The Oxford Handbook of the Phoenician and Punic Mediterranean

by Carolina Lopez-Ruiz

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  Gurrea, R., and J. Ramon Torres. 2000. “Excavaciones arqueológicas en la acrópolis de Eivissa (calle de Santa María). El horizonte arcaico.” In Actas del IV Congreso Internacional de Estudios Fenicios y Púnicos, edited by M. E. Aubet and M. Barthelemy, 1555–79. Cádiz: Universidad de Cádiz.

  Martín, R., J. J. Argüello, and S. Jovani. 2015. “El yacimiento púnico-ebusitano de Sa Galera (Can Pastilla-Palma).” In VI Jornades d’Arqueologia de les Illes Balears, edited by A. Martínez and G. Graziani, 141–52. Palma: Consell de Formentera-Col·legi Oficial de Doctors i Llicenciats.

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  Ramon Torres, J. 2007. Excavaciones arqueológicas en el asentamiento fenicio de “sa Caleta” (Ibiza). Barcelona: Universitat Pompeu Fabra.

  Ramon Torres, J. 2011. “El sector alfarero de la Ciudad púnica de Ibiza.” In Yōserim: La producción alfarera fenicio-púnica en Occidente, edited by B. Costa and J. H. Fernández, 165–221. Ibiza: Govern de les Illes Balears.

  Ramon Torres, J. 2014. “Arquitectura urbana y espacio doméstico en la ciudad púnica de Ibiza.” In Arquitectura urbana y espacio doméstico en las sociedades fenicio-púnicas, edited by B. Costa and J. H. Fernández, 191–221. Ibiza: Govern de les Illes Balears.

  Ramon Torres, J., and M. A. Esquembre. 2017. “Estructuras urbanas fundacionales de época fenicia en el Castillo de Ibiza.” In El Oriente de Occidente. Fenicios y Púnicos en el área ibérica, edited by F. Prados and F. Sala, 405–32. Alicante: Universitat d’Alacant-CEFYP.

  Tarradell, M., and M. Font. 1975. Eivissa cartaginesa. Barcelona: Curial.

  Chapter 38

  The Iberian Peninsula

  José Luis López Castro

  Our understanding of the Phoenician presence in the far west of the Mediterranean world—and specifically in the Iberian Peninsula—has grown exponentially over the past fifty years. During the nineteenth century, scholars focused their attention on the ancient city of Gadir (beneath modern Cádiz) and its early foundation, compiling an incomplete picture of the Phoenicians in Iberia from the few existing Classical sources dealing with the topic, as well as isolated archaeological finds. During the end of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth, systematic excavations of the necropoleis of Cádiz, Villaricos, and Ibiza contributed key archaeological data ranging in chronology from the sixth century bce to the Roman conquest. The centuries preceding the sixth century, however, remained little understood. The first syntheses of the topic (García y Bellido 1942) argued that the presence of the Phoenicians in Iberia depended much more on the hegemonic role of Carthage in the region than on the role of colonizers from Tyre, who were described in the Classical sources. During the 1960s and 1970s, however, discoveries of settlements and cemeteries along the southern coast of Iberia—including Almuñécar, Morro de Mezquitilla, Toscanos, Chorreras, and Cerro del Villar—began to change this picture (map 38.1). These sites served as important testimonies to the historical significance of colonization, as well as its Levantine character. Scholarly work on colonization, then, was focused on the relationship between the Phoenicians and Tartessians (the name by which the Greeks knew the local populations in the southwest), as well as the nature of the “Orientalizing” phenomenon. Work was dominated by the “commercial paradigm,” in which colonial settlements were interpreted as commercial factories with inhabitants acting as traders in search of metals such as silver and tin. These western metals supplied the demand in the east, particularly in the Assyrian empire (Frankenstein 1979), and this commercial diaspora (Aubet 2009) was therefore motivated primarily by Assyrian pressure on Tyre and other Phoenician cities of the east.

  Map 38.1 Phoenician colonies in southern Iberian Peninsula: ▲ ninth century bce colonial foundations; ● eighth and seventh centuries bce colonial foundations.

  Source: J. L. López Castro.

