# Humanities & Anthropology > History & Civilisations >  Tartessian Site-Ritual slaughter of 16 horses

## Angela

The archaeologists are also positing that the ritual slaughter of the horses at this Tartessian site in Extremadura around the fifth century BC was part of the intentional destruction of their sanctuary and abandonment of the site on the eve of the arrival of Celtic speaking tribes.

I've never heard of this. Perhaps others can chime in. 
See:
https://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogs...zkWrsYhEyeP.97

"In the fifth century before the Christian era, there was a massive two-story building standing here, in the demarcation of Las Vegas del Guadiana, in Badajoz province. The building – the first surviving one of its kind from that era to be discovered – had a monumental staircase rising two-and-a-half meters. And it was made with materials and techniques that researchers thought had not been in use in the Western Mediterranean until much later."

"Half of the steps were made by stacking up large, rectangular blocks, but the builders did not use hewn stone as the Greeks did. Instead, they used a mortar made with calcium oxide and powdered granite, which was probably poured into molds, in something like an early form of cement. Except that this took place a full century before the first documented cement-like material, opus caementicium, began to be used in the Roman Empire."

Half of the steps were made by stacking up large, rectangular blocks, but the builders did not use hewn stone as the Greeks did. Instead, they used a mortar made with calcium oxide and powdered granite, which was probably poured into molds, in something like an early form of cement. Except that this took place a full century before the first documented cement-like material, opus caementicium, began to be used in the Roman Empire."

"To one side of this astounding staircase, archaeologists found the bodies of two horses placed in an anatomical position, wearing all of their apparel, which clearly suggests a ritual sacrifice: these animals were a sign of luxury at the time, and not killed for food. On the other side of the staircase, however, there are the remains of a cow, which dwellers apparently feasted on.

All of the above had investigators positing that there was a great celebration held at the site, right before the building was destroyed. However, the discoveries did not end there. At the foot of the staircase the archaeologists discovered the remains of 16 horses, two bulls and a pig, all of which tell the story of a costly sacrifice as a ritual of closure before the final destruction of the sanctuary.

"The sacrifice consisted of a great offering to the gods before finally leaving the place", explains Celestino. "It gives an idea of the enormous wealth of the site, because the horse was an element of prestige. In addition to the numerous animals that have been slaughtered and the discovery at the site of numerous amphorae and baskets with cereals and other items of great value, we get some idea of the importance of this final sacrifice prior to the destruction of the monument and its subsequent abandonment."

""Equally striking", says Celestino, "was the discovery of a complete regalia for the celebration of a communal feast in the south room. It is a set of very good quality wares, among which stands out a huge cauldron, two jars, a grill, several skewers for the meat, a burner, strainers and other types of utensils... all made in bronze. There were also a large number of plates and cups painted with red bands imitating Greek wares. In the surroundings of the room were many bones and shells resulting from the final feast."

Most of the buildings from the era were located in the middle valley of the Guadiana River, an area that went through a deep economic crisis in the 6th century BC, then sustained large waves of immigration emanating from the central nucleus of Tartessos on the Guadalquivir, in modern-day Huelva.

In the late 5th or early 4th century, faced with the imminent arrival of Celtic tribes from the north, the local residents decided to raze their own buildings rather than watch them get pillaged by the invaders."

This seems like an awful lot of conjecture to me.

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## Pygmalion

Where is the evidence for Huelva being Tartessos? the names are completely different and Huelva was a Phoenician colony. I mean it's a possibility but I wouldn't go around calling it "Tartessos" if I were an archaeologist.

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## Angela

> Where is the evidence for Huelva being Tartessos? the names are completely different and Huelva was a Phoenician colony. I mean it's a possibility but I wouldn't go around calling it "Tartessos" if I were an archaeologist.


The link to the Tartessians is supported by many archaeologists. The Phoenicians would have come later.

"J.M. Luzón was the first to identify Tartessos with modern Huelva,[14] based on discoveries made in the preceding decades. Since the discovery in September 1958 of the rich gold treasure of El Carambolo in Camas, three km west of Seville,[15] and of hundreds of artifacts in the necropolis at La Joya, Huelva,[16] 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 the supposed Tartessian culture on the ground, concentrated in western Andalusia, Extremadura and in southern Portugal from the Algarve to the Vinalopó River in Alicante.[17]"

"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 Mediterranean 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."

