Following this first colonial horizon, represented by the foundation of Utica and Gadir, there came a period of intense commercial and colonial activity, which is evident from the proliferation of new colonies, especially along the eastern coast of Andalusia. Of particular note among this second wave of archaic foundations, which should be dated to the second quarter of the eighth century bce, is Morro de Mezquitilla, until recently considered the oldest Phoenician settlement in Iberia (Schubart 1983; Pingel 2006; Maass-Lindemann 2008). The oldest phase at Morro, phase B1a, yielded a ceramic assemblage comparable to that of Carthage-Bir Massouda (Núñez 2015) and of other archaic colonies along the coast of Málaga, such as Cerro del Villar, whose earliest strata X-VIII yielded similar forms that can be dated in the years 770–760 bce (Aubet 1999; cf. Marzoli et al. 2014).
In Sardinia and Sicily, in turn, the colonial process is somewhat later than in Iberia and Tunis. In Sardinia, the oldest Phoenician colony was founded around 750 bce, or slightly earlier, at Sulky, or Sulcis (Sant’Antioco), where the earliest Phoenician materials from the Cronicario were found in association with Middle Geometric Greek ceramics (Bartoloni 2009, 2010). Sulky is certainly the typical model of the central Mediterranean Phoenician colony, like Tharros and other Sardinian centers, whose urban apogee took place beginning in the sixth century bce during the so-called Punic period. These are large-scale settlements with clear territorial aspirations, as is obvious from the fortifications at nearby Monte Sirai and others similar sites (Guirguis 2010). The Sardinia colonies included a number of structures and institutions that evoke the urban model at Carthage, including city walls, several temples, a tophet, and necropleis (cf. Xella 2012–2013). This urban model is not found among the colonies of the far western Mediterranean and Atlantic (see also chapter 34, this volume).
The central Mediterranean model is also found in the Phoenician colony of Motya, in Sicily, which reproduces at a small scale—in a kind of insular micro-cosmos—the structure of the larger Phoenician-Punic centers of Tunis and Sardinia. The archaeological evidence for this includes city walls built in the sixth century bce (Ciasca 1995), several monumental sanctuaries like the Cappiddazzu and Kothon (Tusa 2000; Nigro 2005), the archaic incineration necropolis (Tusa 1978), the tophet (Ciasca 1992; Bondì et al. 2009: 173–76), and finally, an important “industrial” neighborhood dedicated primarily to pottery production (Falsone 1981; Spanò 2002; see also chapter 35, this volume).
A Case Study: The Bay of Málaga
The Bay of Málaga is, at present, the only instance in the West where all phases of Phoenician history are represented, from the pre-colonial horizon to the colonial and Punic periods and the subsequent Romanization. Three clearly differentiated and consecutive periods stand out.
First Phase
It is difficult and still premature to precisely date the arrival of the Phoenicians in the region of the lower Guadalhorce—the most important river in the region—before the foundation of the primary colony at Cerro del Villar. A pre-colonial horizon is represented by the settlement of La Rebanadilla, located on an islet in the Guadalhorce’s estuary, 1.9 km to the north of Cerro del Villar (see map 6.2). The archaeological record suggests that the arrival of the first Phoenicians in the valley coincided with the gradual displacement of small groups of local population toward the coast. On the islet of La Rebanadilla, it seems that a small indigenous settlement was established in the second half of the ninth century bce (Rebanadilla’s phase IV), from which remains of several huts are preserved (Arancibia et al. 2011; Marcos et al. 2012). Nearby, several metallurgical workshops dedicated to copper smelting were found. In the following period (phase III), the local population seems to have lived side by side with the first Phoenician colonists who came to the valley. From this phase we have traces of rectilinear structures made with mud-bricks, a possible cultic area, and pottery of local, Phoenician, Greek Geometric, and Sardinian origin. The assemblage of Phoenician ceramics from La Rebanadilla, and the pottery from the nearby necropolis at Cortijo de San Isidro (Sánchez et al. 2011), belong to the same horizon as Gadir’s period II, which would situate the arrival of the Phoenicians to the Guadalhorce estuary sometime in the years 800–780 bce, or slightly earlier.
Map 6.2 Map of the bay of Málaga (ancient Malaka): from the first contacts (1), to the Phoenician colony (2), and to the Punic city (3).
Source: M. E. Aubet.
Around the same time, a few kilometers to the east of the Guadalhorce River, another indigenous settlement was established at San Pablo, on a promontory inside the city limits of present-day Málaga, on the banks of the Guadalmedina River. This was a village made of large huts, with people involved in intensive copper metallurgy, as well as exploitation of maritime resources (Arancibia et al. 2007: 12–13).
Second Phase
Shortly afterward, the Phoenician colony at Cerro del Villar was founded on an island close to the mouth of the Guadalhorce River, just 6 km from the present-day city of Málaga (map 6.2). This is one of the largest Phoenician settlements known in southern Spain, with an estimated inhabited area of 8 hectares.
Cerro del Villar’s privileged surroundings make it clear why the site was selected for the first Phoenician colony in the Bay of Málaga. The settlement was located on a deltaic island, which has since disappeared as an island and is part of a dried-up delta. This position was highly strategic and guaranteed excellent portuary conditions. At the same time, it provided access to a hinterland with abundant natural resources, as well as to an indigenous population further inland that was already sufficiently developed to ensure regular commercial interactions. The oldest identifiable remains from the settlement—strata X-VIII from Area 5 (Aubet 1999)—find direct parallels at Carthage-Bir Massouda and Morro de Mezquitilla B1a, dating the colonial foundation sometime around the years 770–760 bce.
