For further information look at "Die Ausgrabung von Tartessos"
by Karl Juergen Hepke
Over that has the Roman poet Rufus Festus Avienus (4th century B.C.) in his fragmentary preserved works "Ora maritima" took down again a Greek text from the 6th. century B.C. about a coast description from Massalia (Marseille). This description is one of the most important sources for the knowledge of the south iberian coast at which was founded the branch Mainake (today Torre del Mar near Malaga).
The name "Tartessos" was valid for a town, an empire and a river. Tartessos was in all sources an important business center rich of ore in the south of the iberian peninsula. Attempts of digging up it at Huelva , Cadiz and at the Guadalquivir could not solve the secret of the situation of the town.
Joined with the search after the town is especially the name of the German historian Adolf Schulten (1870-1960), who invested his life work and property into the search for the town and rested at last without success. Numerous archaeological finds have nevertheless proved that the remarks of the named authors must mean this area.
Probable was the previous mistake that mainly the area of the rivers Guadalquivir, as the
biggest river of the region, and the Rio Tinto, as the river next to the ore regions of the
Sierra Morena, were examined for possible places for the situation of Tartessos.
The more southern situated river Guadalete, which is much more convenient situated to the street
of Gibraltar, was not closer examined. Possibly because at a peninsula before its mouth was
situated the Phoenician and later Carthagenian town of commerce Gades (Cadiz).
A capital of an empire which was situated behind another good known town had probably no sense
for a historian fixed at the time 700 B.C. until 400 B.C. and so nobody searched here. Although
river, terrain and hill must have had a good impression for an archaeological trained eye, which
knew the places of other towns of the Bronze Age like Mykene and Tyrins. Over that some cuts
of the spade into the Tell de la Dona Blanca behind Puerto de Santa Maria would have been
sufficient to find the walls of the town.
But back to the literatur about Tartessos and its ancestor Tharsis. The Greek legend of Herkules
tells, that the giant with three bodies Geryoneus ruled the island Erytheia (island of the sunset),
that was situated far in the west near to the Hesperids. He was killed by Herkules and robbed
of his cows. His ankle Norax went to Sardinia and founded there the town of Nora.
Justinus tells in his excerpt of the historical works of Pompejus Trogus, written in the 3th.
century about two legendary kings of Tartessos. Gorgoris taught the apiculture to the people,
While Habis taught farming and cattle breeding. Habis was abandoned as new-born and was
brought up by a hind. A story typical for the states of the beginning.
Habis issued laws, forbid any work to the nobility and shared people into seven classes. That
remembers the stories of culture bringing persons in other states of origin.
Historians suppose by this legend, that Tartessos was at the beginning a theocratic monarchy as other states of the beginning. Probably they were not wrong in that, if you take the story of Atlantis as valid for Tartessos as for Tharsis. Because the lack of proof for this thesis they agreed to the assumption of a divine admired king (similar to the Pharao of Egypt) as you find it in many nations of the Bronze Age.
As most famous ruler of Tartessos is regarded the nearly historical vouched Arganthonios to whom Herodot awards a long life of 120 years and a period of rule of 80 years. As ruler over a rich and peaceful country with a gigantic wealth of metals he represented for the Greek a kind of Kroesus of the West.
The citizen of Samos Kolaios came to him in the 7th. century B.C. cause of a terrible thunderstorm and was received benevolent as a Greek. The king donated the means for the construction of the town wall of Phokaia in form of an immense amount of silver. Phokaia was founding town of Massalia and Mainake and with that representative of the Greek extension to the western Mediterranean.
But the good relations to the Greek were soon interrupted. In the sea-battle of Alalia at Corsica
the united fleets of the Etruscians and the Carthagians defeated crushing the fleet of the Greek
and terminated with that the further extension of them into the western Mediterranean. Since 500 B.C.
Tartessos disappears from history. Probably it was completely cordoned off from the outside world
by the Carthagians.