  During the final decades of the last century, the number of excavated settlements and necropoleis increased exponentially. These new discoveries serve to demonstrate the geographical reach of Phoenicians. In the west, Phoenician presence can be detected along the Atlantic coast far past Gadir, including foundations at the mouths of the Sado, Tagus, and Mondego Rivers (Arruda 2000). In the east, Phoenician reach extended to the mouth of the Segura River (González Prats 2011) and to Ibiza (Ramon Torres 2007). Excavations in the modern cities of Cádiz, Málaga, Almuñécar, and Adra—or the ancient Gadir, Malaka, Seks, and Abdera—that are mentioned in the Classical sources as Tyrian foundations have confirmed the Phoenician origin of these cities in at least the eighth century bce (Aubet 2009: 308–16). Further, the discovery of secondary, specialized settlements on the southern shores of Iberia has opened scholarly discussion concerning the territorial, productive, and social aspects of colonization to explanations other than those based exclusively on trade and commerce. At the same time, beginning in the 1980s, Phoenician and Punic archaeology in Iberia has benefited from the use of innovative archaeological techniques. These include pedestrian survey, geoarchaeology, archaeobotany, archaeozoology, and archaeometallurgy, as well as a number of absolute dating techniques that allow more precise chronologies to be obtained. Finally, the longstanding tradition of culture-historical archaeology, which was dominant until the beginning of the 1980s, was gradually replaced by new theoretical perspectives ranging from World Systems Theory, to, Materialism to Postcolonialism, to gender archaeology. All these developments have led scholars to undertake the study of the Phoenician presence in Iberia from new theoretical and methodological perspectives, and to establish new questions and explanatory models. As a result, with the increase in the number of archaeological discoveries from this period since at least the 1980s, the depth of our understanding of this long and complex period has grown, with implications on a Mediterranean-wide scale.

  The goal of this chapter, then, is to provide an abbreviated synthesis of our current understanding of the Phoenicians in Iberia during the first millennium bce. While the Phoenician presence in Iberia lasted nearly one thousand years in this region, it is only possible to understand this period in general terms from the archaeological evidence available. Despite some reference to Phoenician matters in Iberia in Greco-Roman sources, for the most part we lack the detailed narratives of events that are better preserved for other areas in the ancient Mediterranean world.

  Early Colonization

  The Classical sources suggest that Gadir was founded very early (Vell. Pat. I.2.3; 1120 bce), around the same time as Utica (Plin. HN XVI.216; 1110 bce) and Lixus (Plin. HN XIX.4.63; older than Gadir) in North Africa. These dates have not been confirmed by archaeological evidence, although there have been discoveries in southern Iberia of eastern Mediterranean objects and Mycenaean ceramics dating to the Late Helladic III B/C. This material evidence confirms that there was contact during the final Bronze Age as a result of the long-distance exchange networks that extended as far as the Aegean
Sea, in which Mycenaeans, Canaanites, Cypriots, and Sardinians participated (Mederos Martín 2005a). These sporadic contacts, traditionally termed “precolonial,” lasted many centuries and must have served to sustain an early knowledge of the routes and points of access to the Iberian Peninsula (Celestino Pérez et al. 2008).

  In the last decade, there has been a substantial change in our perception of Phoenician colonization in the western Mediterranean, owing to the discovery of early permanent Phoenician presence in Iberia at a number of sites. The calibrated radiocarbon dates that come from decontextualized material from Huelva fix this date in the tenth and ninth centuries bce (González de Canales et al. 2004) (997–843 ± 25 BP; 934–825 ± 25 BP; 930–820 ± 25 BP: Nijboer and van der Plicht 2006). The excavations carried out at El Carambolo (Seville) have produced dates from the first phase, El Carambolo V, which also belong to this early colonial chronological horizon (1020–810 ± 50 bce: Fernández Flores and Rodríguez Azogue 2007: 222–23). Dates from the phase I of La Rebanadilla (Málaga) have a similar chronology (1060–840 ± 40 bce, 1010–830 ± 40 bce: Sánchez Sánchez-Moreno et al. 2012: 69–70). At these three sites, archaeologists have documented similar material assemblages, including local hand-made Bronze Age ceramics and eastern Phoenician, Sardinian, and Greek ceramics from the Subprotogeometric and Middle Geometric II phases, which have never before been published for the Iberian Peninsula. Both the settlements at Huelva and at El Carambolo were situated on navigable fluvial promontories, while the settlement at La Rebanadilla was on a fluvial island.

