Tartessos (also Tartessus) was a harbor city on the south coast of the Iberian peninsula (in modern Andalusia, Spain), at the mouth of the Guadalquivir. It probably existed already before 1000 BC, and its inhabitants were traders, who seem to have been the ones to discover the route to the Tin Islands (Britain or more precisely the Scilly Islands). Tin was a much-wanted product in those days, as it was necessary for the production of bronze, and the people from Tartessos became important trading partners of the Phoenicians, who nearby built a harbor of their own, Gades (current-day Cádiz). Ancient Greek texts refer to a legendary king of Tartessos, Arganthonios. Arganthonios was known for his wealth in silver and minerals. Greek texts say that Arganthonios lived many years beyond the normal human lifespan, but Arganthonios may have been the name of several Tartessian kings or their title, giving rise to legends of a single man's longevity. Artifacts linked with the Tartessos culture have been found, but the site of the Tartessos' city is lost.
Lost Civilization In the 6th century BC, Tartessos disappears rather suddenly from history. The Romans called the wide bay the Tartessius Sinus though the city was no more. One theory is that the city had been destroyed by the Carthaginians who wanted to take over the Tartessans' trading routes. Another is that it had been refounded, under obscure conditions, as Carpia. When the traveller Pausanias visited Greece in the 2nd century AD (Paus. Desc. 6.XIX.3) he saw two bronze chambers in one of the sanctuaries at Olympia, which the people of Elis claimed was Tartessian bronze: "They say that Tartessus is a river in the land of the Iberians, running down into the sea by two mouths, and that between these two mouths lies a city of the same name. The river, which is the largest in Iberia, and tidal, those of a later day called Baetis, and there are some who think that Tartessus was the ancient name of Carpia, a city of the Iberians." The name "Carpia" possibly survives as El Carpio, a site in a bend of the Guadalquivir, but the origin of its name has been associated with its imposing oldest feature, a Moorish tower erected in 1325 by the engineer responsible for the alcazar of Seville. The site of Tartessos is lost and buried in the shifting wetlands that have replaced former estuaries behind dunes at the modern single mouth of the Guadalquivir, where the river delta has gradually been blocked off by a huge sandbar that stretches from the mouth of the Rio Tinto, near Palos de la Frontera, to the riverbank opposite Sanlúcar de Barrameda. The area is now protected as the Parque Nacional de Doñana.
Mythical and Religious Connections Some believe Tartessos was the source of the legend of Atlantis. The similarities between the two legendary societies certainly make this connection seem possible. Both Atlantis and Tartessos are believed to have been advanced societies who collapsed when their cities were lost beneath the waves. The enigmatic Lady of Elx, a high artistic quality, ancient bust of a woman found in southeastern Spain, has been tied with both Atlantis and Tartessos since the statue displays the dress of unrecognized culture, that presumably developed great artistic skill to have produced such a work. Some Tartessian enthusiasts imagine it as a contemporary of Atlantis, with which could have traded. In the Bible, the word Tarshish may refer to Tartessos. Tarshish, like Tartessos, is associated with extensive mineral wealth.
Possible Discovery Although several finds have been made in southern Spain that are ascribed to the Tartessan culture, the city itself has not been recovered by professional archeologists, though it may have recently been discovered in Spain's Marisma de Hinojos region. While the discoverers of the site insist it is the lost city of Atlantis, the site is a much better fit for Tartessos. It is within the area of Tartessian artifact finds, it is where Tartessos is described historically, and it is sensibly located near Gades (Cadiz). After all, the Phoenicians built Gades for the sole purpose of trading with Tartessos. The discovery includes a very simple reason for Tartessos' disappearance from history as well, as the region was flooded between 800 and 500 BC, precisely when Tartessos ceased being mentioned in historical texts. This also ties in with Atlantis again, likely the reason for the site's identification. Indeed, this discovery may not only solve one mystery but two; the location of Tartessos as well as the identity of Atlantis.
