Navegando para o Rio de Janeiro!

Navegando para o Rio de Janeiro!

/ENGLISH/ Sailing to Rio de Janeiro!
/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ Πλώρη για Rio de Janeiro!

Museu Afro-Brasileiro

ΙΙΙ Festival

TÃO LONGE, TÃO PERTO

Música e Poesia em Língua Portuguesa

(Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Maio de 2013)*

Testemunho para debate de Michales Loukovikas

* O Festival Tão Longe Tão Perto foi organizado em colaboração com o grupo Música Surda: Andréia Pedroso, Antônio Jardim, Artur Gouvêa e Eduardo Gatto.
 
 

Quando Amélia Muge e eu começámos a trocar e pesquisar material relacionado com as nossas tradições, a lusitana-portuguesa e a helénica-grega, muitas pessoas ergueram as sobrancelhas com ironia e descrença:

“Ah, eles são loucos”, pensaram, outros até disseram: “Portugal e Grécia são tão distantes, é impossível encontrar uma base comum”…

Imaginem o que dirão estas pessoas de “sobrancelha erguida” agora que estamos falando num triângulo, não o das… Bermudas, mas de Portugal, Brasil e Grécia. Bom, Portugal e Brasil, tudo bem, a relação é evidente: antiga colónia e metrópole. Mas… a Grécia?!!

Flamenco (de Hyatt Moore):
uma arte ligando a Iberia e a India

Posso dizer que os resultados de nossa colaboração até a nós surpreenderam! Devo acrescentar que mesmo a alguém que como eu tem vindo a pesquisar neste campo há muitos anos, concluindo que civilização e cultura são o
resultado do dar e receber, de trocas. Também provei nos meus programas de rádio que lugares tão distantes como Índia e Ibéria por exemplo têm estado interconectados faz milhares de anos, desde os tempos antigos… Bem, quando nós, gregos, dizemos “antigos” significa AEC (antes da era comum) ou AC (antes de Cristo), se preferirem.

Todas essas ideias foram ainda mais reforçadas quando Amélia e eu começamos a trabalhar no Periplus. Claro que mesmo agora ainda há alguns “pontos obscuros”; questões que permanecem sem resposta. É por exemplo uma questão intrigante para mim: como pode a Amélia, uma portuguesa nascida em Moçambique, compor em estilo antigo? Isto porque todos os três temas gregos antigos que temos no Periplus (o Epitáfio de Seikilos, o Primeiro Hino Délfico dedicado a Apolo e o Hino a Némesis de Mesomedes) foram incluídos por causa das composições dela, que me lembraram as canções gregas antigas supra mencionadas. É muito estranho.

Pyxis (Píxis): uma pequena caixa cilíndrica andalusa, de marfim, para cosméticos ou joalharia (séc. X)

 

Mas fora esses “pontos obscuros”, que sempre nos irão desafiar a encontrar respostas satisfatórias, fomos capazes de organizar o resto do puzzle com algum conforto. E quando o nosso Periplus foi lançado, eu pude dizer:

“As conexões estão aí, esperando por nós para serem descobertas. Só é necessário pesquisar metodicamente, é claro, e com uma bússola adequada” – como vocês dizem, bússula, como nós dizemos.

• ^(a) Temos a mesma palavra vinda do grego (pyxos > pyxis-pyxida > buxis-buxida > box, boîte, e bussola), com o nome dado à planta pyxos (> buxo) como ponto de partida; é um arbusto de madeira muito dura, compacta e durável que tem sido usada desde a antiguidade para construir recipientes, tais como pyxides (pequenas caixas), e instrumentos musicais de corda e sopro. As suas sementes estão dentro de uma cápsula que também se chama pixídio. De facto, quem dentro dos não-especialistas poderia imaginar que a inglesa box (caixa) tinha tido uma origem grega?

●

Mecanismo de Anticítera

A península grega e o seu arquipélago não foram um começo da história da civilização. Os gregos receberam a sabedoria do Oriente (Ásia Menor, Egipto e Mesopotâmia) e transformaram-na em ciência;^(b) foi um grande feito! E deixaram uma literatura maravilhosa! A civilização helênica tornou-se por isso a base fundadora das culturas ocidentais.

• ^(b) Não pode existir uma grande civilização sem a tecnologia equivalente. Uma maravilha neste domínio é o Mecanismo de Anticítera, o mais antigo computador analógico, concebido para calcular as posições dos astros. Datado de 100 AC, foi recuperado em 1901 de um navio naufragado perto da Anticítera entre o Peloponeso e Creta, mas o seu significado e complexidade só foram compreendidos um século depois. Dispositivos de um nível correspondente reaparecerão na Europa no séc.14, com a construção dos relógios astronómicos. O professor Michael Edmunds da Universidade de Cardiff, que dirigiu em 2006 um estudo sobre este mecanismo, refere:
  “Este mecanismo é simplesmente extraordinário, único dentro deste género. O design é maravilhoso, a astronomia exacta. A forma como foi concebido deixa-nos de queixo caído… Em termos de valor histórico e raridade, sou obrigado a olhar para este mecanismo como sendo mais valioso que a Mona Lisa.”

Victória, a única nau da frota de F. Magalhães que completou o periplus ou circum-navegação à volta da terra (detalhe de um mapa de Ortelius, 1590)

Os periploi (plural de periplus) que chegaram até nós ocorreram no mar Mediterrânico e nos oceanos Índico e Atlântico. Heródoto também escreveu sobre um périplo por África feito pelos fenícios em nome de um faraó egípcio. Um grego de Alexandria (Egipto) descreveu as costas do Oceano Índico na África do leste e Índia. Píteas, da colónia grega de Massália (moderna Marselha, França) viajou pelo norte até às Ilhas Britânicas e Escandinávia e concluiu um periplus europeu navegando através dos rios da Europa do Báltico ao Mar Negro, voltando ao Mediterrâneo. Há também quem acredite que os minoicos cretenses, os gregos, os egípcios, os púnicos e outros povos da antiguidade navegaram até ás Américas antes dos vikings ou de Colombo – ou, é claro, de Fernão de Magalhães que tentou um periplus à volta da terra mas não teve a sorte de concluí-lo.

Mas essas viagens começaram na Idade do Bronze, muito antes dos registos históricos. Há muitos indícios de que os minóicos na época do seu domínio marítimo (talassocracia) viajaram até á Cornualha (Bretanha) à procura de estanho, ou obtinham-no no sul da Gália. O estanho é um componente necessário ao fabrico do bronze (10% de estanho com 90% de cobre). Havia naquela época muito cobre no Mediterrâneo. Chipre por exemplo estava cheio de cobre e o nome desta ilha tem origem nesta palavra. Mas estanho? Não havia muitos lugares no Mediterrâneo que o tivessem e os que o tinham era em pouca quantidade.

Andaluzia com Tartessos e Gadir-Gadeira-Gades-Cádis, uma colónia fenícia em três ilhas com nomes gregos: Erytheia, Kotinoussa e Antipolis, enquanto Melcarte, o deus tutelar, se assemelha a Héracles, o fundador da cidade segundo um mito grego…

Os minoicos e mais tarde os gregos e os fenícios, navegaram até á Ibéria que era rica em minerais. Muito provavelmente teriam sido os andaluzes a levar os cretenses até à Galiza, Bretanha e Cornualha: eles sabiam o caminho… Todos esses lugares, especialmente a Cornualha, possuíam grandes depósitos de estanho. Lá, perto da Galiza, ou talvez da Cornualha, estariam as chamadas Cassitérides Nesoi, as Ilhas de Estanho (cassiteros significa estanho em grego). Heródoto e outros historiadores escreveram também sobre as ligações dos gregos e fenícios com Tartessos na Andaluzia, na foz do Guadalquivir, e há quem nos dias de hoje correlacione Tartessos com a misteriosa Atlântida…

●

Uma das duas famosas estátuas gregas de tamanho inteiro de guerreiros barbudos despidos, as chamadas Bronzes de Riace, fundidas em cerca de 460-450 AC, redescobertas em 1972 e consideradas como um dos símbolos da Calábria

A minha investigação começou com algumas perguntas muito simples:

• Aonde é que a Idade do Bronze Mediterrânica encontrou estanho para produzir o bronze?

• Quem foram os comerciantes marítimos desse tempo a trazer este metal crucial para o Mediterrâneo e onde é que o encontraram?^(c)

• ^(c) Podem consultar detalhes desta saga no blogue de Periplus, na categoria Once Upon a… Wave, nas Crónicas de 1 a 10: tendo como ponto de partida um Périplo mediterrânico; deambula-se pela Creta minóica, pela Grécia micénica, pela Fenícia; desvenda-se o Enigma dos Povos do Mar; descobre-se o “El Dorado” na Ibéria; Revivendo um Périplo ibérico; e observa-se os esforços para Restringir a liberdade de pensamento, bem como a catástrofe de Tartesso e Cartago (“Carthago Delenda Est”), enquanto se vê a Ibéria com olhos imparciais, e se tiram conclusões a partir de um Waterloo arquelógico.

A conclusão é que certas necessidades levam as pessoas a viver em conjunto, a comunicar, a fazer trocas entre elas. Foi assim que a sociedade nasceu, as cidades foram criadas, apareceram as classes e a divisão social do trabalho, e a escrita foi inventada. A interacção embora ligada a necessidades materiais transformou os que trabalharam em conjunto também pela troca de ideias e ideais, processo que está na base do nascimento da civilização e da cultura.

Safo e Alcaeu, de Lawrence Alma-Tadema

Não é assim tão óbvio, mas temos também coisas como um “periplus” noutros empreendimentos humanos. A música nasceu em conjunto com a fala. Num estado mais avançado, na Grécia antiga, música significava quer o instrumental quer a canção. A poesia na Grécia clássica era inconcebível sem música. As duas artes acabaram… por divorciar-se mais tarde, no séc. 4 AC. Contudo, quer antes, quer depois, foi necessário (e ainda é) um “periplus” para combinar sons e palavras, e para expressar o significado das palavras através dos sons. Algo parecido acontece na tradução: neste caso, o “periplus” diz respeito a duas linguagens. É a viagem do texto, o seu sentido e estilo, conteúdo e forma, ao ser adaptado para que comece a respirar num outro ambiente linguístico…

●

A Odisseia é uma espécie de “periplus” poético. De acordo com os Lusitanos, as deambulações de Odisseu( Ulisses) foram também luso-gregas: ele fundou Lisboa e teve um filho de uma princesa Ibérica: Calipso. Homero descreveu a descida de Odisseu ao Hades, o mundo dos mortos, que estava para lá dos Pilares de Hércules, quer dizer, o Estreito de Gilbraltar. Os gregos localizaram na mesma área o Jardim das Hespérides e as Ilhas Afortunadas (Makaron Nesoi), as Ilhas Bem Aventuradas ou o Elísio, onde hoje se pensa ser a Macaronésia (Açores, Madeira, as Canárias e Cabo Verde).