"The existence of foreign produce and materials together with local ones suggests that the old Huelva harbor was 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 thousands of Greek ceramics, some of which are works of excellent quality by known potters and painters, and also suggests that this habitat can be identified not only with Tarshish mentioned in the Bible, in the Assyrian stele of Esarhaddon 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.[22] [23][24]"

_https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tartessos

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## Pygmalion

Yes I already knew there was already a large indigenous settlement there which was already visited by Sardinians before the Phoenicians came, but I don't see why it would be named Tartessus if the name was Onoba which is obviously a completely different name, and about the Nora stone mentioning TRSS AKA Tarshish, Cross reads it as a refinery town in Sardinia, but there are like a dozen different translations for that document so it's not very straightforward, I had read that TRSS might have been a name for regions and towns linked to silver, I don't know how reliable that is.

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## Carlos

There has been much speculation about the end of Tartessos. This finding with the sacrificed horses, my hypothesis on this burial of the whole farm, horses e.t.c. it could be due to a judicial act to the owner of the farm with the result of guilty for some litigation and the court ruling could be to erase its properties from the face of the earth.

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## halfalp

Are they linking the horse ritual with Tartessians or the newcomers ? Because where we found ritual with horses we also see domestication of horse and Iberia is also fought by some that a non-related eurasian steppe domestication of the horse happened. Edit. Nevermind they believe Celts only arrived in Southern Spain between the 5 and 4 Centuries BC...

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## Carlos

I think everything was organized by the owner of the farm, and he did it because his assets and possibilities were as they wanted, the reasons are difficult to know, maybe he did not want to leave everything to his son, maybe he had no heirs, perhaps the Public Treasury Tartessa demanded high taxes and threw down the middle street and prepared a grand finale.

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## Angela

@Half Alp,

All of Iberia was by no means Celtic speaking at the time of the arrival of the Carthaginians. The authors are correct.


For years they were stalled at the Tagus River.

@Carlos, 
This wasn't a farm. It was a ritual site, a large and impressive one at that, which must have serviced the whole community. 

From what I've been able to find, it is commonly held that these people destroyed their own buildings. Strange.

It's commonly believed among archaeologists that these people destroyed their own settlements. Strange if true.

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## Carlos

[QUOTE = Angela; 530266] @Half Alp, 

toda Iberia no era de ninguna manera hablante celta en el momento de la llegada de los cartagineses. Los autores son correctos. 


Durante años se estancaron en el río Tajo. 

@Carlos, 
esto no era una granja. Era un sitio ritual, uno grande e impresionante, que debe haber servido a toda la comunidad. 

Por lo que he podido encontrar, comúnmente se sostiene que estas personas destruyeron sus propios edificios. Extraño. 

Se cree comúnmente entre los arqueólogos que estas personas destruyeron sus propios asentamientos. Extraño si es cierto. [/ QUOTE]

Change farm by building, but anyway I do not think it is a ritual site. I do not know if it's destroyed, maybe buried and abandoned.


If you want a ritual site or that you use the whole community you should find the representation of the deity; Although they still have to dig more. I see it more as an action of an individual, be governor, noble, e.t.c. that makes that particular decision to make the sacrifice of animals, the banquet and the subsequent march, maybe appear buried right there, we'll see.

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## halfalp

> @Half Alp,
> 
> All of Iberia was by no means Celtic speaking at the time of the arrival of the Carthaginians. The authors are correct.
> 
> 
> For years they were stalled at the Tagus River.
> 
> @Carlos, 
> This wasn't a farm. It was a ritual site, a large and impressive one at that, which must have serviced the whole community. 
> ...


Iberia was never 100% celtic, but celtiberii and lusitanii must have been in their respective country at the time of the Tartessos, idk a lot about the timeframe of Tartessos but if i recall they found some Tartessian ruler names that looked very celtic-like. For me the paper states that local were replaced by celtic newcomers, but its more like local ( Iberian ) celtic people would replaced local non-celtic people. Or we talking about newcomers with La Tène cultural package ?

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## Carlos

I do not know where I read that the tartessos used people from the north of Spain for their army. Even in a period the Phoenicians achieve a symbiosis with Tartessos and integrate with the tartessos in mixed marriages. I do not think that the end of Tartessos was due to some wave of people from outside the area, rather it was due to the evolution of time, industrial changes, changes of route, commercial competition.


Everything would be much more destroyed if Tartessos had succumbed to foreign invasions, and the Tartessos had experience in dealing with or struggling with other peoples, and it would have to have been an invasion like the ones that Rome suffered at the time and there are no signs of it. It's over as everything ends, nothing is forever, and times change.

PD: I do not think any country can say that it was Celtic one hundred percent, although there are countries that believe they have a monopoly of the Celtic world.

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## Angela

> Iberia was never 100% celtic, but celtiberii and lusitanii must have been in their respective country at the time of the Tartessos, idk a lot about the timeframe of Tartessos but if i recall they found some Tartessian ruler names that looked very celtic-like. For me the paper states that local were replaced by celtic newcomers, but its more like local ( Iberian ) celtic people would replaced local non-celtic people. Or we talking about newcomers with La Tène cultural package ?