The Tartessian language is seemingly unrelated to all other languages, including Indo-European or Iberian language families, and is therefore considered a language isolate. Texts have been found in the Tartessian language in parts of Southwestern Spain and Southern Portugal (namely in the Conii areas of the Algarve and southern Alentejo - this variety is often refered as Southwest script). Tartessian is a pre-Roman extinct language. The oldest known indigenous texts of Iberia are written in Tartessian and are dated from the 7th to 6th centuries BC. The inscriptions are written in a semi-syllabic writing system and were found in the general area where Tartessos is supposed to have been and surrounding areas of influence. Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tartessian_language"
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A Ghost's page... Tartessus: a mystery A brief summary on one of the least known ancient civilizations. Cliccate qui Tartessus.htm Tartessus.htmper la versione italiana di questa pagina.
Introduction About 2,500 years ago, in 533 B.C., a city of ancient Spain (Iberia) was conquered by the Carthaginians and disappeared: Tartessus (Tartessos in Spanish), and it has not been found yet. Classical authors say that Tartessus was probably located at the mouth of Guadalquivir river (latin name: Bactis Flumen); its population reached a high level of civilization, which traded with many countries of the Mediterranean Sea, and even more distant (America?). Maybe Tartessus had very ancient origins. In the picture below a historical map is reported, showing the Spanish coast between the Gibraltar Strait and the today Spain-Portugal border line.
As you can see on the map, no trace of Tartessus city remained in the Roman Empire age (Augustus' reign), but the gulf that today takes its name from the city of Cadiz (ancient Gadira or Gades) was named Tartessius Sinus (gulf of Tartessus). The Latin name of the Guadalquivir river was Bactis, Hispalis matches with the modern city of Sevilla, and Gadira - or Gades - with Cadiz. We can find the ancient name of Cadiz in the Plato's dialogue "Critias", one of the Plato's dialogues on Atlantis; speaking about Atlas, the first king of Atlantis, it says: "To his twin brother, who was born after him [Atlas], and obtained as his lot the extremity of the island towards the Pillars of Heracles, facing the country which is now called the region of Gades in that part of the world, he gave the name which in the Hellenic language is Eumelus, in the language of the country which is named after him, Gadeirus." Therefore, according to Critias, Gadeirus was the first king of the region of Atlantis facing the Iberian peninsula. Onoba Aestuaria was in the location near the modern city of Huelva, upon Rio Tinto river, whose name is connected to ancient copper mines. The Gibraltar strait was called Fretum Gaditanum, taking its name from the city of Gades (Cadiz), or Herculeum too (Pillars of Hercules).
Tartessus, a mythical city-empire of the Old Age The existence of the Tartessian empire, for a long time discussed, is now a historic evidence thanks to historians like Gómez-Moreno, Schulten, Crossbowmen, García Bellido and Blázquez.
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The oldest Iberian kingdom has already given us from the Copper Age samples of its culture, like the idol in the picture on the left; from the Bronze Age (2500-1000 B.C.) vestiges as more than 400 bronze objects discovered in Odiel (Huelva) in 1923; from the Iron Age treasures like the Carambolo (century VII-VI B.C.) and many texts. The Tartessians lived in the valley of the Guadalquivir from the Bronze Age, and constituted a kingdom that extended to entire Andalusia and Murcia, dominating over other neighbouring peoples, like the Bastetanians, the Oretanians and the Bastulians, being the only great political creation of the Iberians. Their gods were the stars, they respected old people very much, they were hospitable and very liberal. The last king of Tartessus, Arganthonios, reigned for 80 years. According to Strabo, a complex network of canals radiated from Guadalquivir river; furthermore, the inhabitants of Tartessus, the Tartessians or Turdetanians, were the most cultured people of the Iberians: "having since ancient time writing in prose, poems and laws in verse that according to them were 6,000 years old"; at the age of Poseidonius, 100 years B.C., Tartessian literature was still conserved.