Dante, no seu Inferno, cita outra versão da descida sem retorno de Odisseu ao mundo dos mortos. Segundo ele, o rei de Ítaca passou os Pilares de Hércules e velejando para sul, atravessou o Equador e continuou a viajar durante meses, até chegar a uma baía com uma grande montanha. Nessa altura, um tornado afundou o seu barco…

Não sei porquê, mas acho que essa baía com uma grande montanha é… o Rio de Janeiro! Eu gostaria de poder confirmá-lo…

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Chronicle 15. SAILING TO RIO DE JANEIRO!

ii) INTERLUDE

Crossing the Atlantic

 

Chronicle 15. SAILING TO RIO DE JANEIRO!

● Periplus: (Luso-Hellenic Wanderings) ● An Atlantic Odyssey

/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ ΠΛΩΡΗ ΓΙΑ RIO DE JANEIRO!
/PORTUGUÊS/ NAVEGANDO PARA O RIO DE JANEIRO!

Afro-Brazilian Museum

ΙΙΙ Festival

SO DISTANT
SO NEAR

Music and Poetry in the
Portuguese Language

Federal University of
Rio de Janeiro, May 2013

Tão Longe Tão Perto Organized in collaboration with the ensemble Música Surda: Andréia Pedroso, Antônio Jardim, Artur Gouvêa and Eduardo Gatto.

Michales Loukovikas

WHEN AMÉLIA MUGE AND I BEGAN researching and exchanging recorded material from our traditions, the Lusitanic–Portuguese and the Hellenic–Greek, several people raised ironically their brows:

“Oh, they are loucos”, they thought – some even said. “Portugal and Greece are so far apart. Impossible to find common ground”…⁽¹⁾

• ⁽¹⁾ Imagine what people with “raised brows”, just like them, will say now that we are talking about a triangle (not that of… Bermuda): Portugal, Brazil and Greece. Well, Portugal and Brazil, OK, the relation is too obvious: former metropolis and colony; but what about Greece?(!)

● This text was presented during the festival Tão longe, tão perto, in Rio de Janeiro.

I confess that our collaborative results astonished even us! Or even me, I should add, that I have been researching this field for years, arriving to the conclusion that civilization, culture, is the result of give and take, of exchange. I have also shown during my radio program (Mediterranean periplus, 9.58 fm, ERT3) that lands located so far apart, like, say, India and Iberia, have been interconnected for thousands of years, since ancient times…⁽²⁾

• ⁽²⁾ “Ancient” for the Hellenes means BCE (before the Common Era), or BC (before Christ), if you like.

Flamenco (by Hyatt Moore): an exciting art
interconnecting Iberia and India

All these ideas were further reinforced when Amélia and I started working on Periplus.⁽³⁾ For sure, there are some “dark spots” still now; questions that remain unanswered. A big question for me e.g. is: how can Amélia, a Portuguese born in Mozambique, compose in an ancient style? You see, all three themes of ancient Grecian music and poetry we have in Periplus (Seikilos’ Epitaph, the First Delphic Hymn to Apollo, probably by Athenaeus, and Mesomedes’ Hymn to Nemesis) were included after certain compositions of hers reminded me of these ancient Hellenic songs. It’s very strange, indeed.

• ⁽³⁾ It’s not so obvious but there is something like a “periplus” in different human endeavours, too. Music was born together with speech. In an advanced stage, in ancient Hellas, music was either instrumental or song. Poetry was inconceivable without music in classical Greece. The two arts got… divorce later, in the 4th century BCE. However, either before or after, a “periplus” was (and still is) needed to combine sounds with words, and express the meaning of the words through sounds. Something similar happens in a translation: then the “periplus” concerns two tongues. It is the voyage of a text, of its meaning and style, content and form, while it is adapted in order to start breathing in another language environment.

Andalusian ivory cylindrical pyxis,
i.e. a box to keep precious cosmetics
or jewelery (10th century)

However, apart from these “dark spots”, which will always challenge us to come up with some satisfactory answers, we were soon able to assemble the rest of the puzzle rather easily. And when our Periplus was released, I could say:

“You know, the links are there, waiting for us to bring them to light. One only needs to search, of course, methodically, with a proper compass – a bússula, as we say in Greek, or bússola, as you say in Portuguese”.⁽⁴⁾

• ⁽⁴⁾ We have the same word coming from Greek (pyxos > pyxis-pyxida > buxis-buxida > box, boîte, and bussola), with the plant pyxos (> boxwood) as a starting point; this hard, compact, durable wood has been used since ancient times to construct vessels, such as pyxides, and also musical (string and wind) instruments. Note that its seeds are kept in a capsule also called pyxis. Indeed, who among the non-specialists would ever imagine that the English box is of a Greek origin?

Anticythera Mechanism

The Mediterranean and the Oecumene beyond

THE GREEK PENINSULA AND ARCHIPELAGO was not a beginning in world history. The Hellenes received much wisdom from the Orient (Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Egypt) and turned it into science;⁽⁵⁾ it was a great feat! What they left behind was a marvelous literature – uma literatura maravilhosa, indeed! Thus the Hellenic civilization became the foundation of the Occidental cultures.

• ⁽⁵⁾ There can be no great civilization without equivalent technology. A marvel in this domain is the Anticythera mechanism, the earliest analogue computer designed to calculate astronomical positions. Dated to c. 100 BCE, it was recovered in 1901 from a wreck between the Peloponnese and Crete, but its significance and complexity were not understood until a century later. Devices of a comparable level would reappear in the 14th century CE in Europe, with the construction of astronomical clocks. Professor Michael Edmunds of Cardiff University, who led a 2006 study of the mechanism, said:

“This device is just extraordinary, the only thing of its kind. The design is beautiful, and the astronomy is exactly right. The way the mechanics are designed just makes your jaw drop. In terms of historic and scarcity value, I have to regard this mechanism as being more valuable than the Mona Lisa.”

Victoria, the sole ship of Magellan’s fleet to complete the world’s periplus (detail from a map of Ortelius, 1590)

The extant peripli took place on the Mediterranean, the Indian and the Atlantic Oceans. Herodotus wrote about a periplus of Africa by Phoenicians on behalf of an Egyptian pharaoh. Some Greek from Alexandria, Egypt, described the Indian Ocean coasts of eastern Africa and India. Pytheas, from the Hellenic colony of Massalia (modern Marseille, France), voyaged north to the British Isles and also Scandinavia, and concluded a periplus of Europe sailing via European rivers from the Baltic to the Black Sea and back to the Mediterranean. There are people who believe that the Minoan Cretans, the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Phoenicians and Punics, and other ancient peoples, such as the Chinese, sailed to the Americas long before the Vikings, Columbus – or, of course, Magellan, who attempted a periplus of the Earth but was not fortunate enough to conclude it.

Hence these voyages started long before recorded history, in the Bronze Age. There are historical clues that the Minoans, in the time of their Thalassocracy, travelled as far as Cornwall, Britain, in search of tin – or else, they obtained this important metal at harbours in southern Gaul. Tin is a necessary component of bronze (±90% copper plus ±10% tin). There were vast quantities of copper in the Mediterranean. Cyprus e.g. was full of copper and the name Cyprus comes from copper (and vice versa). But tin? There were very few places with tin in the Mediterranean and in limited quantities.

The Minoans, and later the Greeks and Phoenicians, sailed initially to Iberia that was rich in these minerals. The Andalusians probably led the Cretans to Galicia, Brittany and Cornwall: they knew the way… These places, especially Cornwall, had massive tin deposits. There, close to Galicia, or even Cornwall, were the so-called Cassiterides Nēsoe, the Tin Isles (tin is cassíteros in Greek). Herodotus and other historians wrote also about the links of the Hellenes and Phoenicians with Tartessos, at the mouth of the Guadalquivir, and several people now correlate the legendary Andalusian city with the elusive Atlantis.

Tartessos – identified here with Sanlúcar de Barrameda (?) – and Gadeira-Gadir-Gades-Cádiz, on three islets with Greek names (Erytheia, Kotinoussa and Antipolis), outside the Pillars of Heracles,
the Strait of Gibraltar, in the Sea of Darkness, the Atlantic

Critical questions as the starting point of the research

MY RESEARCH, in the first part we have already voyaged, aimed at that complacent Greek highbrow “hot air”, summed up in the phrase “our own Orient” (see Chronicle 6, footnote 1). So, I raised that vast “Indo-Iberian arc” to demarcate the Mediterranean historical and cultural space. The starting point in the second part was these simple questions that had to be answered:

● Where did the Bronze Age Mediterranean find tin to produce bronze?

● Who were the established maritime traders of the time to bring this most crucial metal to the Mediterranean, as tin was rare around the basin?

I attempt to give some answers in the 2nd part, Cassiterides Archipelago: sailing to Tartessos, following the 1st part, Mediterranean Periplus: in Search of Orpheus. (Hellenic) music is my focus in the 1st part; (Mediterranean) history in the 2nd.

One of the Riace Bronzes, two Greek full-size nude warriors (ca 460–450 BCE), recovered in 1972, considered as a symbol of Calabria.

Α. Mediterranean Periplus, in Search of Orpheus

Prologue. Before Sailing Off
1. The Universal Mediterranean
2. It All Started Here…
3. A Chronicle of the Humans
4. On Democracy
5. Iberia’s Odyssey
6. Indo-Iberian Arc (Jondo)
7. Indo-Iberian Arc (Duende)
8. A Hybrid’s Hybris…
9. The Celebrated Tríchordon
10. The… “Sun Language”
11. “Music Is Thracian and Asian”
12. “Do Not Maltreat Our Music!”
13. Professionals or Amateurs?
14. Music Made of Body and Soul

Β. Cassiterides Archipelago, Sailing to Tartessos

15. Sailing to Rio de Janeiro!
16. Mediterranean Periplus-Paraplus
17. Minoan Cretan Thalassocracy
18. Aegean: Knossos, Mycenae, Troy
19. Phoenicia’s Stroke of Fortune
20. The Enigmatic Sea Peoples
21. Iberian “El Dorado”
22. Iberian Periplus Revival
23. The Genocide of the Hellenes
24. The Triumph of Cretinism
25. “Carthago Delenda Est!”
26. Iberian Cross-Check
27. An Archaeologist’s Waterloo

Appendix: 28. The Making of the Mediterranean Periplus | 29. Biblio – Disco – Graphy | 30. Michales Loukovikas – bio.

A general conclusion is that certain needs motivated humans to live together, to communicate, to exchange. That’s how society was born, the cities were created, the classes and division of labour emerged, and writing was invented. People’s coordinated interaction concerned material needs but transformed at the same time all those who worked together, exchanging ideas or ideals; it was a process that led to the birth of culture, of civilization.

Homer’s Odyssey periplus

HOMER’S ODYSSEY IS A POETIC PERIPLUS. According to the Lusitanians, Odysseus’ wanderings were Luso-Hellenic, as well: he founded Lisbon and had a child with the princess of Iberia, Calypso. Homer described Odysseus’ descent into the Hades, the underworld, which was outside the Pillars of Heracles, that is, the Strait of Gibraltar. The Hellenes located in the same area the Garden of the Hesperides or the Makarōn Nēsoe, i.e. the Fortunate Isles, the Islands of the Blessed, or Elysium, what today is thought to be Macaronesia (the Azores and Madeira, the Canaries and Cape Verde).