Well, the Celtic speakers *became* local in their own areas. However, like I said, they stalled for a long time at the Tagus, and were never along the eastern strip. They certainly weren't local in the Tartessian speaking areas, and not local anywhere in Iberia until relatively late. Plus, Iberians are very low in "steppe", so by the time the Celtic speakers arrived they must have been well and truly mixed with MN/LN mixed EEF/WHG ancestry, and that's before admixing with locals. 

You can see in the map where they had gotten by 300 BC.

It's basically the same story all over Europe, it's just that the Indo-European speakers arrived later in southern Europe, and pockets of non-Indo-European speakers remained for a long time. 

You have to read the paper: this was a magnificent and very advanced large building, with technology probably adopted through ties with the Phoenicians. 

This isn't the only culture that seems to have destroyed its own settlements. It happened in CT. No one really knows what happened, although there are a lot of theories. 

This is a more detailed look at Tartessor. It seems that the Phoenicians and the locals had a very symbiotic, collaborative relationship all over Spain. The Phoenician areas were not even fortified here it seems, while the ones in Sardinia were called "fortified factories" for a reason. Here, instead of the fabrication being done in large centers, it seems that the locals did it in their homes. This symbiosis made the local elites very rich, but it also had negative consequences. 

"While the Phoenicians profitably traded the Spanish metals in overseas regions, thus creating the long-living legend of Tartessos, the indigenous people partnering with them in the mining business benefitted by controlling the mines or by providing food, manpower, and wood. They gained possession of luxurious goods from the Far East, which were used not only to increase their own consumerist desires, but more importantly to create a whole new form of redistribution-based hierarchy in south-western Spain. In the late 9th century BCE the members of the different dynasties forming this hierarchy began to have themselves entombed representatively in impressive grave-mounds, of which a few could be excavated. Such tumuli originally housed one individual in the center but were filled with other burials over time. As is proven in multiple cases by the analysis of bones, the people buried alongside each other in a single tumulus belonged exclusively to one family.Following Phoenician tradition, the cremated remains of the decayed were stored together with the grave goods in an urn. The usual grave goods consist in bronze vessels and jewelry made of bronze (fibulas and belt-buckles), both often showing Phoenician influence. These offerings vary from tomb to tomb, so that there cannot be created a typical ensemble for a Tartessian noblemen. There are, however, a handful of Tartessian tombs that stand out in precious and unique grave goods as well as in labor dedicated to the tombs’ construction. In Huelvas necropolis La Joya we encounter an exceptional burial in a huge tumulus dating to the 7th century BCE, which covered a sole burial in an ample stone chamber. The deceased was accompanied (amongst other) by not only two most valuable iron knifes with handles made of ivory and a rare bronze thymaterion, but also by a complete two-wheeled chariota la mode oriental, made completely out of bronze. This tomb illustrates to what extent the elites of Tartessian society profited from the contact to the Phoenicians and that they presented themselves to a great extent in oriental fashion."

"Beginning in the early 6th century BCE, signs of decline are found all over Tartessos. The villages around the Tartessian gulf, some of them existing for barely 50 years, were given up one after another. The mines of the Rio Tinto region were closed, and related industries stopped flourishing and were left completely. Tartessian burials now show a mere martial atmosphere and fewer signs of Phoenician imports – instead Greek ceramics began to circulate more widely in south-western Spain.Many of those developments are connected more or less to the leaving of the Phoenicians. After years of ongoing struggle, the Phoenicians lost their homeland to the Persians and began to subsequently abandon their colonies in Spain. Tartessian communities could not handle this waning of their economies’ most important pillar, and their elites could not sustain their newly formed hierarchy anymore. All the structures defining Tartessian culture faded with the leaving of the Phoenicians and native people returned to a status quo, much resembling pre-Phoenician times."

https://www.ancient.eu/tartessos/

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## Carlos

A good teaching of prosperity when peoples interrelate and form alliances, much more productive for all than building walls. Although equally in one way or another nothing is forever.

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## Ygorcs

> It's commonly believed among archaeologists that these people destroyed their own settlements. Strange if true.


This was also a usual practice in ancient Scandinavia. Some of the most impressively built constructions, which apparently served at least dozens of people, were eventually destroyed by their own people, which was apparently accompanied by some rituals. According to what I've read, some scholars believe that, cosmologically, those were religious or ceremonial places and the believers thought that buildings also hosted some kind of soul or energy that, like humans, eventually finishes its mission on earth and is ritually buried.

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## Ygorcs

> Iberia was never 100% celtic, but celtiberii and lusitanii must have been in their respective country at the time of the Tartessos, idk a lot about the timeframe of Tartessos but if i recall they found some Tartessian ruler names that looked very celtic-like. For me the paper states that local were replaced by celtic newcomers, but its more like local ( Iberian ) celtic people would replaced local non-celtic people. Or we talking about newcomers with La Tène cultural package ?


