http://digilander.libero.it/theghost63/Tartessus/Tartessus_eng.htm:


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).

The following map shows the part of the current South-West Spain coast, where Tartessus probably was located.






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.
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 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."
Psalm 72, 10 "The kings of Tarshish and of distant shores will bring tribute to him..."
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.
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.