Strabo and Solinus said that Odysseus, after the fall of Troy, navigated westward to Lusitania, founded Lisbon, and then desired to try his fortune on the Atlantic – where he disappeared, with no trace left behind. This is a version of Odysseus’ story mentioned also by Pere Antoni Beuter, a Valencian historian, who referred to Dante Alighieri, saying he shared this view. Indeed, in his Inferno, the Italian poet described Odysseus’ descent into the underworld with no return. The king of Ithaca, he wrote, went out of the Pillars of Hercules, sailed south, crossed the Equator, and then continued voyaging for months, until he reached a bay with a big mountain. Then, a tornado sank his boat; everybody drowned there.

I really don’t know why, but I feel this bay with the big mountain is… the River of January: Rio de Janeiro! I would really love to confirm that…

The siege of Lisbon, by Roque Gameiro (1917)

Appendix: An Atlantic Odyssey

● A modern Greek Homerist, Iohannis Kakridís, argues that the Odyssey is a work of poetry and not a travel log (i.e. a navigator’s periplus). According to W. B. Stanford, Cape Maleas and the nearby island of Cythera, where Odysseus met storms (see the Odyssey, book 9), are “the last clearly identifiable places in his wanderings. After this he leaves the sphere of Geography and enters Wonderland” – a wander in wonders!

Nevertheless, due to the great impact of the Homeric epics, the attempt to work out “a Geography of the Odyssey” started as early as Hesiod, a Homer’s contemporary most probably, and by the Hellenistic period, the literature on the subject had really thrived. There were even passionate debates among the scholars whether Odysseus’ wanderings were confined within the Mediterranean, or if they indeed expanded into the Atlantic – indicating that for them the ocean was not a “terra” (mare) incogita.

Sappho and Alcaeus, by Lawrence Alma-Tadema

Despite that, other scholars, turned against this euhemerism –⁽⁶⁾ or even against the great rhapsode. The mythographer-grammarian Apollodorus of Athens (2nd century BCE) wrote that Homer imagined the wanderings as having taken place in a kind of fairyland in the Atlantic. Strabo (1st centuries BCE-CE) thought that at least Ogygia and Scheria, the islands of Calypso and Nausicaa respectively, were “imagined in fantasy” as being in the Atlantic – so, they both mentioned the Atlantic! In addition, he insisted that any hypothesis at all, no matter how outrageous, is more plausible than saying “I do not know”… Yet, Eratosthenes (3rd – 2nd centuries BCE) remarked rather sarcastically: “You will find the scene of the wanderings of Odysseus when you find the cobbler who sewed up the bag of the winds.”

• ⁽⁶⁾ Euhemerism: from the mythographer of Sacred History, Euhemerus: a view that the gods have been deified humans and that the myths have a historical basis.

Plutarch (1st – 2nd centuries CE) was sure Ogygia was in the Atlantic, and specifically west of Britain. Additionally, he repeated what Plato had described as a continent on the other side of the Atlantic, claiming that from this continent Ogygia was about 900 kilometres distant. The German astronomer Kepler (1571 – 1630) estimated that this “great continent” was America and attempted to locate Calypso’s island.

Map of Rio de Janeiro (Dutch Atlas 1600)

● In her research entitled The Wine Dark Sea (1964), the American Henriette Mertz argued that Circe’s island was Madeira, Calypso’s island one of the Azores, while the intervening voyages recorded a discovery of North America: Scylla and Charybdis were in the Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia, Canada, while Scheria, the Phaeacians’ land, was in the Caribbean, in the Gulf of Mexico, possibly in Florida. Such travels were done with the help of sea currents she studied. It was them, mainly the (Mexican) Gulf Stream, which took Odysseus to the Sirens (Haiti or Cuba, and to the Island of the Sun, of Helios (Nova Scotia or Newfoundland).

Enrico Mattievich, an Italian-Peruvian retired Professor of Physics from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (where our festival took place), “brought” Odysseus to South America, proposing that his journey to the Underworld actually took place there. The river Acheron is the Amazon, he argued in his Journey to the Mythological Inferno (1992). After a long voyage upstream, Odysseus met the spirits of the dead at the confluence of the rivers Marañon and Ucayali – i.e. at the starting point of the Amazon.

Another study connected to that of Mertz’s is Siegfried Petrides’ Odyssey – a Naval Epic of the Greeks in America (1994). Grecian literature is full of references about the geographical and astronomical knowledge of the Hellenes, which allowed them to use the constellations for directions. Petrides’ long experience as a sailor allowed him to confirm, or even clarify, Mertz’s conclusions, providing extra details on the wind directions, sea routes, islands, etc. A clarification is that ancient Greek sailors did not rely on mere chance to reach America but had fast and versatile vessels that could easily cross the Atlantic. They also knew perfectly well how to combine and take advantage of both the sails and the rows, thus covering very long distances.

Demetris Michalópoulos, of the Institute of Hellenic Maritime History, described a Peripeteia [Adventure] in the Atlantic: Ulysses’ voyages between Europe and America – referring also to Petrides. His anything but controversial starting point is the coast of Libya, the land of the Lotophagi. His next stop, the land of the Cyclopes, seems to be nearby: Sicily or somewhere in Magna Graecia, according to the prevailing opinion in late antiquity. All the same, there is no mention to Italy in the Homeric text. The only information given by Homer is that, in the past, the Cyclopes were neighbours of the Phaeacians in the “immense Hyperia”. Yet, the latter were compelled to migrate to Scheria, because the Cyclopes were anything but friendly… But where was Hyperia located? If we now accept what we have just rejected, i.e. the prevailing opinion in late antiquity, the Cyclopes lived in the Mediterranean near the Laestrygonians. In the Homeric text, there are some indications about the Laestrygonians’ land: “the outgoings of the nights and of the days are close together”… Michalópoulos supposes that the Laestrygonians lived in a region where, in summer, the days are very long and the nights very short, that is, in Scandinavia. He also refers to Tacitus, who wrote that Odysseus reached at least Germany. Hence Hyperia was somewhere there. Yet, there is a “little problem”: between the Cyclopes and the Laestrygonians, Odysseus voyaged to Aeolia that, although “floating”, is identified most possibly with Mallorca. But a return trip between Scandinavia and the Balearics is… a little too much!

Then we set sail to America. Circe’s Aeaea, the Underworld, the Hesperides and the Gorgons were all in the “remote West”, according to Hesiod. Ogygia, wrote Plutarch, was five days away from Britain. Arriving there, one must navigate through “a heavy sea, muddy and agitated by currents”. Such a place can be the Sargasso Sea, in the North Atlantic Ocean, where Bermuda may be the location of the isle of Calypso. The nymph instructed Odysseus to sail with the Ursa Major constellation on his left. After eighteen days, he reached Scheria, possibly in Iberia. Ithaca’s king and other Trojan War heroes had made their presence felt in the peninsula. According to Strabo, even a town therein was named after Odysseus. There is a tradition, as well, adopted by Camões, that the etymon of Lisbon is Ulysses, i.e. the Latin form of the name of our hero. Hence the “Homeric” river of the Phaeacians is the Tagus, whose bed was so rich in precious metals that it was described as “equivalent to the Pactolus”, the well-known gold river of Asia Minor (Silius Italicus).

Odysseus may not have been the first Greek (or European) to step on American soil: according to Mertz, some time before the Trojan War and the Odyssey, circa 1300 (or 1225) BCE,⁽⁷⁾ the Argonauts travelled across the Atlantic Ocean, thanks to the Gulf Stream, crossed the Sargasso Sea (Apollonius of Rhodes’ “floating islands”) and then touched at Puerto Rico. They sailed southwards by South America, past the mouth of the Amazon and Rio de Janeiro until the Río de la Plata of Argentina, and, following it upstream, reached the altiplano of Bolivia arriving at Colchis, or Tiwanaku, where the Golden Fleece was kept. Centuries later Tiwanaku became the cultural, religious, cosmological and commercial centre of a pre-Columbian Empire extending around Lake Titicaca in present-day western Bolivia, southern Peru and northern Chile from 300 to 1150 CE. But this area must have been inhabited as early as 1500 BCE.⁽⁸⁾

• ⁽⁷⁾ Michalópoulos (The Argonauts in the Black Sea) moves the expedition to a distant past in the first half of the 19th century BCE. In very ancient times, he says, “voyages were longer and more venturesome than those in late antiquity”, while “the Euxine had been a center of international trade”. The Argonauts were Minyans, the most prominent tribe of the Pelasgians. The latter are presented as ancestors of the Hellenes, colonizers of the Black Sea, and also of Italy, inventors of the alphabet – a civilizing people.

• ⁽⁸⁾ Both the expedition of the Argonauts and the Trojan War that followed aimed at the control of the Black Sea by the Hellenes. The legend of the Golden Fleece was based on a practice of the local tribes: they would place a lamb’s fleece at the bottom of a stream to entrap gold dust that was washed down from upstream. In some regions this practice is still now in use. The capital of Colchis, Aea (Kutaisi), is said to have been one of many cities that were founded in Eurasia by Egyptians. This account is combined with one by Herodotus, citing Egyptian priests. Their story was about the legendary pharaoh Sesostris, who once led an army north through the Levant and Asia Minor, all the way to Colchis. He settled colonists there, at the river Phasis (modern Rioni), and then he turned westward across southern Russia, and south through Romania and Bulgaria, until he reached eastern Hellas, from where he returned home. Herodotus cautioned that much of this account came second hand via Egyptian priests, but also noted that the Colchians were commonly known to be Egyptian colonists. According to Strabo and Diodorus Siculus, Sesostris conquered the whole world, from Ethiopia in the South, to Scythia in the North – or, who knows, even South America in the West!