It is debatable if Lusitanians were really Celtic or just, like Italic tribes, long separated cousins of the "real" Celts that arrived only much later after the Hallstatt and La Tène expansions.

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## Pygmalion

> This is a more detailed look at Tartessor. It seems that the Phoenicians and the locals had a very symbiotic, collaborative relationship all over Spain. The Phoenician areas were not even fortified here it seems, while the ones in Sardinia were called "fortified factories" for a reason. Here, instead of the fabrication being done in large centers, it seems that the locals did it in their homes. This symbiosis made the local elites very rich, but it also had negative consequences.


Only one of the towns at Monte Sirai was fortified during the Phoenician era, and it was more of a factory, furthermore it was made up of mostly natives like all the towns, with many of the houses having a completely Nuragic plant and the factory itself being built around a Nuraghe used as a temple, with a sacred area with mostly Nuragic motifs, it was apparently destroyed during the Carthaginian conquest around the 6th century bc, like all of the so called "Phoenician" towns in Sardinia, which were destroyed in a fire by Carthaginians, who were probably trying to have a trade monopoly over the Western Mediterranean, with the destruction of the Sardo-Phoenician towns at the hands of Carthage we see Sardinian pottery and goods gradually disappearing all over the Mediterranean.

This is why archaeologists agree that the first waves of Phoenician settlers (9-7th century bc) directly from Tyre and the other Phoenician towns were well integrated into native centers and peacefully collaborated with the Nuragics, while the Carthaginians who invaded the island in the 6th century bc were warlike and destroyed the Sardo-Phoenician centers.

By the way there are centers which were 100% native where the Sardinians and Phoenicians cooperated, such as Sant'Imbenia in North West Sardinia, or S'Urachi in the Sinis Peninsula.
Sant'Imbenia was particularly important because the amphorae produced there were of mixed Sardinian and Phoenician tradition and were found in considerable numbers in all of the Western Mediterranean including many sites in Iberia and North Africa.

http://www.academia.edu/29053155/Rip...nuove_evidenze

http://www.academia.edu/8149449/Sant...14_pp._471-486

http://www.academia.edu/21538897/Lab...15_pp._359-365

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## halfalp

It's pretty certain that Phoenicians men have married some local women, daughters of fathers that would have some interests with making buisness with the newcomers traders. This is a social and cultural pattern that we can see in every step of human history and in every place around the world. So i never really believe in the " only traders outposts " of Phoenicians.

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## halfalp

> It is debatable if Lusitanians were really Celtic or just, like Italic tribes, long separated cousins of the "real" Celts that arrived only much later after the Hallstatt and La Tène expansions.


Yes i know about the Lusitanii ethnolinguistic controversy, i was just saying that at this time, those local indo-europeans were more locals than newcomers.

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## halfalp

> Well, the Celtic speakers *became* local in their own areas. However, like I said, they stalled for a long time at the Tagus, and were never along the eastern strip. They certainly weren't local in the Tartessian speaking areas, and not local anywhere in Iberia until relatively late. Plus, Iberians are very low in "steppe", so by the time the Celtic speakers arrived they must have been well and truly mixed with MN/LN mixed EEF/WHG ancestry, and that's before admixing with locals. 
> 
> You can see in the map where they had gotten by 300 BC.
> 
> It's basically the same story all over Europe, it's just that the Indo-European speakers arrived later in southern Europe, and pockets of non-Indo-European speakers remained for a long time. 
> 
> You have to read the paper: this was a magnificent and very advanced large building, with technology probably adopted through ties with the Phoenicians. 
> 
> This isn't the only culture that seems to have destroyed its own settlements. It happened in CT. No one really knows what happened, although there are a lot of theories. 
> ...


Yep i'm ok with that, for some reason when you said Tagus i fought Ebro, but yes in the Meseta and around the Tagus was the local place of the Celtiberii. Its strange how urban civilization like Tartessos always disappeard with the appareance of more pastoral or rural people, when other rural people like the Iberii were not really touched by such and only a great disciplined army like the roman ones could conquered them.

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## Carlos

[QUOTE = halfalp; 530440] Es bastante cierto que los hombres de Phoenicians se han casado con algunas mujeres locales, hijas de padres que tendrían algún interés en hacer negocios con los comerciantes recién llegados. Este es un patrón social y cultural que podemos ver en cada paso de la historia humana y en cada lugar del mundo. Así que nunca creo realmente en los "únicos puestos de avanzada de comerciantes" de los fenicios. [/ QUOTE]

The foundation of Cádiz (walled enclosure) by the Phoenicians would be the beginning of a new Tartessos with time, and also eventually its end.