Throughout the eighth and seventh centuries bce, the colony would have controlled a hinterland of some 18 square km, with agro-pastoral activities being carried out some distance from the coast. Indeed, the immediate hinterland, on which the colony depended for its daily subsistence, was poorly suited to agricultural exploitation, for which the Phoenicians were dependent on relations with the indigenous populations of the interior. Altogether, the paleoeconomic evidence suggests that the site’s supply of cereals, grapes, wine (the grapevine is attested beginning in the eighth century), and meat all depended on a relatively distant hinterland. The agricultural and pastoral activities needed to supply such goods were only possible farther upstream on the Guadalhorce. In this regard, the Phoenicians at Cerro del Villar were more consumers than producers of subsistence goods. Their diet was supplemented with fish and shellfish.
Nevertheless, it is important to note the presence in the site’s immediate vicinity of a resource that had special relevance for the development of one of the Phoenician colony’s most characteristic industries: alluvial silts and outcrops of high-quality Mio-Pliocene clays were found in abundance a short distance from the site. Indeed, the colony’s commerce and industry depended on two decisive factors: the high quality of its clays, which favored the development of pottery production (one of the Villar’s primary activities), and the existence of a regional market capable of channeling agricultural and artisanal resources directly from producers to consumers. The extensive distribution of Cerro del Villar’s products also reflects the large-scale production of large containers and transport amphorae in kilns on the periphery of the inhabited area throughout the eighth and seventh centuries bce (Aubet et al. 1999). The Phoenician kilns excavated at Cerro del Villar are indeed the oldest to date in the West, and identical to those found at Sarepta (figure 6.1). These local products appear not only throughout the Guadalhorce River valley—Phoenician amphorae from El Cerro containing fish have been found at Acinipo, in the mountains 120 km from the coast—but also in Mogador (Atlantic coast of Morocco), in the hinterland of Cádiz, and on Ibiza (Ramon 2010: 227–30; Behrendt and Mielke 2011; on pottery and trade, see
also chapter 22, this volume).
Figure 6.1 Eighth-century kilns (two in photo) and part of pottery workshop at Cerro del Villar, Málaga.
Source: M. E. Aubet.
The functional analysis of urban structures at Cerro del Villar reveals the presence of a very dense colonial community, socially complex and relatively prosperous, whose social and political institutions and their effects on economic activity remain largely unknown to us (Johnston 2013: 668). The large rectilinear houses are arranged along regularly laid streets (on domestic architecture, cf. chapter 28, this volume). The discovery of a central street flanked by large structures, shops, and metallurgical workshops dedicated to iron smithing turned out to be a genuine market street, with small rooms or shops open to passersby containing lead weights—that is, scales—where goods were on display in amphorae containing fish, barley, wheat, grapes, and almonds (Aubet 1997). Surely the acquisition of agricultural produce, production, exchange, and consumption were all necessary parts of a regional economic system that required well-organized roads and modes of transportation. This probably led to the gradual integration of dispersed communities, especially those on the rural periphery (Minc 2006; on agriculture, cf. chapter 29, this volume).
In the second half of the seventh century, there are alternating signs of maritime encroachment and riverine flooding on the island—conditions that led to the development of marshes and backwaters in the area, as the delta gradually silted up. These changes were accompanied by a reduction of both the inhabited area and the colonial population, which at the end of the seventh century led to the transformation of the site’s original homes and streets into an industrial area dedicated to the production of pottery, the so-called potter’s workshop of Sector 3/4 (Aubet et al. 1999). The small community in charge of these new workshops apparently used a modest necropolis nearby, on what is known as the Cortijo de Montañez, where a few incineration burials were discovered (see map 6.2).
The presence of Greek imports—Ionian cups, Samian and Carthaginian amphorae, and Etruscan bucchero (in the last occupational level of Sector 3/4 [stratum IIb])—sets the final abandonment of Cerro del Villar around 600–570 bce. After the desertion of Sector 3/4, the area later resumed its pottery production activities at a smaller scale, as attested by the nearby discovery of a Punic kiln from the fifth–fourth centuries bce. At that stage, the ceramic production at el Cerro fit within the larger industrial periphery of the city of Malaka (modern Málaga).
Third Phase
The earliest levels of the city of Málaga, 6 km to the east of the Guadalhorce delta, have been discovered, downtown, beneath the Picasso Museum and the Calle del Cister. From the start, Punic Malaka had all the makings of an authentic urban foundation—a polis—that was outfitted with city walls and a sanctuary (Arancibia and Fernández 2012: 57–62). The city’s earliest horizon yields an assemblage of Phoenician pottery associated with imports (eastern Greek wares, Etruscan bucchero, etc.) that is very similar to the final stages of occupation at Cerro del Villar, dating to ca. 600 bce (Recio 1990; Gran Aymerich 1991). For some time, the two settlements were contemporaries, before the final disappearance of the colony on the Guadalhorce.
The apogee of Punic Malaka came in the fourth century bce, when it became one of the most important portuary sites in southern Iberia. At that time, it minted its own coins, having undergone profound urban restructuration and growth in the final years of the fifth century bce. From the third century bce on, Roman Málaga (now Malaca) carried forth many of the traditions from its Phoenician-Punic past.
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