Tartessos? Help me defend Schulten's theories!

[Jay Bee]

Oh, I also fully agree with Harlan's explanation on the abundance of silver in Tartessos. But I think you're missing the point. The Phoenicians exchanged silver for materials of little or no value according to Roman standards (which is also to say Greek standards). That tells me that in the eyes of Diodorus the Phoenicians were cheating on the Tartessians. So, the Tartessians got cheated, this would imply that they were not so mighty. That's the point I wanted to make. But hey, this is just my interpretation.

[Fiera]

Yes, mighty is probably a word that doesn't go together well with the Tartessian Kingdom. However, wealthy and prosperous are.

And such a Kingdom cannot be like the Manhattan Indian tribe.

However, how mighty could get a Kingdom that, according to Schulten's most optimistic theories, was as extense as today's AndalucÃa plus Murcia and probably Alicante (ie, like the southern quarter part of Spain)? At that time, a mighty Kingdom or Empire was that of the Persians, and we know for sure that Tartessos could not be compared to it, and no one (even Schulten) has yet stated so.

The 7th Century bC Greek poleis, on the other hand, were tiny as well when compared to the Persian Empire. So they could see Tartessos as a relatively strong and large land power, in spite of Tartessians having no big cities nor large armies.

[Jay Bee]

Not sure what your point is

PS. Forgot Extremadura, where Cancho Roano is

PPS. You know what? I think I'm gonna buy that Skeptic Encyclopaedia that we talked about a while ago. The best anti-Tartessos essays I have ever seen

PPPS. Don't you feel the anxiety to finish off that Tartessos scenario you were working on?

[Waku]

You've kept me reading for long while guys, thanks

[Fiera]

Originally posted by Jay Bee
Not sure what your point is

You seem to be arguing now that, though Tartessos could have existed, it wasn't a great or mighty kingdom for sure.

My point is that neither Schulten has stated so, nor have no one in this thread so far.

And even further: the concept of mighty is quite relative, a mighty political entity in the Western Mediterranean in the 7th Century bC could well have been a confederation of three tiny semi-villages with an armada consisting of fifteen trirremes. As you already know, Carthago was still a little town in 600 bC, same as the newly born Rome, and none of the Etruscan cities were highly populated back then.

PPPS. Don't you feel the anxiety to finish off that Tartessos scenario you were working on?

Not really. However Harlan's interest on this subject is really encouraging. I hope I'll be able to contribute, if even slightly, to his work.

[Jay Bee]

Originally posted by Fiera
You seem to be arguing now that, though Tartessos could have existed, it wasn't a great or mighty kingdom for sure. My point is that neither Schulten has stated so, nor have no one in this thread so far.

No, I am not arguing now that. Perhaps I used the wrong word. You used the words 'wealthy' and 'prosperous', which I agree with.

[Waku]

http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/8065/herounbe.htm

[Harlan]

What exactly are we arguing about here? I for one, have never read Schulten, and any correspondence between what he says and what I say is pure coincidence. Judging by Fiera's comment that Schulten thinks the Minoans traded directly with the people of England, I'd say his theories are very speculative, to say the least.

I sent Jesus and Fiera a map that I'm creating to help in the making of my scenario. I'd really like to get some feedback on that, esp. regarding which towns to include. Jesus, if you look at that map, the borders of Tartessos is roughly the region around Seville, perhaps extending to Cordoba. That's a far cry from one fourth of Spain - I certainly don't see support for that.

I'm not angry with you Jesus, but I am surprised with your skeptical attitude. Perhaps its because of your scientific field - I don't know what that is, but I'm guessing its in the hard sciences. Over in the "soft" sciences, things are much more fuzzy and soft, and you simply cannot always prove matters in distant history to one's satisfaction. However, the history pages need to be filled with something, and so you have to make a best guess. Since the info on Tartessos is incomplete, a good history book would include caveats of the"to the best of our knowledge, given the limited evidence" kind.

If we took out all the pages of history that are based only on circumstantial evidence, there would be many blank pages. For instance, it has been argued by some that Jesus Christ never existed, because all references to him come from Christians, not neutral sources. Should we change the history books regarding the existence of Jesus?

In fact, there is more evidence that King David existed than Jesus. Just a year or two ago, a dig team working in the exact Davidian era layer came up with a tablet fragment with the word David on it. Not great evidence, but more than there is for Jesus as historical figure, which is zero.

On Jericho by the way, read that Ancient Mysteries book - it covers that topic.