Founding a city next to the kingdom of Tartessos must have been hard, because in the beginning I do not believe that the tartessos received the Phoenicians with open arms, the city of Cádiz was walled and the vigilance of the city was uninterrupted, it must have been a labor patient from the Phoenicians to gain the confidence of the tartessos and that they saw that the alliance with Phoenicians would be more positive than negative.

l o l

*They identify Phoenician DNA in skeletal remains of two corpses found in the Comic Theater*


They identify Phoenician DNA in skeletal remains of two corpses found in the Comic Theater

Thus, in the first individual several genetic lines have been detected (haplogroups HVOa1 and U1A) that are found primarily in populations of the Near East, where the Phoenician presence was more notable. That is to say, we are facing a subject of Phoenician origin of first or second generation (son of Phoenician father and mother settled in Gadir). The second subject is remarkably different from the previous one, because although genetic markers linked to geographic populations coinciding with ancient Phenicia have been detected (Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, with haplogroups K and HV1), haplogroup H, the highest presence in Western Europe.

http://www.europapress.es/andalucia/...214144746.html

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## Pygmalion

> [QUOTE = halfalp; 530440] Es bastante cierto que los hombres de Phoenicians se han casado con algunas mujeres locales, hijas de padres que tendrían algún interés en hacer negocios con los comerciantes recién llegados. Este es un patrón social y cultural que podemos ver en cada paso de la historia humana y en cada lugar del mundo. Así que nunca creo realmente en los "únicos puestos de avanzada de comerciantes" de los fenicios. [/ QUOTE]
> 
> The foundation of Cádiz (walled enclosure) by the Phoenicians would be the beginning of a new Tartessos with time, and also eventually its end.
> 
> 
> Founding a city next to the kingdom of Tartessos must have been hard, because in the beginning I do not believe that the tartessos received the Phoenicians with open arms, the city of Cádiz was walled and the vigilance of the city was uninterrupted, it must have been a labor patient from the Phoenicians to gain the confidence of the tartessos and that they saw that the alliance with Phoenicians would be more positive than negative.
> 
> l o l
> 
> ...


I doubt it was hard, thousands of Phoenician pottery shards were found in Huelva, there was a lot of collaboration between the natives and the Phoenicians. Assuming the hut village of Huelva was Tartessos, as it was the biggest native site in Andalusia (20 hectares):

"Among the 8009 pottery shards studied, which just represent the
9% of the total fragments found, 4,703 are autochthonous, 3233 Phoenician, 33 Greek, 8 are Cypriot, 40 are Sardinian
and 2 are from Thyrrenian peninsular Italy
It has also been observed that in the calculation of fragments if we were limited to selecting the edges and the funds, the gap between the indigenous and the Phoenician materials would even be reversed in favor of the
second, with 3112 vessels imported against the 3000 of local production (González de Canales, Serrano and Llompart, 2006, 107)."

"Regarding the Phoenician materials- This is without a doubt the most ancient ceramic ensemble found in the Iberian Peninsula, prior to the foundation of the first colonies (Ramon Tor-
res, 2010, 218), characterized by luxury "services" from the motherland
(González de Canales, Serrano and Llompart, 2006, 108-109"

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## Angela

> It's pretty certain that Phoenicians men have married some local women, daughters of fathers that would have some interests with making buisness with the newcomers traders. This is a social and cultural pattern that we can see in every step of human history and in every place around the world. So i never really believe in the " only traders outposts " of Phoenicians.


Traders often marry or mate with local women. That has never really been controversial in terms of the Phoenicians.

There is indeed a difference between establishing trading outposts, whether or not there is admixture with locals, and establishing expansive colonies fueled by large migrations of people. Even in the latter in some cases there is admixture, and in some cases there is not. 

In the concession system established by European traders in China, the numbers were few and there wasn't very much admixture, perhaps partly because they brought their own women with them. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concessions_in_China

In India, the Jewish traders were few, and they did admix with the natives, producing the Cochin Jews.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochin_Jews

In South Africa, the Dutch settlers were colonizers in the true sense, and they were many, but they didn't admix except in the very beginning when it was mostly men. That's the origin of the Afrikaner community.

In "Latin America", large numbers of actual settlers arrived, but it was largely male mediated in the beginning, so there was admixture. Later, the number of women increased.

I think you're likely to get significant change in the local genetic signature only if you have large numbers of settlers, and those settlers admix with the locals. You might get some founder effects in terms of the "y" however. However, even that isn't guaranteed.

Every situation is different. What we do know is that the Phoenician settlements were quite different from the Greek ones. Now, if that's because they didn't choose to, or because they didn't have the numbers willing or forced to emigrate, I don't know.