● Some writers interpret the Homeric epics as “British ballads” or “Viking sagas”, and in this way pass off their North-to-South cultural-transmission theory. Such pseudo-theories are centuries older than German nationalism, and definitely inspire all the Northerners – who may figure out they are descendants of the “Hyper-Northerners”, the Hyperboreans!⁽⁹⁾ The idea that the inspiration for Plato’s Atlantis can be found in the Baltic was the… “grandfather” of all these books. In the “heroic” 17th century of Sweden, the foremost champion was the all-round Renaissance scholar (astronomer, physician, “archaeo-historian”, and even more) Olaus or Olof Rudbeck, who caused consternation with his mammoth, 2,500-page work, Atland eller Manheim, translated into Latin for scholarly use as Atlantica. He claimed there, among other things, that the oldest district of his home town, Uppsala, was the centre of “lost Atlantis”; thus – by the extravagant logic of cultural diffusion – Sweden was the cradle of western civilization going back to Adam and Eve! Despite ridicule from his local university colleagues (who also accused him of forgery), he was turned into a national icon – and not only: he was admired at the court of Louis “l’état c’est moi!”, proposed as a member of the Royal Society in London, celebrated in cafés, salons, and academies across the cosmopolitan “Respublica literaria”, and read avidly by Montesquieu and Leibniz, while Isaac Newton wrote to request… a personal copy of Atlantica! After his death, Swedish monarchs would be crowned over his grave! He had fanatic followers and became the subject of a satiric illustration, captioned: “The archaeologist Olof Rudbeck (1630-1702) reveals his ‘Predecessors’ – Hesiod, Plato, Aristotle, Apollodorus, Tacitus, Odysseus, Ptolemy, Plutarch and Orpheus – the ‘Truth’ about Atlantis”…

• ⁽⁹⁾ Along with Thule, the Hyperborean land was among several terrae incognitae to the ancients. The Hyperboreans were a race of giants, three metres high, enjoying lives of sheer happiness and living to the age of one thousand! The sun was supposed to rise and set there only once a year – hence living a thousand days would be the same as living a thousand years! This also, to modern ears, suggests a possible location within the Arctic Circle. They were the most blessed of peoples, living in a perfect land, located “beyond Boreas”, the North Wind. The coldness of the northern countries was due to the cold breath of this wind. Thus the land “beyond Boreas” was a warm and sunny land! Besides, the only one among the Olympians, who was venerated there, was Apollo: the Hellenes thought he spent his winter there. The giants reciprocated by sending their delegation and offerings to his sacred Aegean island, Delos! Pindar sang of “the marvellous road to the assembly of the Hyperboreans: Never the Muse is absent | from their ways: lyres clash and flutes cry | everywhere maiden choruses whirling. | Neither disease nor bitter old age is mixed | in their sacred blood; far from labour and battle they live.”

Arctic continent on the Gerardus Mercator map (1595)

● “Northerners and Hyper-Northerners”: I started with wordplay, but we ended up filled up with swastikas! Northerners, mainly Scandinavians, wishing to counter the Graeco-Roman Mediterranean culture, identified themselves with the Hyperboreans. This trend was very strong in the 17th century in Sweden, when it was a great power, where the champions of the ideology of Gothicism declared Scandinavia to be both the Hyperborean land and lost Atlantis! After all, the Arctic Circle is their land… Generally, European culture self-identified as Hyperborean. Inevitably, adaptations followed by the ethnologist Karl Penka (Origins of the Aryans, 1883), John Bennett (The Hyperborean Origin of the Indo-European Culture, 1963), and several others. According to some esotericists, the Hyperboreans were part of the Golden Race (where, of course, all these “thinkers” belong, for sure), and their land was the Golden Age polar centre of civilization and spirituality. Mankind, they claim, does not rise from the ape, but devolves progressively into an ape-like condition, as it strays physically and spiritually from its mystical otherworldly homeland in the Far North, succumbing to the South Pole’s daemonic energies… Some outright charlatans, like Robert Charroux, the alter ego of Erich von Däniken, relate the Hyperboreans to an ancient astronaut race of “very large, very white people”, who arrived here and selected “the least warm area on the earth because it corresponded more closely to their own climate on the planet from which they originated”…

● Except perhaps the last ones, who profit out of their… charlatanism, all the rest are racists and fascists. The Nazis e.g. considered Hyperborea as the cradle of the “Aryan race”, while their party was hatched within the “Thule Society”. Let’s remind them (pulling their legs) that Hyperborea, as a terra incognita, was located by ancient writers in the far North, of course, but all across Eurasia, from NW Europe to NE Asia. So, some “Chinks” claimed that the Hyperboreans were Chinese – a view that would be strongly disputed especially in Japan, but also in Mongolia and Siberia!

None of Rudbeck’s descendants ever achieved such a Triumph. Most unlucky was a Belgian lawyer, named Théophile Cailleux (Pays atlantiques décrits par Homère: Ibérie, Gaule, Bretagne, Archipels, Amériques; Théorie nouvelle. Atlantic lands described by Homer: Iberia, Gaul, Britain, Archipelagos, the Americas; New Theory. 1878). Troy, he claimed, was situated in East Anglia, on the heights outside Cambridge, known as the Gog Magog Hills (rather far from the sea); while Ithaca, he believed, should be sought in southern Andalusia, between Jerez and Cádiz, in the Delta of the Guadalete (where a Trojan War hero, Menestheus, allegedly settled: see Chronicle 22). Yet, some time after Cailleux’s book was published, Heinrich Schliemann triumphantly proved that Troy and Mycenae existed as powerful cities, at the right time and in the right place to have fought a Trojan War such as the epics describe. As a result, there was no thirst for geohistorical speculation then in the market…

Homère, L’Odyssée; lithographies by Marc Chagall

More than a century later, the Dutch Iman Wilkens presented the same idea again. His book, Where Troy Once Stood (1990), takes us to the same hills that Cailleux pinpointed, but with a scenario somewhat modified: the Trojan War was fought c. 1200 BCE between groups of Celts. Those living in Cambridgeshire were attacked by fellow Celts from the Continent to win access to the profitable tin mines in Cornwall. Wilkens further suggests that the Sea Peoples (see Chronicles 18, 19, 20) were Celts who settled in Greece and the Aegean as Achaeans and Pelasgians, bringing with them the oral poems that were translated and written down in Hellenic around 750 BCE, forming the basis of the Homeric epics. He locates Scylla and Charybdis at present day St. Michael’s Mount, at the tip of the Cornish peninsula, moves a bit Ithaca from the Guadalete to Cádiz, while the topography of the Laestrygonian capital, Telepylos (“Far-off port”), looks to him similar to that of Havana, Cuba. But he’s got an Achilles’ heel; he (too) is a nationalist:

“It appears that Homer’s Greek contains a large number of loan words from western European languages, more often from Dutch rather than English, French or German”, he thoughtlessly wrote, speaking of tongues that have not existed until at least 1000 years after Homer!⁽¹⁰⁾

• ⁽¹⁰⁾ If one takes Cailleux and Wilkens for granted, the Trojans left Britain after the war to settle in Italy. Anyway, three generations later they returned to found the “British nation”. Historia Regum Britanniae (The History of the Kings of Britain), written around 1136 by Geoffrey of Monmouth, begins with the Trojan Aeneas who, according to Roman legend, settled in Italy after the war. But his great-grandson Brutus was banished, started wandering and was finally directed by the goddess Diana (Artemis) to settle in the western ocean, on the island of Albion, which he named Britain after himself. He then defeated the giants who were the only inhabitants there, and on the banks of the Thames he established his capital, Troia Nova, renamed later as London.

A variation of this North-to-South cultural transmission is that early Grecian sailors might have come for long-distance trade in tin etc. and also took this wonderful epic tale back with them, transforming it into an “ethnic” epic when it was written down in verse. The northern peoples preferred not to write out their compositions, relying on prodigious feats of memory (as Caesar said of the Celtic bards). However, over time the original northern version could have been lost in wars and migrations. Another North-to-South cultural-transmission theory is that the northern tribes were the Sea Peoples who swept south to attack also Hellas, around 1200 BCE. The Greeks that survived assimilated the northerners’ campfire tales and made them their own when they flourished again, also thanks to these tales, after their Dark Ages.

Atlantis, Poseidonis: the last remnant of the lost continent (imaginary reconstruction)

This “theory” was foreshadowed in several books by Jurgen Spanuth (1907-1998), a German pastor, classical scholar, and amateur archaeologist. He maintained that all these events survive in distorted version not just in Homer but also in Plato’s Atlantis parable. Spanuth compared Homer’s and Plato’s descriptions on a point-for-point basis, and suggested both derived from a common origin. This was the rise and fall of a mighty Bronze Age seafaring nation living in the Jutland area, which fell when an “Atlantean” North Sea flood drove them southward into the Mediterranean; they were the Sea Peoples that the Egyptians defeated in the Nile Delta. Their tale of how their vast empire collapsed in a flood was recorded by the Egyptians, and then Plato picked it up through Solon, who was briefed by priests when he visited Egypt (Das Entratselte Atlantis; Atlantis – The Mystery Unraveled; 1953, all through Die Atlanter; Atlantis of the North; 1976). German nationalism was all too clear in these inflated claims – in effect assuming credit for another people’s cultural foundations – and the reception of the books was rather cold in the reviews. Rebuffed by the mainstream, the pastor turned to some right-wing German magazines, which marginalized him further. If he succeeded in something indirectly is that he rekindled interest for new excavations in sunken North Sea ports, e.g. Rungholt, where ceramics were recovered evidencing trade between Frisia and Minoan Crete dating back to 1600-1400 BCE!

The other variant of the North-to-South cultural-transmission “theory”, with a largely Scandinavian setting, has a certain peculiarity: the storyteller is an Italian, the nuclear engineer Felice Vinci – probably the only Mediterranean accepting that his ancestors received the “lights of civilization” from the North. The reception was dismissive, as usual, and the Finns were quick to label it “an interesting joke”! The book is entitled Omero nel Baltico (Homer in the Baltic, 1998), or The Baltic Origins of Homer’s Epic Tales: The Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Migration of Myth. The Achaeans were a Baltic people at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE, coming to Greece around the 16th century (after the Trojan War that took place in the 18th century), bringing their traditional oral sagas to the Aegean. Odysseus himself, claims Vinci, was Dutch(!); the islands of his kingdom, Ithaca, Dulichium, Cephallenia, and Zacynthus, correspond to islands in the Danish archipelago of South Funen, and Troy to Toija in SW Finland; the Hellespont could not be identified with the Dardanelles, but the Gulf of Finland; Mycenae stood in the same place as modern Copenhagen; and Odysseus’ voyage would have taken place along the coasts of Norway: Ogygia could be identified with one of the Faeroe Islands (among Britain, Scandinavia and Iceland); the Phaeacian land, Scheria, with Bergen’s environs; Circe’s island, and the places she describes (the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis) may be placed in the Lofoten archipelago of northern Norway; and Aeolus’ island in the Shetland archipelago, NE of Scotland. The same region is the setting of other Hellenic mythological tales such as the Argonauts, adds Vinci. Referring to Plato’s dialogue Critias, he claims that Athens rose formerly on a flat fertile zone in the Baltic, perhaps near Karlskrona in southern Sweden.

Il Ritorno di Ulisse (Odysseus’ Return), by Giorgio De Chirico (1968)

● Regarding Homeric epics’ background, the Flemish Karel Jozef de Graeve, in his République des Champs Elysées (Republic of the Elysian Fields, 1806), pointed out the area around the Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt Delta.

Finally, the French Gilbert Pillot, in Le Code Secret de l’Odyssée (The Secret Code of the Odyssey, 1969), “saw” Odysseus crossing the Pillars of Heracles and voyaging on the Atlantic, initially to Morocco, the Canaries and Madeira, and then heading north to Ireland, Scotland and Iceland. He most probably thought – quite rightly – that “secret codes” are… sold out, and claimed he discovered “a secret message in the Odyssey”, with a “hidden” itinerary over the Atlantic, from the Canaries to Iceland through the British Isles. The verse epic, he argued, was a Hellenic syndicate’s way of concealing navigation data inside an “entertainment” – acting as an elaborate mnemonic. The Greek mariners could thus remember, yet protect, the key details (sailing directions, times, dangers) of their all-important northern trade route, leading to the sought-after sources of tin: the Cassiterides, or Tin Isles – a terra incognita, as Herodotus complained, impossible to locate, but a key to prosperity mainly in the Bronze Age.