The Tartessian alphabet was different from the Iberian, and it is conserved in currencies of different cities. An inscription on a ring, found by Schulten in a Spanish fishing village, seems to be an example of the Tartessian writing. The picture on the left shows that inscription. According to old writers the Tartessians were expert metallurgical, Diodorus tells that in the country was plenty of gold, silver and especially copper. In the Bible there are many references to Tartessus (Tarsis); among them: 1. 1 Kings 10,22 "The king had a fleet of ships of Tarshish at sea along with the ships of Hiram. Once every three years it returned, carrying gold, silver and ivory, and apes and baboons." 2. Psalm 72, 10 "The kings of Tarshish and of distant shores will bring tribute to him..." 3. Jeremiah 10, 9 "Hammered silver is brought from Tarshish..." According to the Bible, Tartessus was famous for its riches, particularly its silver mines. According to Poseidonius, they had a prosperous agriculture with irrigation channels, and olive trees and grapevine provided great harvests. Also cattle ranch was important with cows, goats, sheep and pigs. The extraction of salt was also a fundamental piece of the Tartessian economy, because they exported salt meats to Athens in the 5th century B.C.. Fish, and especially molluscs, was also largely sold. Tartessian ships arrived to the British islands, taking bronze kettles and shields, obtaining tin and lead in return. Tartessus found? The city has not found yet, although traces of big buildings were found, during the excavations done in a muddy soil, too close to the sea to allow further investigations. The ruins of Tartessus may be under water, or underground, hidden under hundred tons of mud.
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Since 1905 some German archaeologists, among which prof. Schulten, Jessen, Herman and Hennig, began the quest of Tartessus. Many objects have been found, attributed to Tartessus civilization; jewels discovered near Sevilla (ancient Hispalis), vases and amphorae, and the famous "Señora de Elche" ("Lady of Elche"), a 53 cm bust (shown in the picture on the left), representing a woman with precious ornaments and jewels, discovered near Elche (ancient Ilici). Hennig, Schulten and other German scholars considered Tartessus as a German colony, rather than an Atlantean one, because Baltic amber was found near Tartessus (or where they thought Tartessus would be). Furthermore, they based their assumption on the theories of an other German scholar, Redslob, who declared that prehistoric German tribes sailed and spread far away. E.M. Wishaw, directress of Anglo-Spanish-American School of Archaeology, and author of "Atlantis in Andalusia", carried out a research in the Tartessus area for 25 years. After she discovered a "solar temple" underground Sevilla, she is sure that Tartessus is buried under the modern city. In the copper mines in Rio Tinto are ruins that date back to 8,000-10,000 years ago, making one thing to the Tartessian civilization. Furthermore in Ronda, an inner harbour of Niebla, there are very ancient waterworks, which make one thing to Plato and his description of Atlantean waterworks. Ms. Wishaw disagree with her German colleagues that Tartessus inspired the tales on a lost continent, and she thinks that Tartessus was an Atlantean colony. She wrote: "My theory suggests that Plato's tale exactly matches with everything we are finding out here, even the name of that Poseidon's son who inherited the part of kingdom beyond the Pillars of Hercules, Gadir, who was king of Gades, the modern Cadiz...". She goes on: "The wonderful and civilized prehistoric population I described came from prehistoric Libyan populations, which came from Atlantis to Andalusia in order to buy gold, silver and copper extracted from Rio Tinto mines; they, generation after generation, joined Iberian and African cultures together so tightly that Tartessus and Africa probably had a common race: the Libyan-Tartessian". Ms. Wishaw wrote a list containing many other pre-Roman Iberian inscriptions, which nobody could translate, and noted that almost 150 alphabetic "characters" have been found in Libyan caves. Conclusion Tartessus is today one of the unsolved mysteries of our past; the city has not been discovered yet, but traces of buildings and other objects have been found near Huelva, at the mouth of the Odiel and Rio Tinto rivers (remember the ancient Rio Tinto mines), at the mouth of Guadalquivir, and other places, like Sevilla. This is not obviously a proof that Tartessus did really exist, but it demonstrates the existence of an ancient West Mediterranean culture, which could give us the answers to many questions about our past.
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News Story A scientist says he may have found remains of the lost city of Atlantis. Satellite photos of southern Spain reveal features on the ground appearing to match descriptions made by Greek scholar Plato of the fabled utopia. Dr Rainer Kuehne thinks the "island" of Atlantis simply referred to a region of the southern Spanish coast destroyed by a flood between 800 BC and 500 BC.