By the meanwhile advanced digging up at the Tell de la Dama Blanca, the results of which will be
reported at the bottom, is proved that the Romans conquered in course of the second Punic war
the town and destroyed it partly. Probably they demanded the complete destruction and flattening
of the town by the population to make impossible a repeat of settlement. This was an usual proceeding
of the Romans to act with defeated towns. It prevented a regaining of forces of defence
of the beaten country.
Because the Romans were not able to control the destruction for they had further jobs, the driven out
inhabitants filled only the area of the town inside the town wall with earth and hid also the wall
with an earth bank. With that the demand of the Romans was fulfilled and the town could be dug up
again when the intruders had returned to their country. But the Romans were contrary to this
expectations for 400 years ruler of the country.
The harbour of Puerto, the town of commerce Gades and the settlement Jerez, better protected
against the wind, took the functions and the inhabitants of the disempowered town Tartessos.
At its with earth covered barrow prevented the occupying power any attempt of rebuilding.
A not to high to judge present to modern archaeology. Probably it appreciates this gift in
the right way, as you can see from the following leaflet of Puerto.
Situation geografica y relieve
El Castillo de Dona Blanca está situado a los pies de la pequena Sierra de San Cristobal en El Puerto de Santa Maria (Cadiz). Ante el yacimiento se extiende una extensa llanura de marisma y salinas, en gran parte rellenada por los aluviones del rio Gualdalete. En sus origenes esta llanura fue un amplia bahia en cuyo fondo se situaba el estuario del rio. La ciudad fenicia se asentó en este lugar en el siglo VIII a.C., muy proxima a la desembocadura y aprovechando una antigua ensenada protegida de los vientos.
El punto elegido para crear la ciudad era muy favorable: Esta abierto al mar y muy cerca de los estuarios de los rios Guadalete y Guadalquivir, rutas de penetración hacia el interior, hacia territorios agricolas y mineros. En el zona habia abundante agua dulce, canteras de piedra, masas forestales, etc.
El aspecto que presenta actualmente el yacimiento es de colina amesetada de forma casi rectangular y de unas 6,5 hectáreas de extensión y elevándose 31 metros sobre el nivel del mar. Este aspecto es el resultado de su historia. Se trata de un relieve artificial formado por la acumulación, unos sobre otros, de los diversos asentamientos y edificaciones que se han ido sucediendo a lo largo de tiempo, llegando a tener en algunas zonas hasta 9 metros de estratos arqueológicos superpuestos.
Los primeros asentamientos humanos conocidos en el yacimiento son de una fase tardia de Edad de Cobre, al final del III milenio a.C. Este periodo está documentado con fondos o huellas de cabanas dispersas y adaptadas a la topografia original del terreno. A continución hay un periodo de abandono que dura hasta la primera mitad del siglo VIII a.C., momento en el que se produce el primer asentamiento fenicio. Poco después se construye la primera muralla.
El yacimiento es habitado de forma ininterumpida hasta la llegada de los romanos en el transcurso de la segunda guerra punica (206 a.C.). Durante estos seiscientos anos de poblamiento fenicio se edificaron otros dos recintos fortificados (en los siglos VI y III a.C.) y se realizaron varias remodelaciones urbanisticas. Desde la conquista romana, Dona Blanca queda abandonada hasta la Edad Media: Hay restos de poblacion islámica entre los siglos IX y XII d.C.
Finalmente, en el siglo XV se costruye la torre o ermita de planta de cruz griega, donde la leyenda sitúa la prisión hasta su asesinato en 1361 de Dona Blanca de Borbón, esposa de Don Pedro el Cruel.