Eternally mapping Homer’s Odyssey

MAPPING HOMER’S ODYSSEY, Armin Wolf concluded that Scheria-Phaeacia should have been in Calabria, Italy, as it is located between two seas: the Tyrrhenian and the Ionian Seas. The capital of the Phaeacians stood at the Tiriolo and Marcellinara region, in the Catanzaro province, he claimed. Additionally, he referred to the dozens (or hundreds?) of attempts to map the Odyssey; several of them we have already presented; but he added some more:

In 1898, an anonymous author with the pseudonym Eumaeus claimed that Odysseus had completed a periplus of Africa (centuries before the Phoenicians, mentioned by Herodotus), and had even discovered America. Pseudo-Eumaeus (the real one was Odysseus’ swineherd and friend) was the first to use the ocean currents to trace the route of the king of Ithaca. In 1925, even the distinguished archaeologist Wilhelm Dörpfeld drew a map of Homer’s world in which, apart from the “established” stops of the Odyssey, he pinpointed the southernmost tip of Africa, and there he located Telepylus of the Laestrygonians and also – like “Eumaeus” – Aeaea, Circe’s island.

After World War II, several maps placed the Odyssey on the Atlantic and North Sea: British Isles, Iceland, Norway. The Swiss F. J. Wil, in 1950, added Faeroes in the list, while the German Otto Zeller, in 1959, expanded the map from Gibraltar and the Azores to Norway and Heligoland. Karl Bartholomäus, professor of archaeogeodesy, in 1977, tried to prove by astronomical calculations that the track from Calypso to Nausicaa leads from the Azores to Heligoland. The German judge Hans Steuerwald, in 1978, “sent” Odysseus to Cornwall and Scotland. The wine produced on Circe’s isle (identified with one of the Hebrides), he added, was in fact Scotch whisky…

Incan Golden Solar disc, used as a star map.
It was lost during the Conquista.

A multitude of writers have created fantastic routes on the oceans of the earth. This mania of inventing “theories” probably reached its climax in 1983, with the Austrian ethnologist Christine Pellech, who argued that Odysseus had sailed right around the earth – before Magellan! She saw no difficulty in the great hero taking just seven days to row from the Mediterranean to Norway, and then in a single day the whole way from Norway to Canada! It goes without saying, of course, that he discovered the Strait of Magellan and Australia…

● More extreme views about the geography of the Homeric epics keep on surfacing, either centered on the Atlantic, or extending all over the globe. Some others turned their eyes to the sky arguing that the Homeric geography is to be found there, and that the Iliad and Odyssey can be decoded as a star map. What we will hear next, I suppose, is that the Trojan War was actually a… Star War!

LABYRINTH OF MAPS

● TROY. NW Asia Minor, Turkey: Hisarlık || E England: Cambridgeshire || SW Finland: Toija.
● LOTUS EATERS (LOTOPHAGI). Libya: a headland in the Gindanes area | Gulf of Sidra || Tunisia: Djerba (Meninx) island.
● CYCLOPES. Italy: SE Sicily, near Etna and Lentini (Leontini) | Marsala, W Sicily | Gulf of Naples || Spain: Balearics archipelago || Scandinavia.
● AEOLIA. Italy, N Sicily: Aeolian Islands (Lipari [Meligounis], or Stromboli [Strongule], or Ustica) || Spain: Balearics archipelago (Mallorca) || Scotland: Shetland archipelago.
● LAESTRYGONIANS. Italy: SE Sicily | N Sardinia || France: S Corsica || Scandinavia || Cuba: Havana || S African tip.
● CIRCE’S AEAEA. Italy: Monte Circeo, Lazio-Latium (< Latinus, Circe’s son) | Ischia, Gulf of Naples || Portugal: Madeira || Norway: Lofoten archipelago || S African tip || Scotland: Hebrides archipelago.
● HADES, UNDERWORLD. NW Hellas: Acheron river || Italy: lake Avernus (< Greek Aornos = with no birds), near Cumae, Campania, where Aeneas also found it || Peru: Amazon River.
● SIRENS. Italy: Cape Faro, by the Strait of Messina | Sirenuse archipelago, or a headland between the Gulfs of Naples and Salerno | Naples itself | Lucanian coast || Haiti or Cuba || Norway: Lofoten archipelago.
● SCYLLA & CHARYBDIS. Italy: Strait of Messina || Canada, Nova Scotia: Bay of Fundy || SW England: St. Michael’s Mount, Cornwall’s tip || Norway: Lofoten archipelago.
● THE SUN (HELIOS) ISLAND. Italy: Sicily || Canada: Nova Scotia or Newfoundland.
● CALYPSO’S OGYGIA. Maltese archipelago: Gaudos, modern Gozo || Morocco-Spain: Pillars of Heracles (Ceuta) || Portugal: Azores || Bermuda || Denmark: Faeroes.
● NAUSICAA & PHAEACIANS’ SCHERIA. NW Hellas: Corcyra (Corfu) || Cyprus || Carribean-Gulf of Mexico-Florida, USA || Portugal: Lisbon || Norway: Bergen || Germany: Heligoland || Italy: Calabria.
● ITHACA. W Hellas: Ithaca, or Cephallenia, or Leucas || Andalusia, Spain: Guadalete Delta or Cádiz || Denmark: S Funen.

Celestial map by the Dutch cartographer Frederik de Wit (17th century)

Homer’s mystery: the epimyth of a myth

ANY HYPOTHESIS AT ALL, NO MATTER HOW OUTRAGEOUS, is more plausible than saying “I do not know”… After all, what do these stories show, even those that are crazy and nuts? What else but the greatness of Odysseus and Homer, the creator of the Iliad and the Odyssey; two wonderful epics that the classicists initially treated as written poetry and also the rhapsode as a writer. Until Milman Parry (1902–1935) appeared in the 1920s, and indicated it was oral musical-poetic tradition. His research on the process of oral poetry improvisation through “stock epithets” and “reiteration” (words, phrases, stanzas) established that these formulae were artifacts easily applied to the hexametric lines of oral tradition. A two-word stock epithet (e.g. “the resourceful Odysseus”) is reiterated, permitting the rhapsode to improvise and complete the verse. This research by Parry and his assistant, Albert Lord, was conducted in Yugoslavia.

Homer (a Hellenic name in Aeolis) was born in Smyrna (Ionia’s northern limit), or on the island of Chios, and died on the Cycladic island of Ios. His name means hostage, follower, or blind (ὁ μὴ ὁρῶν: “he who does not see”). Like Thamyris or Hesiod, Homer was a wandering minstrel, who hanged around with ordinary people – fishermen, sailors, potters, shoemakers, or elderly men – at harbours.⁽¹¹⁾ This image, of course, is far from that of a court musician-poet. Rapidity-ease of movement and plainness of expression-thought do not distinguish the great epic poets Virgil, Dante, or Milton. They rather distinguish the humbler epico-lyrical school. But Homer does not belong to that school, neither his poetry is in any sense ballad poetry. This is apparent through the higher artistic structure and value of his poems. It is his noble and powerful style that eventually separates Homer from all forms of ballad poetry and popular epic. His art is distinguished from the works of Virgil, Dante, and Milton, due to the comparative absence of underlying motives or sentiments. In Virgil’s poetry, a sense of the greatness of Rome is the leading motive of a passionate rhetoric, veiled by the considered delicacy of his language. Dante and Milton are still more faithful exponents of the religion and politics of their time. French epics display sentiments of fear or hatred of the Saracens. In Homer’s work, the interest is purely dramatic. There is no antipathy of race or religion. He is principally interested in human feeling or emotion, and also drama. Indeed, his poems are often referred to as dramas.

Above all, we need to remember that Homer recited his epics; Virgil, Dante, and all the rest wrote them down…

• ⁽¹¹⁾ An elderly Homer, it is said, was going around Ios, the last stop of his life’s voyage, together with children, singing the carols of the day.

● Influences from the mythology and literature of Near East have been seen in the Odyssey. Martin West has noted some parallels between the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Odyssey. Both Odysseus and Gilgamesh travel to the ends of the earth, and even to the underworld. Odysseus follows instructions given to him by Calypso, or Circe, a daughter of the sun-god Helios. Their islands are located at the edges of the world. Gilgamesh also gets directions from the goddess Siduri, who also dwells by the sea at the ends of the earth. Others correlate Homer with Hittite epics. It seems that the great epic poet was equally “resourceful” with his protagonist, Odysseus.

THE “CLASSICAL” MEDITERRANEAN ODYSSEY

● [1] TROY. Setting sail, Odysseus and his men were greeted by friendly and calm waters. He had not committed hubris yet…
● [2] ISMARUS, LAND OF THE CICONES. Odysseus and his men looted the city and robbed it of all its goods. The crew refused to leave quickly and fell asleep on the beach. The next morning the Cicones returned with their fierce kinsmen from the mountains. Odysseus escaped but lost many men. On leaving, his twelve ships were driven off course by fierce storms.
● [3] THE LOTUS EATERS’ ISLAND. Odysseus’ scouting party ate lotus fruit with the natives. This caused them to fall asleep and stop caring about ever going home.
● [4] THE CYCLOPES’ ISLAND. The giant one-eyed Cyclops Polyphemus devoured two of Odysseus’ men each day. Odysseus gave Polyphemus intoxicating wine and then blinded him with a wooden stake. As a result, Odysseus was haunted by the wrath of Poseidon, the Cyclops’ father, who cursed Odysseus to wander the sea for years.
● [5] AEOLIA, LAND OF AEOLUS, GOD OF THE WINDS. Aeolus gave Odysseus hospitality for a month and then a leather bag containing all the winds, except the west wind, so as to return safely home. However, the crew foolishly opened the bag while Odysseus slept, just as Ithaca came into sight, thinking that it contained gold. The resulting storm drove the ships back to Aeolia, but Aeolus refused to provide any further help.
● [6] TELEPYLOS, IN THE LAND OF THE LAESTRYGONIANS. These man-eating giants attacked the fleet with boulders, sinking all the ships but one and killing hundreds.
● [7] AEAEA, CIRCE’S ISLAND. Circe turned all of Odysseus’ men into pigs after feeding them cheese and wine. Hermes gave Odysseus a drug called moly in order to resist Circe’s magic. She agreed to change Odysseus’ men back to their human form in exchange for his love. They remained on the island for one year feasting and drinking.
● [8] HADES, THE UNDERWORLD. Guided by Circe’s instructions, Odysseus crossed the ocean and reached a harbour at the western edge of the world where he sacrificed to the dead and summoned the spirit of the prophet Tiresias to advise him.
● [9] SIRENS. Odysseus escaped by having all his men plug their ears with beeswax and tie him to the mast. When he heard their beautiful song he begged the men to untie him but they ignored him.
● [10] SCYLLA & CHARYBDIS. Circe advised Odysseus to sail closer to the six-headed monster Scylla, for the whirlpool Charybdis could drown the ship. However, Scylla devoured six of his men.
● [11] THRINACIA, HELIOS’ SACRED ISLAND. Though Odysseus warned his men not to kill any of Helios’ sacred cattle, they disobeyed. Helios’ daughters told their father and he destroyed the ship and all men save Odysseus.
● [12] OGYGIA, CALYPSO’S ISLAND. The nymph made him her lover for seven years. On behalf of Athena, Zeus sent Hermes to tell Calypso to let Odysseus go.
● [13] SCHERIA, THE PHAEACIANS’ ISLAND. Washed up on the shore, Odysseus was found by Nausicaa, daughter of King Alcinous, who entertained him and escorted him to Ithaca.
● [14] ITHACA. On the twentieth day of sailing Odysseus finally arrived home.