The research has been reported as an ongoing project in the online edition of the journal Antiquity.
We have in the photos concentric rings just as Plato described
Dr Rainer Kuehne, University of Wuppertal Satellite photos of a salt marsh region known as Marisma de Hinojos near the city of Cadiz show two rectangular structures in the mud and parts of concentric rings that may once have surrounded them.
"Plato wrote of an island of five stades (925m) diameter that was surrounded by several circular structures - concentric rings - some consisting of Earth and the others of water.
Dr Kuehne, of the University of Wuppertal in Germany, believes the rectangular features could be the remains of a "silver" temple devoted to the sea god Poseidon and a "golden" temple devoted to Cleito and Poseidon - all described in Plato's dialogue Critias.
Temples of the sea god
The identification of the site with Atlantis was first proposed by Werner Wickboldt, a lecturer and Atlantis enthusiast who spotted the rectangles and concentric rings by studying photographs from across the Mediterranean for signs of the city described by Plato.
The sizes of the "island" and its rings in the satellite image are slightly larger than those described by Plato. There are two possible explanations for this, says Dr Kuehne.
First, Plato may have underplayed the size of Atlantis. Secondly, the ancient unit of measurement used by Plato - the stade - may have been 20% larger than traditionally assumed.
If the latter is true, one of the rectangular features on the "island" matches almost exactly the dimensions given by Plato for the temple of Poseidon.
Mr Wickboldt explained: "This is the only place that seems to fit [Plato's] description."
He added that the Greeks might have confused an Egyptian word referring to a coastline with one meaning "island" during transmission of the Atlantis story.
Commenting on the satellite image showing the two "temples", Tony Wilkinson, an expert in the use of remote sensing in archaeology at the University of Edinburgh, UK, told BBC News Online: "A lot of the problems come with interpretations. I can see something there and I could imagine that one could interpret it in various ways. But you've got several leaps of faith here.
Metal trading
"We use the imagery to recognise certain types of imprint on the ground and then do [in the field] verification on them. Based on what we see on the ground we make an interpretation.
"What we need here is a date range. Otherwise, you're just dealing with morphology. But the [features] are interesting."
The fabled utopia of Atlantis has captured the imagination of scholars for centuries. The earliest known records of this mythical land appear in Plato's dialogues Critias and Timaios.
His depiction of a land of fabulous wealth, advanced civilisation and natural beauty has spurred many adventurers to seek out its location.
One recent theory equates Atlantis with Spartel Island, a mud shoal in the straits of Gibraltar that sank into the sea 11,000 years ago.
Plato described Atlantis as having a "plain". Dr Kuehne said this might be the plain that extends today from Spain's southern coast up to the city of Seville. The high mountains described by the Greek scholar could be the Sierra Morena and Sierra Nevada.
"Plato also wrote that Atlantis is rich in copper and other metals. Copper is found in abundance in the mines of the Sierra Morena," Dr Kuehne explained.
Dr Kuehne noticed that the war between Atlantis and the eastern Mediterranean described in Plato's writings closely resembled attacks on Egypt, Cyprus and the Levant during the 12th Century BC by mysterious raiders known as the Sea People.
As a result, he proposes that the Atlanteans and the Sea People were in fact one and the same.
This dating would equate the city and society of Atlantis with either the Iron Age Tartessos culture of southern Spain or another, unknown, Bronze Age culture. A link between Atlantis and Tartessos was first proposed in the early 20th Century.
Dr Kuehne said he hoped to attract interest from archaeologists to excavate the site. But this may be tricky. The features in the satellite photo are located within Spain's Donana national park.
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Well, it's new to me, Docyabut, is there anthing you'd like to add to the Tartessos material?