One thing you may forget is that only a tiny fraction of the documents the ancients had access to have come down to us. For instance, we have several mentions of a voyage book written by a Carthaginian called Himilcar (if memory serves), who sailed around Spain to England in the 500s BC. Herotodus and others would have had access to lots of materials of that nature - he was not simply passing on vague hearsay he heard from some guy he met on the street.

Writers after him like Diodorus I cannot vouch for. For one thing, they would have been writing many hundreds of years later, whereas Herodotus mentions Tartessos (in passing, twice, unfortunately) probably only about 70 years after its fall.

Please show me examples where Herodotus has been proven flat wrong. If you doubt him, then the entire history of the Persian wars with Greece and many other things must be put into the doubtful category, because he is our main source and often only source on the details of that.

[Marquis de Sodaq]

IIRC, the archaeological evidence dates Jericho to about 10,000 bc - one of the oldest settlements known in the entire world.

Proof in history is not the same as proof in chemistry. In history, discoveries are often made (a la Troy) because somebody made a leap of faith - inductive reasoning that is so soundly improper in hard science leads to wonderful insights in history. A castle is built on sand, and later it is often found to be sound.

Archaeological evidence of a city may be hard coming, depending on who or what did the Tartessans in. If they happened to build with wood instead of stone, the remains might be very hard to find - really a case of looking in exactly the right place for the right clues - higher carbon concentrations in the soil, imprints in mud, etc.

A comparable example is the existence of Geatland in southern Sweden - this kingdom existed, and nobody doubts it. One clue that would hardly qualify as proof is that the name of the province there is derived from it. But nobody has found much archaeological evidence to pin down what these people were doing. A foundation here, a longboat there. But overwhelming assurance exists because of [/i]Beowulf[/i], the epic poem. (For you spaniards who might not know of it, Beowulf is the oldest extant document written in english. It tells of Beowulf, the hero warrior, who rids the Danes of Grendel, an awful monster terrorizing the king there.) The story of Beowulf was written by a foreigner in another language, but recorded the (exaggerated) accomplishments of a great warrior who later became a king. No Geat writing has ever been found, as far as I know.

[Harlan]

By the way,
Here's a bit more about the walls of Jericho, David/Solomon and Atlantis issues.

Probably my favorite historical researcher is Peter James, of the aforementioned Ancient Mysteries book. He cowrote another book called Centuries of Darkness, which has been one of the most controversial and debated history books published in recent decades.

The thesis is that the Dark Ages around 1000 BC did not actually exist, or were shorter than believed, and that the chronologies for the period and those just before and after need to be reworked. On very slim grounds, certain dates became widely accepted, and anyone who felt otherwise was wrong.

Once you start to look into these issues, it becomes clear that all sorts of ancient dates are actually very sloshy, and events easily could have taken place within a range of hundreds of years, depending on the benchmarks that you use. The Jericho and David/Solomon issues both relate to this.

Personally I think the arguments of James et al are largely valid, though just how much the dates need to be changed is questionable, and could vary from region to region.

I'm strongly reminded of the Clovis debate. The orthodoxy believed that there were no people in the Americas before 12000 years ago, and anyone who said otherwise was just wrong. Finally, last year, there was a complete overturn of the orthodox position in the face of incontrovertible evidence. The interesting thing is, now that this has happened many researchers have come out and said they massaged data, ignored data, failed to follow up leads and so forth, because of fear of going against the orthodox position.

I think a similar thing is happening with the chronology debate, and once that settles a lot of conventional "wisdom" will be overturned.

For one article touching on the Clovis debate (though there are much better ones), go here:

http://www.msnbc.com/news/144348.asp?cp1=1

For more about the chronology book by Peter James, check out this link:

http://www.centuries.co.uk/

For info on his book about Atlantis, look here:

http://www.knowledge.co.uk/xxx/cat/james/

[alf]

Is for me very hard traslate text like this... are very long and very difficult.
INHO, the book of schulten, is a novel of SFno scientific book.
Thera aren't tests (pruebas) archeaeologic and documental about it.
The Schulten's theory are only suppositions of the rest of the reality of that era.
All is very, very diffuse... like the Atlantida.
Sorry my english...

[Fiera]

Originally posted by Jay Bee
No, I am not arguing now that. Perhaps I used the wrong word. You used the words 'wealthy' and 'prosperous', which I agree with.

Right, then we agree on a very important part of the matter.

And perhaps your comparison of Tartessos with the Indians selling Manhattan to the Europeans was also a wrong example.

[Fiera]

Originally posted by Harlan
What exactly are we arguing about here? I for one, have never read Schulten, and any correspondence between what he says and what I say is pure coincidence.