• >> Chronicle 16. MEDITERRANEAN PERIPLUS-PARAPLUS
• << Chronicle 14. MUSIC MADE OF BODY AND SOUL

Next Chronicle 16. MEDITERRANEAN PERIPLUS-PARAPLUS ● Periplus: Circumnavigation or Log ● Navigators and Intellectuals ● The Peloponnesian War and Euripides ● Nomos (Law Song)

Chronicle 26. IBERIAN CROSS-CHECK

Chronicle 26. IBERIAN CROSS-CHECK

/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ Χρονικό 26. ΙΒΗΡΙΚΗ ΔΙΑΣΤΑΥΡΩΣΗ (ΣΤΟΙΧΕΙΩΝ)

● Naucratis ● Adolf Schulten and Dan Stanislawski ● The Trojan War Odysseys ● Metal Attraction ● Cassiterides ● Balearics ● Arganthonios ● Graeco-Tartessian Friendship Against Phoenicians and Punics

Michales Loukovikas

ALTHOUGH DAN STANISLAWSKI accepted there were Contacts Between the Ancient Civilizations of the Eastern Mediterranean and Iberia,⁽¹⁾ he was against the idea of any Aegean presence in the peninsula, and remained faithful to the mainstream scholarly favouritism towards Phoenicia. Commenting on the “claims that there was contact” between Iberia and Crete, he conceded it is “a seductive idea… a reasonable hypothesis”, but “as yet there is no convincing evidence that the Mediterranean island route to the west was used” by Minoans.

• ⁽¹⁾ See the beginning of Chronicle 21 with the first paragraph of Chapter 7 from Dan Stanislawski’s Study in Historical-Political Geography: The Individuality of Portugal (1959). His other studies on Portugal are: Portugal’s Other Kingdom: The Algarve (1963), and Landscapes of Bacchus: The Vine in Portugal (1970).

The Minoan international trade: colonies and emporia

Such tangible, “convincing evidence” in the hands of archaeologists, i.e. a load of Egyptian trade items found in Spain, is of “a somewhat later period”, after the fall of the Minoans, c. 1400-1200 BCE. Although we cannot rule out the possibility of “Phoenician intermediaries”, we must have in mind that in this “somewhat later period” (late Bronze Age), especially in Occidental Mediterranean, sea trade was in the hands of those who brought about the fall of the Minoans, meaning the Mycenaeans – who, strangely enough, are not even mentioned by the American professor! Therefore, his assertion that the Egyptian trade items found in Spain “almost surely may [!] be associated with Phoenician intermediaries”, is anything but scientific.

Besides, the Aegean presence in Egypt, i.e. the origin of these trade items, dates back to at least the Mycenaean times, and possibly further back into the Minoan age, when a trade settlement was founded in the Nile Delta under the aegis of the pharaohs, namely Naucratis (Ναύκρατις). It was the first and, for much of its early history, the only permanent Hellenic colony in Egypt, acting as a symbiotic nexus for the interchange of Egyptian and Grecian trade items, art and culture. When a historian “forgets” the Mycenaeans and Naucratis, it means he’s wearing “Phoenician myopic glasses”!

The Calydonian [Boar] Hunt, from a Laconian black-figure cup by the Naucratis Painter (ca 555 BCE)

● Naucratis is located in the Nile Delta, on its westernmost branch, c. 70 km southeast of its mouth, where Alexandria later rose; it was not only the first Greek settlement in Egypt, but also its most important harbour in antiquity until the rise of Alexander’s city. Its first period is obscure, due to the collapse of Mycenaean civilization and the ensuing “Dark ages” (1100-750 BCE). A cultural “renaissance” during the 8th century brought about renewed Hellenic contacts with the Orient and its two important river civilizations of the Nile and Mesopotamia. Herodotus writes that a shrine known as Hellenion was a co-operative enterprise financed by nine Greek poleis: four Ionian (Chios, Clazomenae, Teos and Phocaea), four Dorian (Rhodes, Halicarnassus, Cnidus and Phaselis), and one Aeolian (Mytilene). Miletus, Samos, and Aegina had their own separate sanctuaries. This means that the natives of at least twelve cities of Hellas worked in a collaboration that was not only rare but proved to be lasting.

● The sister port of Naucratis was the harbour town of Heracleion or Thonis, Egypt’s main seaport to Greece, which was only discovered in 2000 by a French underwater archaeologist, Franck Goddio. Its ruins are located 2.5 km off the modern coast. The city was built on some adjoining islands connected with bridges and intersected by canals. It submerged into the sea in the 6th or 7th century CE, probably due to major earthquakes and floods. The “Stele of Naucratis”, with a pharaonic decree, describes Heracleion as a “harbour in the Sea of Hellenes”, referring to the Mediterranean.⁽²⁾ Its twin “Stele of Heracleion” was recovered in 2000. The city’s Grecian name is linked to a large temple of Khonsu, whom the Greeks identified with Heracles. It is believed the city was visited by the great hero, or even by Paris and Helen on their flight from the jealous Menelaus, before the Trojan war. Heracleion’s mythic wealth was lauded by Homer, as well.

• ⁽²⁾ The Egyptian pharaohs, let’s remind each “spectacled” historian, described the Mediterranean as “the Sea of Hellenes”, not as “the Sea of Phoenicians”!

The hetaera Phryne Removing Her Veils, by James Pradier (bronze, 1845)

● A celebrated Thracian hetaera, who lived in Naucratis in the 6th century BCE, was Rhodōpis. According to Herodotus, she was a fellow-slave of the fable teller Aesop, with whom she had a secret love affair. Charaxus, Sappho’s brother, who had gone to Naucratis as a merchant, fell in love with her, and ransomed her from slavery with a large sum of money. Sappho accused Rhodōpis in a poem of robbing her brother of his property. Other lovers – insist Diodorus and Pliny – erected… even a pyramid for her! Rhodōpis (rosy-cheeked), or Doricha, was the model for the original version of the Cinderella story recorded later by Strabo.

● Athenaeus, born in Naucratis, flourishing in the late 2nd – early 3rd centuries CE, was a Greek rhetorician, grammarian and gastronomist. His books have been lost, but a 15-volume synopsis of his 30-volume Deipnosophistae (Banquet Connoisseurs) mostly survives. It is an immense store-house of information, on matters linked to dining, music, songs and dances, games, courtesans, and luxury. Guests included wealthy persons, patrons of art, and scholars, jurists, musicians, and others, as well, who described the lifestyle, the arts and scientific knowledge of the Greeks. In the course of discussing classic authors, they made quotations from nearly 800 writers and 2,500 works, many of them unrecorded. Thus we are entrusted much valuable information about the ancient world and many authors that would be otherwise unknown. (We have consulted Deipnosophistae repeatedly in our Chronicles).

Campaspe, Alexander’s courtesan, a prominent
citizen of Larissa, by John William Godward (1896)

● An Athenaeus’ contemporary, a bit older, was Julius Pollux (Ἰούλιος Πολυδεύκης), also born in Naucratis, flourishing in the late 2nd century CE and living a long life of more than 80 years. He was a grammarian, sophist, scholar and rhetorician, whom Commodus appointed a professor-chair of rhetoric in the Athenian Academy – due to his melodious voice, according to Lives of the Sophists by Philostratus. No work of his rhetoric has survived. His valuable extant work is Onomasticón (Ὀνομαστικόν), a thesaurus, or a dictionary, of Attic synonyms and phrases in ten books, arranged not alphabetically but according to subject-matter. It supplies in passing plenty of rare information on many points of classical antiquity – objects in daily life, the theatre, music, politics – and quotes numerous fragments of lost works. Thus, Pollux became invaluable for William Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1842). (We have repeatedly consulted Pollux in our Chronicles, as well).

● Under the circumstances, Stanislawski, an expert on Portugal, a scholar whom we described as wearing “Phoenician myopic glasses”, cannot be suspected of pro-Hellenic bias in his narrative about those fateful events in Iberia, related in three Chronicles (21, 22, and 25). At the same time, we’ll be able to cross-check the accuracy of our own testimony. But before that, let us give the floor to the German historian and archaeologist Adolf Schulten, who will give an answer to the question concerning the contacts between Iberia and the Aegean. Schulten (1870–1960), who also studied in Greece, dedicated his life to Spain, where he conducted extensive research and excavations; therefore, he is considered a key influence on Spanish archaeological studies. Among others, he searched – but, unfortunately, with no success – to find Tartessos in 1924 and Maenaca in 1948. Very popular in Portugal and Spain are his biographies on two great figures of the struggle of the Lusitanians against the Romans: Viriathus (1927) and Quintus Sertorius (1926).

Statue of Viriathus in Zamora

● The great Lusitanian hero, Viriathus, started fighting after a massacre committed by the Romans in Lusitania with 30,000 victims. He was assassinated in his sleep, in 139 BCE, by the three men he had sent for peace talks with the Romans, who bribed them instead. When the conspirators asked for their prize, the Romans said: “Rome does not pay traitors who kill their chief”! Big talk to avoid payment, since the same tactic was used again in the next century to get rid of Sertorius, whose aim was to create an independent Iberian Republic. He was a Roman statesman and general, opponent of the dictator Sulla during the Roman civil wars. His popular, pro-Iberian policy had displeased many Roman aristocrats, and was eventually assassinated, also by traitors, during a feast, in 72 BCE. When his will was read, they saw he named as his chief beneficiary the… chief conspirator! The next year, the “victorious” Pompey, returning from Iberia to Italy, helped in the suppression of the gladiators’ insurgency led by Spartacus, with whom Sertorius was in contact.

Schulten made a thorough examination of the Mediterranean Spanish coast in 1919, preparing a critical edition of Ora Maritima (Sea Coast), by Avienus (hence of the Massaliote Periplus, as well), a study that led him to Tartessos.⁽³⁾ Excavating in the current Doñana National Park, close to the mouth of the Guadalquivir, he found a Roman town in Cerro del Trigo, which he believed was located on the remains of the legendary city. But, despite all his efforts, he found no trace of it. The result of his excavations, among others, was the publication of a study in 1924. A second edition, greatly improved and expanded, followed in 1945, and reissued in 2006. It was entitled: Tartessos – Contribution to the Oldest History in the Occident:

• ⁽³⁾ We followed the same route in Chronicle 22: An Iberian Periplus Revival.