Posts: 424 | From: Illinois | Registered: Jul 2005
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Tartarus Tartarus is the lowest region of the world, as far below earth as earth is from heaven. According to the Greek poet Hesiod, a bronze anvil falling from heaven would take nine days and nights to reach earth, and an object would take the same amount of time to fall from earth into Tartarus. Tartarus is described as a dank, gloomy pit, surrounded by a wall of bronze, and beyond that a three-fold layer of night. Along with Chaos, Earth, and Eros, it is one of the first entities to exist in the universe. While Hades is the main realm of the dead in Greek mythology, Tartarus also contains a number of characters. In early stories, it is primarily the prison for defeated gods; the Titans were condemned to Tartarus after losing their battle against the Olympian gods, and the hecatoncheires stood over them as guards at the bronze gates. When Zeus overcomes the monster Typhus, born from Tartarus and Gaia, he hurls it too into the same abyss. However, in later myths Tartarus becomes a place of punishment for sinners. It resembles Hell and is the opposite of Elysium, the afterlife for the blessed. When the hero Aeneas visits the underworld, he looks into Tartarus and sees the torments inflicted on characters such as the Titans, Tityos, Otus and Ephialtes, and the Lapiths. Rhadymanthus (and, in some versions, his brother Minos) judges the dead and assigns punishment.
Tartessos The Myth Of Tartessos. The Greeks were fascinated by the notion of a mythical and fabulously wealthy kingdom in the far west beyond the Pillars of Hercules. It was a rich emporium of valuable and precious metals and the luxurious lives led by its inhabitants linked it in their minds to the legends of Atlantis and Hesperides, the Isles of the Blessed, which were located in the same direction and were maybe even in the same place. They called it Tartessos. Strabo, 58 BC-25 CE, who described it in his Geography was drawing very largely on Herodotos, 484 BCE - 420 BCE, who described in detail the immense wealth and generosity of the Tartessans and particularly of their King Arganthonios, "The Silver One". This included the story of a Greek sailor called Koliaos whose ship was blown off course and landed in Tartessos. After being royally entertained for some months, his ship was loaded up with silver and he was sent home. The story is also told of the Tartessans, in the 6th century BCE, giving the Phocaean Greeks 1 1/2 tons of silver to pay for a defensive wall around their city to keep out the Persians. And yet apart from a few fragments of trade goods in Andalusia in Southern Spain there is neither sign of a Tartessan civilization, nor any indication where the capital city might have been. The Phoenicians, who were based on some offshore islands near Cadiz, used Tartessan silver to pay tribute to the Assyrians who had captured their hometown of Tyre in the 7th century BCE. One result of this, it is claimed, was the collapse of the bullion market in Babylon. And yet apart from the mines of Rio Tinto which have been producing copper and silver and gold for 5000 years - the oldest mines in the world still to be in production - there is no evidence of this wealth nor what it bought or built. The Ancient Hebrews had their own myths of the fabulous and even sinful wealth of Tartessos or Tarshish as they called it. In Psalm 72 we can read of the kings of Tarshish bringing presents, in Jonah we can see how Jonah's plans to go to Tarshish so infuriated the Lord that he had Jonah swallowed by a whale as a punishment. In Chronicles, we read of King Jehosaphat building ships to go to Tarshish and the fury of the Lord causing them to be wrecked. In Kings we read of ships of Tartshish bringing the gold to decorate the Palace and the Temple of King Solomon, and in Kings and in Chronicles we can read of these same Ships of Tarshish bringing Peacocks and Apes and Ivory, which can only have been from India! So not only was Tarshish/Tartessos a legendary place but also their ships were legendary and capable of crossing the Indian Ocean. Tarshish is in fact the only European place mentioned in the Old Testament, yet apart from the 5000-year-old mining town, suggestively named Tharsis, in Andalusia in Southern Spain, nobody knows where Tarshish/Tartessos was located. Yet it is here in Andalusia that the Pillars of Hercules are located and here that Hercules/Heracles stole the Cattle of Geryon as one of his Ten Labours. And this is the home of the Spanish cult of the Bull as much as Knossos, buried under modern day Heraklion, was the home of the Minoan cult of the Bull. And it is almost certain that the Minoans traded in Tartessan Bronze for over 2000 years, supplying the Sumerians and the Ancient Egyptians and indeed the whole of the Mediterranean basin and beyond. Today only the ancient mines of Rio Tinto and Tharsis stand as mute witnesses to the past glories of Tartessos. In historical times the Romans made them the main source for financing the construction and expansion of the Empire and that in turn made Merida the nearest town to the mines, the tenth largest city of the Roman Empire, and Julius Caesar tapped their wealth to make good his claim to become Emperor. But before the Romans came to Andalusia, what we know of Tartessos is largely speculation, myth, legend and fable.