  At El Carambolo and La Rebanadilla, mudbrick was used as the principal construction material, a technique based in Levantine architectural construction methods. At the largely excavated site of El Carambolo, a sanctuary to Astarte has been identified, which was occupied until the sixth century bce. The oldest building of this complex consisted of an enclosure with an interior patio that was accessible from two parallel rooms (Fernández Flores and Rodríguez Azogue 2007: 220–23). This layout is the same that can be observed on a smaller scale in the houses at the settlement of La Rebanadilla; there, seven domestic structures with two occupation phases have been wholly or partially excavated. Rooms and walkways were sometimes added to the basic house plan to create a more complex layout. Remains related to religious practices were found in two of these buildings at La Rebanadilla, which include baetyls and a possible mudbrick altar (Sánchez Sánchez-Moreno et al. 2012: 80–81). To this list of three settlements one might add the recent discovery of a contemporary Phoenician phase dated to the ninth century bce at Utica (Tunisia), where the same types of imported Mediterranean ceramics were found and which has produced a similar sequence of C14 dates as those observed in the Iberian Peninsula (López Castro et al. 2016).

  In all the settlements under discussion, there are indications of craft production and metallurgy, as well as of a close relationship with local societies attested by the presence of locally produced handmade ceramics. Metal resources such as silver, copper, tin, and iron were abundant in southern areas of the Iberian Peninsula as Río Tinto in Huelva or Sierra Morena in Jaén, which were exploited from the Late Bronze Age (Aubet 2009: 284–88), and the wealth of metals was a topos in Classical authors (Hdt. IV.152; Diod. Sic. V.35.4–5; Strab. III.2.11). The distribution of the early Phoenician settlements was not simply casual, nor did it consist of isolated settlements. Instead, the process of early colonization began first in the eastern Mediterranean and extended to the extreme west, and places such as Utica in North Africa, Motya and and Sardinia served as important waypoints as colonization progressed. It is quite probable that, in their first colonial movements, the Phoenicians followed the existing Bronze Age networks for the trade of metals in the Mediterranean. Along these routes, they established permanent settlements and interacted with local populations, especially at sanctuary sites such as El Carambolo.

  The Colonial Period: Settlements, Production, and Exchange in the Eighth–Seventh Centuries bce

  Following the phase of early colonization, the success of the first settlements enabled the number of new colonial foundations on the Iberian Peninsula to multiply during the last decades of the ninth century bce and the first decades of the eighth, extending from the eastern Mediterranean coast of Iberia to the southern Atlantic coast. Without a doubt, the most important foundation was Gadir, to which the Classical sources attribute both an early foundation date and an early urban character. Investigations in the Bay of Cádiz today offer an increasingly complete—and complex—picture of the territorial occupation of this area by the Tyrian Phoenicians (Botto 2014). Among other things, they confirm that Gadir had evidence of urban construction from the late ninth or the beginning of the eighth century bce, when the Phoenicians occupied the islands of the coastal archipelago along the entrance to the large protected bay. The easternmost island, Sancti Petri, housed the temple of Melqart at Cádiz, one of the most famous in the ancient world (Maya Torcelly et al. 2014). The city itself was situated on the westernmost island, where recent excavations under the Teatro Cómico have uncovered one sector of the ancient colonial foundation on the side of a hill that was occupied from the late ninth or the beginning of the eighth century bce (Torres Ortiz et al. 2014). The settlement consisted of streets and mudbrick houses constructed on terraces, where various domestic and artisanal activities were carried out in successive occupation phases until the sixth century bce (Gener Basallote et al. 2014: 18–27).

  In Gadir, it is possible to trace the development of an architectural model that is completely Levantine in origin and already evident at the earlier settlement of La Rebanadilla. Key elements of construction include stone foundations and plinths, mudbrick architecture, clay or lime plaster, and open-air patios. Second stories were also constructed, as well as flat roofs that served as rooftop terraces with suspension systems made of wooden posts and beams (Gener Basallote et al. 2014: 26–27). Around the middle of the eighth century bce, the residents of Gadir established themselves on the mainland with two additional settlements, both fortified with casemate walls, on the other side of the bay: Castillo de Doña Blanca, with an area of about 7 hectares, and Chiclana (map 38.1), which is only known through the partial remains of its wall. Both settlements formed part of the city of Gadir and functioned together to control the mainland territory to the north and to the east of the Bay of Cádiz, respectively. There is evidence of occupation until the end of the third century bce at Castillo de Doña Blanca and at least until the fourth century bce at Chiclana (Ruiz Mata 2001; Bueno Serrano 2014).