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## Ygorcs

> Yes i know about the Lusitanii ethnolinguistic controversy, i was just saying that at this time, those local indo-europeans were more locals than newcomers.


Probably, at least in genetic terms, but apart from the previous Corded Ware or Yamnaya territory I think that's also true for any other IE-speaking region in Europe or Asia.

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## Carlos

https://elpais.com/elpais/2018/02/13...rno_rsoc=FB_CM

The possibility that the burning and burying of this building as of others of the same time and territory tartesso could be due to some climatological alteration or epidemic is considered. I believe that it could be due to Tartessa jurisprudence coming from the capital of Tartessos, closing places, towns or buildings where Tartessian laws had been transgressed. If certain populations some distance from the capital of Tartessos could have developed and prospered to the point of having united to conspire against the capital and the strong core of Tartessos and the punishment could have been to force these conspiratorial communities to close and settle because if If it had been a climate change, they could have moved to another part of the kingdom with animals and goods. If a pandemic were involved, human remains would have been found and with a virus that is killing you, there would be little need for feasts and celebrations.

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## Pygmalion

And what would the capital of Tartessos be? There's no evidence that the tartessian culture was an unified state, they were rural settlements. The only urban center in the area was Huelva which by the 7th century bc was a Phoenician colony.

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## Angela

Or maybe it was what was implied: the approach of the Indo-European speaking peoples?

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## Pygmalion

Yes, it might have been the Celts, the Tartessian speaking area comprised Southern portugal too, as proven by some Tartessian stelae found there, but later during the Roman era that area was inhabited by Celtic speaking people, correct me if I'm wrong.

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## Carlos

[QUOTE = Pigmalión; 533056] ¿Y cuál sería la capital de Tartessos? No hay evidencia de que la cultura tartessian fuera un estado unificado, eran asentamientos rurales. El único centro urbano de la zona era Huelva, que en el siglo VII a. C. era una colonia fenicia. [/ QUOTE]


The economic and cultural splendor of this civilization was due to its great wealth in natural resources (agriculture, livestock, fishing and mining) and its commercial relations with the peoples of the Mediterranean (in Europe and Africa).

His wealth par excellence were metals, especially gold, silver, tin and bronze that were already extracted in the s. X a.C. In fact Tartessos became the main supplier of the Mediterranean bronze and silver.

Man, rural, rural, I think a lot more.

It is unknown where the capital of Tartessos could be, logically a kingdom with such splendor and expansion had to have an important nucleus or capital, the world is like that, I doubt it could be otherwise. It takes a lot of economic investment and it goes very slow, with the building recently found in Extremadura there are difficulties in research due to lack of investment, and specialists need it. I think it would be important a help from the U.E. or other countries because of the great importance that this culture has for the history of Europe, the West and the Mediterranean countries.

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## Pygmalion

It wasn't the only supplier of silver in the Mediterranean, the Tell Dor hoard (http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue35/6/2.html) shows that silver came to the Levant from either Sardinia or Spain, and it's likely that the name Tartessos came from the term Tarshish, which might have been a name for areas rich in silver, anyway it doesn't seem to have been a city but more like a region. My point is that there's no evidence of any urban site aside from those which formed thanks to the Phoenician input in the coasts like Onoba/Huelva. When you're talking about their splendor what are you referring to? The Phoenician treasure of El Carambolo? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_of_El_Carambolo

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## Carlos

> It wasn't the only supplier of silver in the Mediterranean, the Tell Dor hoard (http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue35/6/2.html) shows that silver came to the Levant from either Sardinia or Spain, and it's likely that the name Tartessos came from the term Tarshish, which might have been a name for areas rich in silver, anyway it doesn't seem to have been a city but more like a region. My point is that there's no evidence of any urban site aside from those which formed thanks to the Phoenician input in the coasts like Onoba/Huelva. When you're talking about their splendor what are you referring to? The Phoenician treasure of El Carambolo? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_of_El_Carambolo


There was no splendor and Tartessos was a town with two houses, we were ******* shit, you win the € 1 coin. Is that what you want to hear? do not touch me the eggs.

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## Pygmalion

> There was no splendor and Tartessos was a town with two houses, we were ******* shit, you win the € 1 coin. Is that what you want to hear? do not touch me the eggs.


That's not what I was saying, I'm saying that it wasn't an urban culture, they still developed a written language which is impressive. But I doubt there was a state like entity administrating the small villages.