The Greeks were fascinated by the notion of a mythical and fabulously wealthy kingdom in the far west beyond the Pillars of Hercules. It was a rich emporium of valuable and precious metals and the luxurious lives led by its inhabitants linked it in their minds to the legends of Atlantis and Hesperides, the Isles of the Blessed, which were located in the same direction and were maybe even in the same place. They called it Tartessos.
Strabo, 58 BC-25 CE, who described it in his Geography was drawing very largely on Herodotos, 484 BCE - 420 BCE, who described in detail the immense wealth and generosity of the Tartessans and particularly of their King Arganthonios, "The Silver One". This included the story of a Greek sailor called Koliaos whose ship was blown off course and landed in Tartessos. After being royally entertained for some months, his ship was loaded up with silver and he was sent home. The story is also told of the Tartessans, in the 6th century BCE, giving the Phocaean Greeks 1 1/2 tons of silver to pay for a defensive wall around their city to keep out the Persians. And yet apart from a few fragments of trade goods in Andalusia in Southern Spain there is neither sign of a Tartessan civilization, nor any indication where the capital city might have been.
The Phoenicians, who were based on some offshore islands near Cadiz, used Tartessan silver to pay tribute to the Assyrians who had captured their hometown of Tyre in the 7th century BCE. One result of this, it is claimed, was the collapse of the bullion market in Babylon. And yet apart from the mines of Rio Tinto which have been producing copper and silver and gold for 5000 years - the oldest mines in the world still to be in production - there is no evidence of this wealth nor what it bought or built.
The Ancient Hebrews had their own myths of the fabulous and even sinful wealth of Tartessos or Tarshish as they called it. In Psalm 72 we can read of the kings of Tarshish bringing presents, in Jonah we can see how Jonah's plans to go to Tarshish so infuriated the Lord that he had Jonah swallowed by a whale as a punishment. In Chronicles, we read of King Jehosaphat building ships to go to Tarshish and the fury of the Lord causing them to be wrecked. In Kings we read of ships of Tartshish bringing the gold to decorate the Palace and the Temple of King Solomon, and in Kings and in Chronicles we can read of these same Ships of Tarshish bringing Peacocks and Apes and Ivory, which can only have been from India!
So not only was Tarshish/Tartessos a legendary place but also their ships were legendary and capable of crossing the Indian Ocean. Tarshish is in fact the only European place mentioned in the Old Testament, yet apart from the 5000-year-old mining town, suggestively named Tharsis, in Andalusia in Southern Spain, nobody knows where Tarshish/Tartessos was located.
Yet it is here in Andalusia that the Pillars of Hercules are located and here that Hercules/Heracles stole the Cattle of Geryon as one of his Ten Labours. And this is the home of the Spanish cult of the Bull as much as Knossos, buried under modern day Heraklion, was the home of the Minoan cult of the Bull. And it is almost certain that the Minoans traded in Tartessan Bronze for over 2000 years, supplying the Sumerians and the Ancient Egyptians and indeed the whole of the Mediterranean basin and beyond.
Today only the ancient mines of Rio Tinto and Tharsis stand as mute witnesses to the past glories of Tartessos. In historical times the Romans made them the main source for financing the construction and expansion of the Empire and that in turn made Merida the nearest town to the mines, the tenth largest city of the Roman Empire, and Julius Caesar tapped their wealth to make good his claim to become Emperor. But before the Romans came to Andalusia, what we know of Tartessos is largely speculation, myth, legend and fable.
