Information of Interest
Background Information: Tarshish and Phoenicia.
Contents:
1. Tarshish in Southwest Spain.
2. Tarshish, Mycenean Greeks, Phoenicians and Carthaginians.
3. Wikipedia. Phoenicians in the West. Himilco.
4. More Sources Concenting the Phoenicians.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
1. Tarshish in Southwest Spain.
Tarshish is identified (at least in part) with the port of off the southwest coast of Spain.
The port of Huelva in southwest Spain, close to Gibraltar, facing the Atlantic ocean, was used for the export of minerals from the surrounding region.
It has revealed the remains of silver and gold mining. Copper and other minerals have also been found in this region associated with the Rio Tinto river.
The sources were worked from the Assyrian-Phoenician period all the way through to the Late Roman one.
"The old silver slags from Rio Tinto, estimated through surface surveys and systematic drilling at some 6,600,000 tons,
were lined up over more than two kilometres."
[Today the ratio of gold to silver in value is 80 to 1 (sic.). whereas in Ancient Times the ratio was 4 to 1. In other words silver was valued much more (when compared to gold) than it now is].
The Rio Tinto mines were the major source of copper for the Roman Empire.
Even in recent times the sources were still being exploited:
# After a period of abandonment, the mines were rediscovered in 1556 and the Spanish government began operating them once again in 1724. In the 19th century, companies from the United Kingdom started large-scale mining operations. In 1873, the Rio Tinto Company was formed to operate the mines. Production declined after the peak of production in 1930, and it ended in 1986 for copper mining and in 1996 for silver and gold mining. All mining ended in 2001. #
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_Tinto_(river)
Archaeologists consider settlement in the area in Ancient Times to have been originally a mixed native and Phoenician one followed by the arrival of Greek colonists at a later date.
It has been identified with the Biblical Tarshish.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huelva
As a Phoenician outpost, it facilitated local exports such as silver, copper, purple dye and salted fish, while it also served as node in the trade routes connecting the Northern Atlantic, the Southern Atlantic and the Mediterranean.[11] Population notably increased from the 750s BCE onward, possibly connected to the arrival of refugees fleeing from the Assyrian conquests of Tiglath-Pileser III and overall from the economic crisis and social unrest induced by the Assyrian subjugation of the Levant.
In other words the population increased after the conquest of Northern Israel by Assyria and the Exile of the Ten Tribes.
Settlement was interrupted by volcanic activity in ca. 700-650 BCE.
Part of the Phoenician type civilization was inundated by the sea.
# The thousands of ceramic fragments recovered were distributed practically equally between Phoenician and local traditions. #
Dated from 990 BCE to ca. 770 BCE.
Radiocarbon dating estimates from Israel for the period are much lower than that given for similar artifacts from "various European countries, Turkey and Carthage" (Canales, p. 138, n.9).
[It may be that in Israel the Phoenician-type culture was more "archaic," i.e. datable to an earlier period when compared with other Phoenician areas?
The people of Phoenician Culture later left the area and the native element (known as the Turdetani) took over.
# The transition from the Tartessian period to the ensuing Turdetani period was presumably slow and not traumatic, degenerating from an economy based on mining to a new one rather focused on the trade of agricultural and fishing products. It was in the hands of the Turdetani at the time of conquest by Rome, and before the conquest it issued silver coins with Iberian legends. #
TARSHISH AND THE UNITED MONARCHY OF ISRAEL. By F. Gonzalez de Canales, L. Serrano, and J. Llompart.
https://www.academia.edu/3093389/TARSHISH_AND_THE_UNITED_MONARCHY_OF_ISRAEL_By_F_Gonz%C3%A1lez_de_Canales_L_Serrano_and_J_Llompart?email_work_card=abstract-read-more
Fernando Gonzalez de Canales
2010, Ancient Near Eastern Studies 47, 136-143,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huelva
A finding of vases indicates
a relationship of Huelva with Sardinia.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
2. Tarshish, Mycenean Greeks, Phoenicians and Carthaginians.
Tarshish is recorded as a son of Yavan of Yaphet. "Yavan" is Hebrew for Greece.
cf. Genesies (TCT) 10:
4 And the sons of Javan were Elishah and Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim.
There was an important center named Tarshish in Cilicia where Turkey and Syria link up.
