAubet’sThePhoeni-
ciansintheWest(1993),withamorerecentEnglisheditionin2001;
thiswasatranslationofhermonographTiroylascoloniasfeniciasde
occidente(1987,reeditedin1994and2009),alandmarkmonograph
in Spain itself. In the last fifteen years, scholarship on the topic in
English has exponentially increased, if just by three other new vol-
umes. In 2002, Marilyn Bierling and Seymour Gitin presented a
selectionoftranslatedarticlesbySpanishscholarsonthearchaeology
of the Phoenicians in Spain. Two other volumes have since then
appeared: a monograph by Ann Neville (2007) and a volume edited
by Michael Dietler and Carolina López-Ruiz (2009). Although inev-
itably interaction between colonial and local cultures is treated in
these volumes (and the occasional piece on Iberia has appeared in
other volumes about colonization), no English monograph has been
devoted to Tartessos by itself, in stark contrast with the over thirty
monographsandeditedvolumesinSpanish.Tartessoshas,therefore,
remained a stranger among other, better known, archaic cultures of
theMediterraneancountries,asatelliteofthePhoenicians,asitwere.
Wehopethatthismonographwillserveasintroductiontoabroader
readership, both academic and non-academic, providing a spring-
boardfromwheresomemightthenpursuetheirownresearchinthe
fieldandcontributetoitsgrowthoutsidetheIberianshores.
Because of its intentionally synthetic nature, this monograph
avoids the technical detail of the specialized archaeological publica-
tions, aiming for a thorough but quicker overview of the material
evidence.Wehaveaimedtoprovideanholisticviewofwhatweknow
about the Tartessic culture and the main problems of its interpret-
ation, pointing also to further avenues of research. We point to the
mainupdatedbibliographyformoreinformationanddetailsoneach
area,andweincludeandglosssometechnicaltermsinSpanish(e.g.,
“toréutica” for the study of bronze, “retícula bruñida” for a specific