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That passage sounds suspiciously familiar, ParaNormalIAm! A hearty welcome to the forum, by the way.
quote:Atlantis and North Africa, A letter from Jean Gattefosse, Ain Sebaa, May 1959 (excerpts)
"If Plato produced the first study of the island Atlantis it must not be forgotten that the problem of the African Atlantis was first put by Diodorus, who devoted numerous pages of his 'library' to the traditions of the Atlanteans and of the peoples who succeeded them in Africa. It is thus that the City of Nysa, the paternity of which you somehow attribute to me, was sited several times by Diodorus."" In your referances you also omitted a French author: Bory de Saint Vincent, year 11 (1803), who in his remarkable illustrated work: "Essay on the Fortunate Isles and Atlantis", demonstrated the invasion of North Africa by the Amazones and the Atlanteans after the submersion of their homeland, and also showed the Atlantean origin of the Guanches. It was on geological observations that Bory based his conclusions, in which respect he was the predecessor of our contemporary Nocola de Ascanio. ""Also mention should be made of Claudius Roux, the pupil of Berlioux, who went into the question very seriously in the "Bibliography of Atlantis and of Connected Questions" which we published at Lyon in 1926 in collaboration. Now Claudius Roux has reached 85 and is unfortunately blind (as of 1959). My own part in studying the question consisted in the publication of two books: "Atlantis and the Western Tritonis" of which a summary of the chapter headings is attached; and "Hyperborea and the Neolithic Migration", published in 1940 ". "My story "The Bronze Gates", is in effect the imagined tale of the discovery of the Silver Belt, and of the revelations on Atlantis, given by psychometry of some of the best French experts of the time." "As for Nysa, this was certainly not the Cerne mentioned in Avenius' "Ora Maritima". Cerne was an ocean port whilst Nysa was a seaport but on the interior sea, which in far antiquity, was called 'Atlantic' because it was bound by the Atlas mountains. In the same manner this interior sea was also called 'Meropic', as was the Atlas range was also known as the 'Meros'. Recently Jerome Carcopino, in his book "Antique Morocco", has identified Cerne with the site of Herne on the Rio d' Oro; it was there that a natural canal, an arm of the sea, joined the Ocean and the Interior Sea. I think that the ruins of Nysa were those seen by Captain Martin of the Meharist (Camel Corps) in 1914, not far from the well of Aouinetbel-Legraa; there, spread over some 20 klm, are huge megalithic ruins, inumerable tombs surrounded by dressed stones, and many necklet and other ornaments of pebbles or copper lying in the sands. It was there that we should have gone in company with Byron de Prorok, Stanley and mager, if the Ethiopian War had not put a stop to our plans. You are certainly aware that, relying on popular folk lore, I affirm that the Pillars of Hercules were at Tartessos, and that they still exist at Seville where they are a popular tourist attraction, which is why I identify Tartessos with that city, as mentioned in my "Archaeological Walks in Andalusia" and Madame Wishaw the lady whose "Atlantis in Andalusia" is known to you all. But there are also Pillars of Cadiz which are also the relics of Atlantis-Tartessos. I can recommend the book "The Pillars of Hercules and Atlantis' by A. Rousseau Liessens, Brussels, 1956, which gives all the necessary details on the matter." Yours sincerely, Jean Gattefosse
Erytheia, Tartessos and Atlantis, By Dr. N. Th. Zhirov
The problem of Tartessos, the mysterious city of the West, was discussed by Hennig and Schultern and others. These writers worked on the hypothesis that Tartessos was a city of S. W. Spain. Schultern placed the city on the estuary of the Guadalquiver River, but protracted investigations on the spot produced no effective results. This might be explained by the fact that Tartessos was not on the continental coast or in the river estuary. In my opinion Schultern correctly identified Tartessos as being the Island of Ertheia, from which Hercules took the oxen of Geyron. But a careful study of the story indicates that the island cannot have been just off the Spanish Coast, as if this had been the case it would not have been necessary for Hercules to obtain from Helios the golden cup, which showed the direction by day and night. If the island was where Cadiz now stands there would have been no need for a primitive compass, but if it lay more than one days voyage away such a instrument would have been essential. This implies that the island was not visible from the mainland and that the journey, while taking more than one day, would not have exceeded two, as otherwise the small vessel of Hercules could not have carried forage and water for the animals. From the above it may be assumed that Erytheia-Tartessos was about 60 miles from the Spanish Coast. There are some grounds for equating this with the kingdom of Gadieros, the second son of Poseidon, whose Greek name was Eumelus, and who received the "extremity of the Island towards the Pillars of Hercules". This fragment of Atlantis may have survived the original catastrophe as a small island, which existed by trading with the Spanish mainland for metals and other products. However as it lay in the region of earthquakes and volcanic disturbances it was gradually reduced in size until its conquest from the mainland became possible, by the aid of a fleet. The subsequent fate of Tartessos is lost in obscurity, but it must have vanished beneath the waves, possibly about 500 B.C., at the time of the great subsidence which took place in the Atlantic about this time. The disappearance of the Island of Thule between Iceland and the Hebrides, where just recently the Soviet Ocean exploratory ship Michail Lomonossov found a large submarine mountain, must have occurred about then, as also the subsidence of the North Sea region which caused the mass movement of the Cimbri, the Teutons, and other tribes.