The Palace of Minos at Knossos

TARTESSOS: CONTRIBUTION TO THE OLDEST HISTORY IN THE OCCIDENT

THE MOST ANCIENT REFERENCES

“BY ALL ACCOUNTS, AN ORIENTAL PEOPLE that, before the Phoenicians, sailed along the coast of Spain were the Cretans, the people of Minos, the oldest maritime power in the Mediterranean… Cretan toponyms are found even in Corsica. In Sardinia we encounter Cretan copper bars. In the Balearics, Aegean vases and bull heads similar to those of Crete have been discovered. Oriental ornaments of ivory, turquoise, or amethyst, have been found on the southeastern coasts of Spain… It seems that the Iberian alphabet contains eight Cretan graphemes… According to Egyptian monuments, the Keftiu, i.e. the Cretans, had large amounts of silver. This silver could have come from Spain… In Falmouth of Cornwall a tin bar has been found with the characteristic shape of Cretan copper bars, i.e. the double swallowtail. This fact could be an indication of exchange between Crete and Tartessos, as the Tartessians traded with the Oestrimni [see Chronicle 21, Legendary Odyssean Lisbon], who sailed to England… Further proof that the Cretans were sailing to Spain can be found in the name of Tartessos itself. The termination in -essos is primitive pre-Hellenic of Asia Minor, mainly of southern Asia Minor. It is very widespread in the regions of Caria and Crete. Thus, perhaps the name of Tartessos does not come from the Phocaeans, but from the Cretans and the Carians. The toponyms ending in ‘-essos’ spread to the Occident, as is evidenced by their appearance in Sicily (Herbessos, Telmessos). If the name of Tartessos is Cretan, then we need to examine whether the Phoenician ‘Tarshish’ is derived from ‘Tartessos’, rather than the indigenous toponym”…

The Statuette of Geryon (6th century BCE), bronze sculpture, showing the 3-headed giant, probably found in Chiusi in Italy, one of the towns of the Etruscan dodecapolis.

THE PRE-TARTESSIANS

“Hispanic [Iberian] daggers of copper and silver of the 3rd millennium have been found in Crete… Where did the silver and tin that the ancient 3rd-millennium-BC Oriental empires used come from?… It is reasonable to suppose that in the 3rd millennium BC, the Orient extracted silver and, above all, tin, from Andalusia and that the Cretans or Carians were probably the agents of this trade, as were later the Phoenicians”…

TARTESSOS AND THE PHOENICIANS

“Geryon, considered as the personification of the Tartessos [Guadalquivir] River, does not pertain to Gades, as later ignorance would have it, but to Tartessos. And the island Erytheia, his dwelling, which took his daughter’s name (Pausanias), could not have been the island of Gades, but the island formed by the Tartessos Delta, in front of which his castle rose. But when Tartessos disappeared, confusion made the figures of Geryon and Erytheia to be mistakenly transferred to Gades. However, the most ancient mythographers clearly place Erytheia on the Delta of the Tartessos River. Stesichorus says that Erytheia ‘faces’ the sources of the river, i.e. its mouth. Pherecydes asserts that Heracles went to Tartessos, and, therefore, places Erytheia here and not at Gades”…

TARTESSOS AND THE PHOCAEANS

“There is another testimony on the Phocaean trips to Tartessos: the Ionian names of islands and coastal sites that are found all along the way, on the Italian coast, in Sardinia and Spain, way down to Tartessos. These are several toponyms ending in –οῦσα [-ussa], widespread in Ionian regions on the coast of Asia Minor, and their presence in the Occident undoubtedly reveals the passage of the Ionians, of the Phocaeans. On the Italian coast we can find: Πιθηκοῦσα [Pithecussa] (Ischia), Ἀνθεμοῦσα [Anthemussa], Σειρηνοῦσα [Seirenussa, Sirenuse] (islands in the Gulf of Salerno). In Sardinia: Ἰχνοῦσα [Ichnussa] (the Ionian name of the island). On the eastern Spanish coast: Μηλοῦσα, Kρoηοῦσα [Melussa, Croeussa] (Mallorca and Minorca?), Πιτυοῦσα, Ὀφιοῦσα [Pityussa, Ophiussa] (Ibiza, Formentera). On the southern coast: Πιτυοῦσα [Pityussa] (Cape Sabinal), Καλαθοῦσα [Calathussa] (in the Bay of Huelva?), Κοτινοῦσα [Cotinussa], old name of the island of Gades. On the southwestern coast: ἄκρα Ὀφιούσης (prominens Ophiussae, Avienus), Cape Roca – the extreme toponym indicating the limit of the Phocaean sphere. We know from this old [Massaliote] Periplus that the neighbouring estuary of the Tagus was linked to Tartessos through a Phocaean commercial road”…

Harvester Vase: a Minoan stone vessel from Hagia Triada, Crete (1500-1450 BCE), originally covered in gold leaf. The relief depicts a sowing festival: a central figure shaking rattle leads the others singing and carrying pitchforks. Notice the diminishing of figures in one of the oldest examples of perspective.

THE TARTESSIAN CULTURE

“Could perhaps Tartessos be a colony founded by some Oriental people of those that were part of the Aegean civilization, e.g. of Crete?… There are reasons to support this hypothesis: the ancient culture of the pre-Tartessians, the numerous coincidences with the Orient and the older oriental nations, the possibility that primitive navigators have founded a colony in Andalusia, as later the Tyrians founded Gades. And besides all this, the name itself of Tartessos alludes to the Orient. If Tartessos were a colony of Aegean navigators, e.g. of Cretans or Carians, this would at once explain its ancient and high culture, as well as the coincidences with Crete in metallurgy, writing, the bull cult, etc. As an Aegean colony, Tartessos would have been founded around the 3rd or 2nd millennium BC, and certainly before the Tyrian voyages. Thus the Tyrians would have invaded the maritime domain of the old Aegean navigators, both in the Occident and in the Orient. A Cretan Tartessos could only be founded before the fall of Cretan power (in 1200). Thence, the ruin of Crete would have influenced the Occidental colony, explaining thus the scarce resistance of the Tartessians against the Tyrians. The possibility that Tartessos is an ancient Aegean colony must therefore be studied.”

All the more so, because the Minoans apparently imported tin from Tartessos at the mouth of the Guadalquivir. At any rate, what strikes me is that in Schulten’s text, too, the Mycenaeans are… conspicuously absent! “The fall of Cretan power” did not take place “in 1200”, when the Bronze Age collapsed, together with the Mycenaean power, but c. 1450 BCE, when the Mycenaeans took over Crete. Then they inherited not only the Minoan Thalassocracy, but the network of the Cretan colonies and emporia, too. The Bronze Age collapse coincided with the Trojan War that was followed by a westward “exodus” of Trojans and Hellenes:

The Arrival of Aeneas at Pallanteum, by Claude Lorrain

Odysseys in the Aftermath of the Trojan War: Colonization of Iberia

THE TROJAN WAR, in the time when it was fought, was not a heroic war. It was accompanied by the eastward movement of the Sea Peoples, and the westward “exodus” of both Hellenes and Trojans. For sure, the latter were in search of a new homeland. As for the Greeks who managed to survive, after a long, ten-year absence, with the spoils not rewarding enough, as Strabo says, were not welcome back home (see Chronicle 20, The Luwian Civilization: The Missing Link in the Aegean Bronze Age), and either had a tragic end (e.g. Agamemnon), or were forced to follow the life of pirates. Such fate awaited “heroes” such as Aeneas, Antenor and Opsicella; or Diomedes, Menelaus, Menestheus, Odysseus and Teucer – for whom “later poets sang”…

Breogán and the Tower of Heracles, A Coruña

Aeneas is linked to Rome, while Antenor and Opsicella founded cities in the Italian North, with the latter ending up in Biscay. Among the Greeks, Diomedes, son of Tydeus, arrived in Lusitania and Galicia, where he founded Tyde (today’s Tui), an Aetolian city, as Silius Italicus writes. Menestheus, the leader of the Athenians in the Trojan War, was expelled from Athens by Theseus’ sons, and set ashore with his entourage in Andalusia, at the mouth of the river Criso (Guadalete), where he founded a colony and an oracle in his name: it was Portus Menesthei, today’s El Puerto de Santa María (see Chronicle 22). Odysseus founded and walled Lisbon (see Chronicle 5, Odysseus and Calypso in Odyssey-Lisbon and Chronicle 21, Legendary Odyssean Lisbon), while Teucer arrived in Lusitania and Galicia, where he founded Pontevedra (see Chronicle 20, Teucer-Teucrus of the Troad and Salamis), having previously passed from Mastia (or Massia, the later Carthago Nova, today’s Cartagena in Murcia). Some include Aveiro among the cities supposedly founded by Greeks in Lusitania. That’s why, they add, the women there are so beautiful!

Silius distinguishes the Aetolians from the Grovii (or Gravii in Latin), who lived in the coastal northern Lusitania, spreading also into Galicia.⁽⁴⁾ However, Pliny states “Helleni, Gravii, Castellum Tyde, graecorum sobolis omnia” (Hellenes, Grovii, the Castle of Tyde, they are all Greeks).

• ⁽⁴⁾ Pomponius Mela stated that all the tribes were Celtic, except for the Grovii, who worshipped gods different from the Celts. Pliny also rejected that the Grovii were Celts; he considered them to be of Greek stock. They cooperated with the local Gallaeci tribes in the aftermath of Viriathus’ death, in order to take revenge for his assassination. So, they attacked the Roman settlements in Lusitania, gaining momentum with the support of other tribes along the way, and reaching the south of the Peninsula, near Andalusia, thus endangering Roman rule in Hispania (Iberia).

Greeks in Iberia: Athena, Atlas, and Heracles with the golden apples of the Hesperides; marble relief, 5th century BCE

Teucer and his companions, says Strabo, founded some peoples in Galicia such as the Hellenes and Amphilochians. Something similar happened in Cantabria with certain Spartans. Relevant information is given by Pompeius Trogus, who translated into Latin the stories of the world from Hellenic literature. Justin, who compended Trogus’ work, points out that the Galicians claim they are of Greek descent (Gallaeci graecam sibi originem asserunt). This may be explained by the origin of the Celts who, according to Herodotus, might have come from Thrace, speaking perhaps also Hellenic (see Chronicle 20, Thracian and Celtic Coincidences).

Isidore of Seville (Híspalis), citing Latin writers, stated that, due to their Hellenic origin, “the Galicians are endowed with great ingenuity”. While Jerome couldn’t agree more: “… almost all islands, rivers, lands of the entire orb neighbouring the sea, are occupied by Greek inhabitants, who, as we have already said, owned all the maritime places from the Amanus [Nur] and Taurus Mountains [Asia Minor] to the British Ocean.”

