Definition of Tartessos and its Civilization

There are civilizations that, by one or the other reason, have become part of something more than purely history, to enter partially or fully into the terrain of legend. This is the case of Tartessos and his civilization, which many identify with the mythological Atlantis.

The location of the Tartessian civilization, identified by the Greeks as the first from the West and very advanced, which would have been born in late bronze and the first age of the iron.

Regarding where we could find his remains, the most likely option is the current southern Spain (western Andalusia and Extremadura), around the Guadalquivir river, which in ancient times could have been called, precisely, the river Tartessos.

However, its location varies according to the authors, either slightly (taking, for example, part of the current Portuguese Algarve), to the mouth of the Ebro river, taking part of Catalonia, Aragon, and Valencia.

We know of Tartessos thanks to the Greek historian Herodotus, who speaks of the great wealth that said civilization accumulated.

Herodotus is considered "the father of history", since he was the first to systematize the study of this discipline, and although his method incorporates legendary accounts and sources unreliable in the eyes of modern historians, it was far advanced for his time, and he often traveled himself to work and investigatein situ.

Some scholars have also wanted to see references in the Bible to Tartessos, specifically with the name of Tarsis, but there are those who think that such Tarsis corresponds to the current Aqaba, in the peninsula of the Sinai.

The Tartessians were contemporaries of the first Phoenician settlements in the south of the Iberian Peninsula.

The Phoenicians were a people that traded throughout the Mediterranean, rivaled the Greeks and ended up being absorbed by the Persian Empire. When they arrived in the Iberian Peninsula, the Tartessian civilization was probably already fully developed, but The Phoenician influence could have brought about social changes, more or less profound according to the opinion of the authors that they explain.

The remains of this culture are scarce and have not been completely deciphered.

So, for example, from your writing only a few stelae and tombstones have reached us, with a spelling similar to the Iberian, but they have not been able to be deciphered yet because it is an unknown language. We are missing a "Rosetta Stone" for this mysterious language.

In some references, the capital of culture is spoken of as Tartessos (hence, in fact, the name of said culture would come from), but the The exact location of this city has not been identified, although other settlements have been identified as possibly linked to said culture.

However, it is all conjecture, and experts do not dare to state categorically that none of the establishments found corresponds to the Tartessian culture. There is even talk of a Tartessian foundation in present-day Seville, one of the most important cities in Spain.

The end of Tartessos is abrupt and mysterious: in the middle of the 6th century BC. C. references to this culture simply disappear.

Was Tartessos the fruit of the confusion of various authors about an Iberian people that received influences from the Phoenician culture? Was it a simple legend? Or a local culture of which, for mysterious reasons, we have not yet been able to find many remains?

Some have wanted to see in this mystery an incarnation of Platonic Atlantis.

The past is, many times, a mystery that we have not yet been able to unravel, and that we may never be able to. I hope to have to modify this soon Article thanks to the discovery of new evidence.

Photo: Fotolia - Denis

Themes in Tartessos and its Civilization