Tartessus in southwest Spain was also known as Tarshish.
Tarshish in Spain may have first been settled by people of Greek stock but it became a Phoenician colony.
The Phoenicians were originally Canaanites from cities along the Levant coastline. The most important of these were Tsor (Tyre) and Sidon.
They established colonies throughout the Mediterranean and also ,in Britain and Europe.
Carthage in North Africa was originally a Phoenicians settlement. Carthage was settled around 814 BC by colonists from Tyre. It later became independent and established its own Empire and was a rival with Rome.
The inhabitants of Phoenicians and Carthaginian colonies according to DNA and archaeological findings were local mixed Europeans of Myceanan Greek culture.
IN the armies of Carthage there were many mercenaries and foreign auxiliaries. They included Iberians (Spanish), Balearics, Gauls, Britons, Sicilians, Italians, Greeks, Numidians, and Libyans.
See:
BAMAD-175
https://hebrewnations.com/features/2bamad/bamad-175.html
#2. Carthaginians and Phoenicians were mostly local Peoples who adopted Punic Culture?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
3. Wikipedia. Phoenicians in the West. Himilco.
The Phoenicians are among the first people to sail past the Strait of Gibraltar, into the Atlantic Ocean to Sub-Saharan Africa.4 Hanno (also called Hanno the Navigator) was a citizen of Carthage who lived during the 5th century BCE. Not much is known about Hanno's life other than the voyage he made. In or about 520 BCE, the Carthaginian government directed Hanno to explore and colonize parts of West Africa. He set sail with 60 vessels holding 30,000 men and women, and supplies for their long journey.5 They left Carthage, sailed west through the Pillars of Hercules (called the Strait of Gibraltar today) into the Atlantic Ocean, then south down West Africa's coast. Along the way, he founded several cities. Settlers were left behind at these cities to grow them into colonies. The expedition explored the lands, and came upon rivers full of crocodiles and hippopotamuses.6 They encountered African peoples on their voyage as well. Some were friendly and welcoming, and helped the Carthaginians learn. Some who were less friendly and kept the Carthaginians away.
They continued on their journey for sometime. In the end, Hanno's expedition sailed down most of the West African coast. They made it down to a point he referred to as the Horn of the South. Here, Hanno explains an encounter with an animal called a gorilla. It was not a good encounter, as the gorillas were said to be scary and aggressive. Still, this is the earliest known mention of gorillas.7 They began to run out of supplies and returned home. Historians are unsure of the exact length of Hanno's journey. But many historians agree that he covered about 2600 miles of African coastline.8 Historians also believe that he made it at least as far as present day Sierra Leone, if not farther, to parts of present day Gabon. Some historians even credit Hanno, or another Phoenician fleet, for sailing all the way around the continent of Africa several thousand years before Bartholomew Dias and Vasco da Gama.9 Regardless, Hanno's expedition down the African coast was one of the first successful trips of its kind.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_Phoenician_discovery_of_the_Americas
The Sargasso Sea may have been known to earlier mariners, as the poem Ora Maritima by the late 4th-century author Rufus Festus Avienius describes a portion of the Atlantic as being covered with seaweed, citing a now-lost account by 5th-century BC Carthaginian navigator Himilco.[2]
# Himilco, a senior Carthaginian commander, set about to explore the Atlantic coast of Europe on a single ship. He passed through the Pillars of Melqart-Heracles near Cadiz and turned north along the western coastlines of Iberia and Gaul (modern Portugal and France). The voyage took four long months, owing apparently to the shallow becalmed seas, vast areas of seaweed, and huge marine monsters which they encountered along the way.
# Eventually, the party arrived in what is now Brittany (Western France) , where lived the Oestrymnians, a trading people who ventured out on to the ocean in their hidebound boats. The Oestrymnians were renowned for their special relationship with the inhabitants of the mysterious tin- and lead-producing Cassiterides islands (variously identified as islands off Spain or in the Gulf of Morbihan, the Scilly Isles or Cornwall). Afterwards the party travelled further north, with Himilco visiting both Ireland and Britain before making the return journey to Carthage.
r/PhoeniciaHistoryFacts
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
4. More Sources Concenting the Phoenicians.
Ganor Sources. Phoenician Research Notes-1
British Antinquities by Sammes
Phoenicians Galore. Information of Interest.