I should have posted this before, but it's never too late.

Schulten's theories regarding Tartessos, taken from the prologue to his work "Tartessos", written in 1935 (it's my own translation to English, sorry about that):

"The city of Troy posses today, thanks to the great poet, one of the most celebrated names in History. Tarschisch (Tartessos), the first commercial city and the oldest cultural centre of the Western World, after being destroyed by the Carthaginians, was covered by shadow and fell into the deepest oblivion."

After "Tartessos" was first published, Schulten was able to find the archeological rest of a Roman colony, placed between the two mouths of the Betis or Guadalquivir River, ie, where ancient tradition places Tartessos. Schulten believed this colony was built using stones belonging to the old Tartessos.

He added these findings to the second edition of "Tartessos", and wrote in the new prologue (1944):

"The Kingdom of Tartessos, which has been the wealthiest and most cultured region in Ancient Spain..."

And taken from the introductory chapter:

"Around 1100 bC, when the rest of Spain and all of Europe were still lying in a sort of prehistorical darkness, there rose in AndalucÃa, like a shining star, the name of Tarschisch [Tartessos]. This city was founded after 1200 bC by the Tirsenians form Minor Asia, ancestors of the Italian Etruscans, in the mouth of the Guadalquivir River."

The rest of the book is basically devoted to supply with proofs (if only circumstantial, as Jay Bee thinks) to these statements. Of course, some of them are slightly exaggerated, as some of you will promptly point out.

But what we are discussing here (at least, that was the intention of this thread) is whether the main part of Schulten theories regarding Tartessos are historical truth or just "a bunch of myths", or even just SF, as Alf has stated.

My opinion is that, given what Schulten found out (see the references to Ancient Greek and Roman texts showed a lot of posts ago) and the recent archeological discoveries in the region (not architectural rests though), we have strong basis enough to adress as historical fact the existence of a kingdom called Tartessos, its wealth in silver and other minerals, its eastern influence and origins, and its destruction by either the Carthaginians or a confederation of native and more primitive tribes.

And, as I will show to some of the most skeptical Spanish posters here, this is the stance about Tartessos of the Spanish historian community today.


Now, regarding the Minoans issue:

Judging by Fiera's comment that Schulten thinks the Minoans traded directly with the people of England, I'd say his theories are very speculative, to say the least.

You've just read about his theories. More so than what I've posted above, this very statement can indeed be adressed as speculative, but I'll point out that Schulten talks about the finding in the region of AlmerÃa of 5000 and 4500 year old manufactured objects, that in his opinion, could not have been built by the local inhabitants, and could only reach Spain through sea trade.

[Fiera]

BTW, taken from Encyclopaedia Britannica (Micropaedia, 1978 edition):

Tartessus, ancient region and town of the Guadalquivir Valley in southwestern Spain, probably identical with the Tarshish mentioned in the Bible. It prospered from trade with the Phoenicians and Carthaginians but was probably destroyed in the latter c. 500 BC. The exact site of the city is not known.

And from the Macropaedia (16, 580b, Seville article):

At the end of the Bronze Age, a city appeared that may have been Seville and the name of which, tartessus, was given to a river and a kingdom. Rich from agriculture, stock raising and mining (copper, gold, and silver from RÃotinto), the Tartessians trafficked in tin form the Cassiterides (the Scilly Isles or Cornwall, England). Biblical quotations and Greek historians confirm the existence of treasures, such as that of El Carambolo, near Seville, where Tartessus's material wealth was uncovered. Such riches attracted Greeks, Phoenicians and Celts.
The fall of Tartessus was brought about by the spread of iron rather than by Carthaginians, as is generally believed. The Carthaginians were resisted by Turdetan princes of the lower Guadalquivir Valley (c. 500 BC).

Jay Bee, you can still follow your Skeptical Encyclopaedia if you want...

[Jay Bee]

Fiera, three things

1) I know is purely a question of semantics but, don't wealth and prosperity precede and/or accompany might?

2) I did not compare Tartessos with the Indians selling Manhattan. I just stated that Diodorus' text reminded me of that. (The Indians did not sell Manhattan you can't sell what it's not yours, so the Indians thought they were cheating on the Europeans -- there's actually an Indian proverb about it, I think. Ribannah must know ).

3) If I am not mistaken, Schulten said among so many things that Tartessos was rich in ivory..... you also forgot to mention that, as alf tried to explain, most scholars regard Schulten's treatise on Tartessos as little more than an adventure book. Seminal, interesting and enlightening, right, but fictional after all.