Los restos de viviendas del siglo VIII a.C. se encuentran al exterior del primer recinto amurallado y proximas al puerto comercial de la ciudad. Las viviendas se disponen aprovechando la ladera, mediante un sistema de terrazas artificiales. Las casas tienen 3 o 4 habitaciones con zócalos de mamposteria y alzado de adobes revocados de arcilla y encalados. Los suelos son de arcilla roja apisonada siendo la techumbre de cubierta vegetal. La mayoria tenia su proprio horno de pan. Se han detectado hogares, bancos en las paredes y otros elementos. Basicamente este tipo de vivienda se mantiene en los restos del urbanismo de época tardia (siglos IV y III a.C.) que se han localizado. De estos siglos conservamos aspectos muy interessantes como la presencia de un lagar, piletas, asi como una calle perfectamente delimitada.
Se conoce tambien, aunque parcialmente, aspectos del sistema defensivo. Desde sus comienzos , la ciudad fenicia se fortificó con una recia muralla con bastiones. Sobre una plataforma de arcilla se construyó una zapata de mamposteria sobre la cual se levantó la muralla, hecha con piedras irregulares y trabadas con arcilla. Se conservan alzados de hasta 4,80 metros. Sobre esta muralla se construyó otra mas moderna, aunque ambos trazados no coinciden en su totalidad. Delante de la muralla se ha localizado un foso arcaico en forma de "V" excavado en la roca y de una anchura de 8,5 metros.
En la falda de la Sierra de San Cristobal se extiende la necropolis con casi cien hectareas de extension y con una distribución en núcleos o cementerios de distintas epocas que van desde el Bronce medio hast epoca turdetana. Lo tipos de tumbas y los ritos de enterramientos que nos encontramos son variados, desde las tumbas excavadas en la roca o hipogeos de inhumación hasta los de estructura en cerros artificiales o túmulos que cubren tumbas de incineración.
The place that was chosen for the foundation of the town was situated very convenient. It was
open to the sea and lied very near to the courses of the rivers Guadalete and Guadalquivir, ways
to penetrate into the interior to agricultural usable regions and to the mines. In the environment
there were ample fresh water, quarries, extended forests and other useful.
The sight which gives currently the settlement is that of a table formed hill of nearly rectangular form and 6,5 ha size, that raises 31 m over the sea level. This appearance is the result of its history. It is an artificial created relief which came into being in the course of time by different layers of settlement, one over the other, and reaches at some places a thickness of nine meters over the initial ground.
The first human settlements at this place are coming from the late phase of the Copper Age at the end of the third millenium. This time is documented by foundations and prints of huts which lied isolated and adapted to the natural form of terrain.
In the following time there is a period of non-settlement of the place, which lasted until the first half of the 8th century B.C., the time in which was formed the first Phoenician setting up. A little bit later was built the first town wall. This settlement was inhabited in incessant following until the arrival of the Romans in the course of the second Punic war (206 B.C.). During these 600 years of Phoenician settlement were created two new fortifications ( in the 6th. and 3rd century) and carried out several structural alterations in the town area.
After the conquest by the Romans the area of Dona Blanca staid unsettled until the Middle Ages. Than it gives rests of islamic settlement between the 9th and 12th century A.C. Finally was constructed in the 15th century the tower or eremitage in form of a Greek cross in which settles the legend the captivity of Dona Blanca of Bourbon, wife of Peter the Cruel of Sevilla, until her murder.
Principles of the construction of fortifications are also known. Already since the beginning this Phoenician town is fortified with a strong town wall with bastions. Over a platform of clay is a pedestal of strong stonework over that builds up the wall, formed by irregular stones of rock joined by clay. There are conserved rests till 4,8 m of height. Over this wall is constructed another more modern, but both are not everywhere corresponding in their location. In front of the wall is a V-formed archaic ditch, which is with a width of 8,5 m at its upper side worked out into the rock.
Read to this, (for the moment only available in German language) :
DIE GESCHICHTE VON ATLANTIS, der vergessene Ursprung unserer Kultur
by Karl Juergen Hepke
TRIGA - DER VERLAG, D 63584 Gruendau-Rothenbergen, Germany, 2nd Edition, Hardcover, 268 Pages, EUR 22,00, ISBN 978-3-89774-539-1 ,