Letter From Professor Marcel Homet, Brazil and Cave Paintings in Urals, By Zhirov
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I look forward to discussing things in more detail with you, too, ParaNormalIAm.
HISTORY OF TIN
Phoenicians The Phoenicians had always been a seafaring race of people, and in their exploration, had heard rumors of tin in the far west. They sailed beyond the Pillars of Hercules and met the Atlantic Ocean. The ships of the time were ill-equipped to handle the Atlantic, and the land of Tartessus was their early limit of westward exploration. The basin formed by the Guadalquivir River was then known as Tartessus [Tarshish], and the eventual colony became Gadir [now Cadiz]. The natives mined silver nearby and tin was brought in by local carriers along the Atlantic coast of Spain.
Trade with Tartessus began around 1500 BCE, while Gadir was founded between 600 and 800 BCE. The tin came from farther out in the Atlantic, known then as the Tin Isles [Cassiterides], a vague area, deliberately kept that way by all. Whether the Phoenicians even knew the source is doubtful, as no Punic inscriptions have been found in Britain until the Roman era. It is still not known how far the Phoenicians penetrated into the Atlantic; indeed Herodotus noted that they had little knowledge of the Cassiterides "from whence our tin is brought."
http://www.ancientroute.com/resource/metal/tin.htm -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CASSITERIDES (from the Gr. eao-o-Lrepor, tin, i.e. Tinislands ), in ancient geography the name of islands regarded a~ being situated somewhere near the west coasts of Europe. Herodotus (43o B.C.) bad dimly heard of them. Later writers, Posidonius, Diodorus, Strabo and others, call them smallish islands off (Strabo says, some way off) the north-west coast of Spain, which contained tin mines, or, as Strabo says, tin and lead minesthough a passage in Diodorus derives the name rather frOm their nearness to the tin districts of north-west Spain. While geographical knowledge of the west was still scanty and the secrets of the tin-trade were still successfully guarded by the seamen of Gades and others who dealt in. the metal, the Greeks knew only that tin came to them by sea from the far west, and the idea of tin-producing islands easily arose. Later, when the west was better explored, it was found that tin actually came from two regions, north-west Spain and Cornwall. Neither of these could be called small islands or described as off the north-west coast of Spain, and so the Cassiterides were not identified with either by the Greek and Roman geographers. Instead, they became a third, ill-understood source of tin, conceived of as distinct from Spain or Britain. Modern writers have perpetuated the error that the Cassiterides were definite spots, and have made many attempts to identify them. Small islands off the coast of north-west Spain, the headlands of that same coast, the Scillies, Cornwall, the British Isles as a whole, have all in turn been suggested. But none suits the conditions. Neither the Spanish islands nor the Scillies contain tin, at least in serious quantities. Neither Britain nor Spain can be called small islands off the north-west of Spain. It seems most probable, therefore, that the name Cassiterides represents the first vague knowledge of the Greeks that tin was found overseas somewhere in or off western Europe.
AUTH0RITIE5.Herodotus iii. 115; Diodorus V. 21, 22, 38; Strabo ii. 5, iii. 2,, 5, v. II; Pliny, Nat. Hist, iv. 119, Vii. 197,
xxxiv. 156-158, are the chief references in ancient literature. T. R.
Holmes, Ancient Britain (1907), appendix, identifies the Cassiterides with the British Isles. (F. J. H.)
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