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## Carlos

[QUOTE = Pigmalión; 533075] Eso no es lo que estaba diciendo, estoy diciendo que no era una cultura urbana, todavía desarrollaron un lenguaje escrito que es impresionante. Pero dudo que haya una entidad estatal que administre las aldeas pequeñas. [/ QUOTE]

From my point of view and in view of the magnitude that reached the kingdom of Tartessos it is unthinkable and impossible that there was not an important nucleus or capital. Was the king of Tartessos simply in one of the villages? we are talking about a State with its own legislation with a good expansion of territory, there must be a capital, which has not been found does not indicate that it did not exist, when there are mentions of the Greek classics of its existence, and even if only by logic.

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## Pygmalion

> [QUOTE = Pigmalión; 533075] Eso no es lo que estaba diciendo, estoy diciendo que no era una cultura urbana, todavía desarrollaron un lenguaje escrito que es impresionante. Pero dudo que haya una entidad estatal que administre las aldeas pequeñas. [/ QUOTE]From my point of view and in view of the magnitude that reached the kingdom of Tartessos it is unthinkable and impossible that there was not an important nucleus or capital. Was the king of Tartessos simply in one of the villages? we are talking about a State with its own legislation with a good expansion of territory, there must be a capital, which has not been found does not indicate that it did not exist, when there are mentions of the Greek classics of its existence, and even if only by logic.


If it was an urban culture we would've found cities by now, but it's mostly villages and isolated mansions. They were certainly advanced since they possessed a script, but I doubt there was a central state, Tartessos probably was the name of South West Iberia, not of a particular city.

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## Carlos

In the 10th century BC the sea flowed a few kilometers south of what is now Seville, leaving behind a wide navigable estuary for the merchants of the time. The neutral space of an island was the place chosen as a base for the redistribution of goods that entered and left by river and the products of the countryside that came from the interior lands. The emporium was known by the name of Ispal and is considered the capital of the kingdom of Tartessos.Sanluqueño researcher Manuel Cuevas has communicated to the Junta de Andalucía what he considers the finding, using satellite photographs, of a large ancient city buried in the pine forest of La Algaida, in Sanlúcar de Barrameda (Cádiz), next to the mouth of the Guadalquivir. The photographs contributed by the researcher, self-taught businessman of 52 years, are taken by satellite at 700 kilometers altitude and later increased and treated, and they show structural forms buried also in the Cerro del Trigo, in the current Doñana park, where the German archaeologist Adolf Schulten located the ancient Tartessos, about six kilometers from La Algaida, but on the other bank of the Guadalquivir river.Cuevas has submitted a letter in the Registry of the Ministry of Culture of Andalusia in which provides the coordinates of what has been interpreted as four large buildings and a village, all of them at least 2,500 years old. One of these structures, building or plaza surrounded by buildings, can measure 360 ​​meters by 180, while another of the structures measures about 180 by 100 meters, constructions of unusual dimensions for that historical period.There is evidence, but there is a lack of investment.

http://www.elmundo.es/andalucia/2015...a328b4573.html

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## Pygmalion

> In the 10th century BC the sea flowed a few kilometers south of what is now Seville, leaving behind a wide navigable estuary for the merchants of the time. The neutral space of an island was the place chosen as a base for the redistribution of goods that entered and left by river and the products of the countryside that came from the interior lands. The emporium was known by the name of Ispal and is considered the capital of the kingdom of Tartessos.Sanluqueño researcher Manuel Cuevas has communicated to the Junta de Andalucía what he considers the finding, using satellite photographs, of a large ancient city buried in the pine forest of La Algaida, in Sanlúcar de Barrameda (Cádiz), next to the mouth of the Guadalquivir. The photographs contributed by the researcher, self-taught businessman of 52 years, are taken by satellite at 700 kilometers altitude and later increased and treated, and they show structural forms buried also in the Cerro del Trigo, in the current Doñana park, where the German archaeologist Adolf Schulten located the ancient Tartessos, about six kilometers from La Algaida, but on the other bank of the Guadalquivir river.Cuevas has submitted a letter in the Registry of the Ministry of Culture of Andalusia in which provides the coordinates of what has been interpreted as four large buildings and a village, all of them at least 2,500 years old. One of these structures, building or plaza surrounded by buildings, can measure 360 ​​meters by 180, while another of the structures measures about 180 by 100 meters, constructions of unusual dimensions for that historical period.There is evidence, but there is a lack of investment.
> 
> http://www.elmundo.es/andalucia/2015...a328b4573.html


Interesting, how have they dated these supposed structures?

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## Carlos

^
It would be to prove that they belong to the hypothetical capital of Tartessos, the only thing we ask is that it can be investigated and that requires pecuniary investment, there would be no lack of passion and desire to work on the project.

