This is the first book in English about the earliest historical
civilization in the western Mediterranean, known as "Tartessos."
Endowed with extraordinary wealth in metals and strategically
positioned between the Atlantic and Mediterranean trading routes at
the time of Greek and Phoenician colonial expansion, Tartessos
flourished in the eight-seventh centuries BCE. Tartessos became a
literate, sophisticated, urban culture in southwestern Iberia
(today's Spain and Portugal), enriched by commercial contacts with
the Aegean and the Levant since at least the ninth century. In its
material culture (architecture, grave goods, sanctuaries, plastic
arts), we see how native elements combined with imported
"orientalizing" innovations introduced by the Phoenicians.
Historians of the rank of Herodotos and Livy, geographers such as
Strabo and Pliny, Greek and Punic periploi and perhaps even
Phoenician and Hebrew texts, testify to the power, wealth, and
prominence of this westernmost Mediterranean civilization.
Archaeologists, in turn, have demonstrated the existence of a
fascinating complex society with both strong local roots and
international flare. Yet for still-mysterious reasons, Tartessos
did not attain a "Classical" period like its peer emerging cultures
did at the same time (Etruscans, Romans, Greeks). This book
combines the expertise of its two authors in archaeology,
philology, and cultural history to present a comprehensive,
coherent, theoretically up-to-date, and informative overview of the
discovery, sources, and debates surrounding this puzzling culture
of ancient Iberia and its complex hybrid identity vis-a-vis the
western Phoenicians. This book will be of great interest to
students of the classics, archaeology and ancient history,
Phoenician-Punic studies, colonization and cultural contact.
General
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