  At the beginning of the eighth century bce, the Phoenicians also founded new settlements along the Atlantic coast of what is now Portugal, and especially along the Mediterranean coast of Iberia, today the coasts of Málaga, Granada, and Almería, and even farther northeast (Arruda 2000; Aubet 2009: 308–11; for Portugal, see also chapter 39, this volume). The majority of these were situated on promontories at the mouths of rivers, which served as protected harbors. In other cases, such as Cerro del Villar, they were located on fluvial islands (Aubet et al. 1999). Save a few exceptional examples, these settlements were small, usually less than 2 or 3 hectares in area, and did not have the urban characteristics observed at Gadir. The earliest of these settlements along the southern coast is Morro de Mezquitilla, which has produced calibrated radiocarbon dates from the B1 phase dating to 810–749 bce (Schubart 2006: 97–119; Schubart and Maass-Lindemann 2017: 619–21, Mederos Martín 2005b: 308–309). Along the eastern coast, the oldest settlement is Cabezo del Estaño (García Menárguez and Prados Martínez 2014), which is situated inside the estuary of the Segura River. This settlement was protected by a Levantine-style fortification with bastions and a casemate wall, and was occupied until the end of the eighth century bce, when the residents moved to La Fonteta, a settlement closer to the coast (Rouillard et al. 2007; González Prats 2011).

  Of all the colonial settlements dating to the eighth and seventh centuries bce, only Toscanos (Niemeyer 1986), Chorreras (M
artín Córdoba et al. 2008; Arnold and Marzoli 2009), La Fonteta, and Cerro del Villar have been subject to large-scale excavations (Seks and Abdera have produced some materials less relevant to the present discussion). Toscanos is known for its two singular buildings: building C and building H. The first is the “storehouse” of Toscanos, measuring 162 m2 with multiple rooms on its ground floor. The structure has incited controversy over whether it should indeed be interpreted as a warehouse for goods or as a commercial building, and scholars have proposed various architectural parallels in the eastern Mediterranean (Arnold and Marzoli 2009: 449). The neighboring building, building H, reached 110 m2 with six rooms arranged around a patio, which—largely for its tripartite plan—has been identified as a building with a palatial function (Prados Martínez 2001–2002). The colonial settlement of Las Chorreras is of medium size with houses organized into blocks. The houses are aligned with the edges of streets along a terraced hill (Arnold and Marzoli 2009: 447–49).

  In these colonial settlements, there is ample evidence for productive, subsistence activities carried out in the surrounding territories from the eighth to sixth centuries bce. Analyses of seeds and charcoal indicate that the Phoenicians cultivated grains such as wheat and barley, as well as olive trees and grapevines. In addition, they grew fruits and vegetables, including figs, almonds, peas, lentils, and garbanzo beans, which were introduced from the east (Pardo Barrionuevo 2015: 44–68). Zooarchaeological analyses have provided information about the breeding of cattle, sheep, and goats, and—in smaller quantities—pigs. Other documented domesticated species include horse, chicken, and dog, while a small percentage of deer attest to the hunting of wild animals to supplement the diet (Riquelme Cantal 2001; Pardo Barrionuevo 2015: 46–66). Marine resources also played a role in diet: the fishing of sea bass, tuna, and smaller fish is also attested, as well as the consumption of mollusks (Moya Cobos 2016: 23–83). In areas that have been subject to intense prospection, including the coast of Málaga and the areas around Toscanos, Morro de Mezquitilla, and Chorreras, various settlements have been discovered that are considered of “agricultural” character with kilns for firing amphorae (Martín Córdoba et al. 2008; Martín Córdoba et al. 2006). These served as containers for the export of wine and olive oil beyond the local market (Pardo Barrionuevo 2015: 206–10). Finally, metallurgical production is widely attested at the majority of these settlements, including the production of iron, lead, and the smelting of silver (Carpintero Lozano et al. 2015; Murillo-Barroso et al. 2016). It is clear that Phoenician colonization from the eighth to the sixth centuries bce was not strictly a commercial endeavor. The exploitation of territorial resources was a decisive motivation for these populations that were distributed along almost the whole of the Iberian coast, occupying the majority of the mouths of rivers and—unlike the earliest settlements—situated sometimes in more isolated places that were strategic for commercial reasons (for agriculture, see chapter 29, this volume).