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## O Neill

I was going to chime in with Ithaca being cadiz and the home of odysseus. but ill only get told off.
Even though his home had trees and was the furthest west. clearly not the tiny dot of baron land that is not furthest west in greece.
Oh well i can only try (:

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## Carlos

http://sevilla.abc.es/provincia/sevi....foto&ns_fee=0

*A scientific study on an "enigmatic" enclave in Carmona (Sevilla) places it in the third millennium BC

*The research work of this scientific study collected by Europa Press, carried out in 2015 and 2016, made it clear that «the center of the complex (discovered) is occupied by a circular structure with an estimated diameter of 20 meters and an area of 315 square meters ».

Thus, the study prepared by the aforementioned archaeologists describes the site discovered mentioning four fences dug in a "concentric around the large central structure", although the field work also included the discovery of two more ditches more distant from those already described, with different arrangement and "much larger diameter".

Likewise, the report details that the archaeological excavations that followed the aerial photographs and the geomagnetic surveys resulted in the identification of a total of "32 structures" in the main concentration of fences, where such structures were used for pits, "conical" pits or «Cylindrical», circular or oval pools and a «macro negative structure» or large hole 2.2 meters deep and a diameter of 16.5 meters.

*«Ceramic fragments»*

The excavations, moreover, led to the discovery of «ceramic fragments» presumably belonging to «plates, cups or bowls», among other domestic utensils, some of them even decorated.

With such elements on the table, the archaeologists who sign this study collected by Europa Press expose that the area of the Loma del Real Tesoro is located "in a strategic position" with respect to the Guadalquivir River, its Corbones tributary and the Los Alcores escarpment, while the investigation of the ceramic fragments discovered in each of the two sectors in which the archaeological site is divided would suggest that both spaces would have been "contemporary", but perhaps they would have played "different functions".

*The enigma of the Loma del Real Tesoro*

In the first place, the authors of the report pay special attention to the fact that "the arrangement or plan of the five innermost ditches" discovered in sector number two of the archaeological site "seems to gravitate around a giant, deep and still enigmatic localized negative circular mark. in its center". "This huge hole seems to lie in the heart and the origin of the complete system of ditches", archaeologists explain, remembering that these "preliminary impressions" are pending "more analysis".

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## O Neill

http://www.academia.edu/35423441/_Ch...ts_resources._

This is some solid proof of the water level having everything to do with these ring ditch sites.
This ring ditch was half in and half out of water. and was in fact a port on the edge of the swollen river.
The massive ditches is what you would construct to keep the rising water at bay.
It follows that you can work out when they were built by the level of the surrounding water, using charts.
I would not be at all surprised if the ditches were dug before 6000 bc when the sea level was at its most 
severe point. Pottery from the chalcolithic is a marker that they were there at least as early as, and not a
marker for construction date. Those dark patches of soil and sand is a dead give away to there age and its 
far earlier then 2800bc.

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## Carlos

Little or nothing we know of their religious or funeral customs, since not a single necropolis has been found in the lower Guadalquivir corresponding to this time, a fact that baffles researchers and that they attribute this gap in information to chance. However, and in parallel with the absence of cemeteries, there have been findings of weapons and other metallic objects within the rivers, interpretable in some cases as the remains of wrecked ships or warlike actions occurred on its banks, but the relative abundance of These findings and the fact that these occur in areas where there are no cemeteries seems to open the possibility that they were funeral offerings thrown into rivers along with the corpses of the dead.

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## MOESAN

> @Half Alp,
> 
> All of Iberia was by no means Celtic speaking at the time of the arrival of the Carthaginians. The authors are correct.
> 
> 
> For years they were stalled at the Tagus River.
> 
> @Carlos, 
> This wasn't a farm. It was a ritual site, a large and impressive one at that, which must have serviced the whole community. 
> ...


I'm late in this thread and have no clue; but concerning drestruction of settlements, do remember Cucuteni(Tripolye culture did regularly the same with their settlements, before to rebuild them in the same place, if what I red is true.

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## Carlos

Many might think that the fact of having supposedly made a feast in the building was a joyful and happy celebration with hullabaloo, splurge e.t.c. Roman style, but it should not be like that. Maybe it was a very sad act, worse than a wake today.


Forced by the power to disappear from the face of the earth, they had to destroy, destroy everything they had achieved by working hard. A crime for too much prosperity that the Capital of the kingdom could not afford, since these towns to prosper already felt with wings to do business or establish relationships with other peoples without the supervision or consent of the kingdom, conspire and even challenge the State by that motive was condemned to disappear.


There is a horse with severed legs, very symbolic: a bad step has been taken in that place, the bathtub was possibly filled with the blood of the animals. Possibly the people of place could spread through other towns of the kingdom, serve as a lesson to others and perhaps the patriarch was executed.

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## Carlos

https://vimeo.com/151008750?ref=fb-s...ceqBYEF2BPiiJs

Tartessian steppe. (The video is in Spanish, but well, Spanish is a European cult language and probably many of you will be able to understand it)

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