According to Strabo, all the Northern highlanders in general – Galicians, Astures, Cantabrians, Basques – made hecatombs ritu graeco and married more graeco. In Cantabria, one could also meet Messenians and even Trojans, except for the Spartans, who expanded as far as the Douro’s mouth, leading a Laconic life.

Homer’s Odyssey is unique, but the Trojan War’s Odysseys were too many, from both belligerents, eventually enriching the Western Mediterranean – mainly Italy and Iberia – with “new blood”.

Celts in Europe

● When scholars like Stanislawski “forget” the Mycenaeans (not to mention the Minoans), they end up… uttering bubbles, such as: “Greek colonization to the West was very late, especially if we compare it with the Phoenician.” In fact, the Phoenicians were last in line, and their western colonization came even later. Let’s move now to Stanislawski’s text, Contacts Between the Ancient Civilizations of the Eastern Mediterranean and Iberia:

CONTACTS BETWEEN THE ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS
OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN AND IBERIA

Celts lived mainly in Galicia; Celtiberians in Portugal
and half of Spain; Iberians in the other half (Andalusia
to Catalonia); Basques in NE Spain (and SW France).

A WESTWARD MOVEMENT

“THE EARLIEST PASSAGE of Phoenician ships through the Straits of Gibraltar was probably made during the general period of time when the Central European farmers and pastoralists were first entering the Cantabrian region. These events preceded the 1st millennium BC. Later, Greek exploration and trade grew, following the example given by Phoenicia, perhaps as early as the 9th century and certainly by the end of the 7th century BC. Such contacts can be equated in time with the acceleration of the East-West movement of peoples and cultures which took place in the North with the advent of the Celts, who may have appeared in Iberia as early as 900 BC, and the main force of which was felt by the 6th century. Between the 6th and the 3rd centuries BC, while the lands of the western Mediterranean were developing under the influence of active and aggressive Greeks and Carthaginians [Punics], northern Iberia was changing under the influence of Celts of later arrival from beyond the Pyrenees. However, there was a difference between the early contacts along the Mediterranean coasts and those of the Central Europeans with northern Iberia. It was not opportunity for settlement that drew men along the southern coasts, but trade… It was the attraction of metals that drew the early Greeks beyond the Straits of Gibraltar and along the western coasts of Spain.”

CONTACTS WITH THE WEST COAST OF IBERIA

Celtic art in Spain

“It is possible that the early merchant wayfarers sailed up the west coast to trade directly with Galicia. But if they did, the coast of present Portugal represented a gap in their interest, for there is almost no record of them there.⁽⁵⁾ It would seem that Portugal was then, as through so many periods of time before and after, apart from the main stream of events. It possessed no great source of silver such as the mines of Andalusia, nor of copper or tin (with slight exceptions in both cases).⁽⁶⁾ With her metals, Spain was a magnet for the early traders, whereas Portugal attracted casual traders at most”…

• ⁽⁵⁾ There are slight exceptions; e.g., there is the Egyptian scarab of the 7th century BC that was found in a pre-Celtic level at Alcácer do Sal. (D. Stanislawski)

• ⁽⁶⁾ There is no record e.g. of Carthaginian exploitation of the copper of the Alentejo, which Romans later mined at Aljustrel. As all of southern Portugal is poor in tin, silver, and gold, there was little there to distract them from their preoccupation with such places as Andalusia and Murcia. (D.S.)

HOMOGENEITY OF THE IBERIAN MEDITERRANEAN REGION

“At the time of their first contacts with the west, the earliest Phoenicians and Greeks encountered a culture area with fundamentally similar characteristics throughout. It extended along the Mediterranean coasts, slopes, and adjacent interior valleys, from the Pyrenees to the Guadiana River… With their usual perspicacity, the Greeks recognized this area as being essentially homogeneous and sharply different in culture from the Celtic territories of the interior and of the north and west peripheries”…

EARLY POLITICAL GROUPS AND CONFUSION OF NAMES

Winged griffin of Tartessos (700-575 BCE)

“Indisputably, one of the important Iberian groups was that of the Tartessians, wealthy farmers and traders in metals. It was their knowledge of the sources of metals that first brought them in touch with the Phoenicians and Greeks. They knew the coasts to the west and northwest of their home, for the tin and gold that they traded came from Galicia. They were also able to furnish silver, copper, and lead, which came to them from the Guadalquivir River basin. It appears that tin was the product of greatest importance at the time. The early centuries of the pre-Christian millennium were times of great opulence along the coast of Galicia. That this wealth was due to tin may be inferred from the fact that the Greeks used the term Cassiterides to identify the area. However, the question as to the ultimate source of tin is moot. In spite of the lack of archaeological evidence it seems likely that, in the earliest years of trading, it came from alluvial deposits along the river banks of Galicia. There is a possibility, however, that Bronze Age connections with French Brittany and with the British Isles had continued and that the Galicians were merely purveyors of tin from those places. This basic necessity of bronze-users was scarce in the other parts of the Phoenician and Greek world. There was no tin in all of North Africa, Asia Minor, Caucasia, Cyprus, mainland Greece, and the Greek islands. The mines of Tuscany were small. It is no wonder that both Galicia and the Tartessians were prosperous and that the Phoenicians and Greeks were attracted to the area.”

“Tin was the product of greater importance. This basic necessity of bronze-users was scarce in the Phoenician and Greek world.” (Dan Stanislawski)

According to Pomponius Mela (1st century CE),
the Makárōn nēsoe (Fortunate Isles) are the Canaries; the Hesperides are at Cape Verde;
and the Cassiterides are the Azores

● “The Cassiterides are ten in number, and lie near each other in the ocean toward the north from the haven of the Artabri [A Coruña, Galicia].⁽⁷⁾ One of them is desert, but the others are inhabited… Of the metals, they have tin and lead, which, with skins, they barter with the merchants for earthenware, salt, and brazen vessels. Anciently the Phoenicians alone, from Gades, engrossed this market, hiding the navigation from all others. When [other navigators] followed a certain [Phoenician] shipmaster, that they might discover the market, the jealous shipmaster willfully stranded his vessel on a shoal, misleading those who were tracking him, to the same destruction. Escaping from the shipwreck by means of a fragment of the ship, he was indemnified for his losses out of the public treasury.” (Strabo)

• ⁽⁷⁾ According to Strabo, the Artabri (or Arrotrebae) were an ancient Gallaecian Celtic tribe, living in the extreme NW of modern Galicia, about Cape Nerium (Cabo Prior), outskirts of the harbour city of Ferrol. In Magnus Portus Artabrorum during Roman times (1st century BCE, even before), they traded in metals (like silver, gold, tin and iron), or even wild horses. The port was located on a turbulent, unpredictable sea, in the bay of Ferrol, and the rias of Ferrol, Betanzos and Coruña, with the Tower (lighthouse) of Heracles. Ptolemy refers to the Galaeci Lucenses and their capital town, Lucus Augusti (now Lugo).

● “The islands called Cassiterides, situated in the open sea approximately in the latitude of Britain, lie opposite to, and north of, the Artabrians… They that inhabit the British promontory of Belerium,⁽⁸⁾ by reason of their converse with the merchants, are more civilized and courteous to strangers than the rest. These are the people that make the tin… They beat it into four-square pieces the size of dice, and cart it to a British island, near at hand, called Ictis…⁽⁹⁾ For at low tide, all being dry between them and the island, they convey over in carts an abundance of tin in the mean time. But there is one thing peculiar to those islands, which lie between Britain and Europe; for at full sea they appear to be islands, but at low water for a long way they look like so many peninsulas… Hence the merchants transport the tin they buy of the inhabitants to France, and for thirty days’ journey they carry it in packs on horses’ backs through France to the mouth of the river Rhône.” (Diodorus Siculus)

The Cassiterides and Bolerium (depicted
here as an islet) south of Britain

• ⁽⁸⁾ Belerium, or Bolerium, now Land’s End: a headland on the western tip of Cornwall, the most westerly point of England. Diodorus’ text is very often connected with St. Michael’s Mount.

• ⁽⁹⁾ Ictis, or Iktin: an island described by Diodorus as a tin trading centre, somewhere off the coast of southern England, with its exact location unknown; candidates include St. Michael’s Mount, or Looe Island, off the Cornish coast, also known as St. Michael’s Island, or St. George’s Island.

● “There are two kinds of lead, the white (plumbum album) and the black (plumbum nigrum). The white is the most valuable; it was called by the Greeks cassíteros; and there is a fabulous story of their going in quest of it to the islands of the Atlantic, and of its being brought in barks made of osiers, and covered with hides. It is now known that it is the production of Lusitania and Gallaecia… White lead was held in esteem in the days even of the Trojan War – a fact attested by Homer, who called it ‘cassíteros’… It is extracted with great labour in Hispania [Iberia] and throughout all the Gallic provinces, but in Britannia it is found in the upper stratum of the earth in such abundance, that a law has been spontaneously made prohibiting anyone from working more than a certain quantity of it.” (Pliny)

Hellenic ship, mocaic (ca 1st century BCE-CE)

GREEK EXPLORATION AND SETTLEMENT

“The earliest Greek ventures may perhaps be dated as of the 9th or the 8th century BC. Possibly Rhodian and Chalcidian sailors were in the western Mediterranean at this time… The line of Ionian names stretching along the islands and coasts of the western Mediterranean and to the Atlantic coast of Portugal – the names with the –ussa termination – can probably be ascribed to this early period. These names are important in dating the arrival of the Greeks in western waters. They mark the island route of the early Greek navigators. Starting from Syrakoussai [Syracusae] in eastern Sicily, they may be followed through Ichnussa (Sardinia), Melussa (Menorca), Rornyussa (Mallorca) and Pityussa (Ibiza). The latter three, even now, are identified on maps as the Balearics or Pityusas. The -ussa names extend westward to the Straits of Gibraltar and up the Atlantic coast of Portugal to Ophiussa, in the region of Lisbon, and the general area of Portugal plus Galicia may have been vaguely termed Ophiussa.”

The “Balearides” (Gymnesian) and the “Pityusae” Isles on an old map

● The Balearics comprise two island groups: the Gymnesians (Mallorca and Minorca) and the Pityuses (Eivissa or Ibiza and Formentera). The term “Balearic” derives from the Grecian Βαλλιαρεῖς or Βαλεαρεῖς (from βάλλω, meaning “to launch”), referring to the islanders who were skilled slingers and served as mercenaries for the Hellenes, Punics, and Romans. However, Strabo regarded the word as of Phoenician origin, as similar to lightly armoured soldiers the Hellenes called γυμνήτας, hence Gymnesiae (from γυμνός, meaning naked). This does not mean they fought naked, but that they used much lighter armament than the hoplites. Anyhow, according to Lycophron’s poem Alexandra, the toponym refers to shipwrecked Boeotians who were cast nude on the islands (a story obviously invented); or to the islanders themselves who were often nude (because of the year-round benevolent climate). In the Gymnesian Isles there are megalithic stone monuments (naveta, taula and talaiot) which speak of a very early prehistoric human activity. They are similar, but not necessarily related, to the nuraghe of Sardinia and torri of Corsica. One of the earliest cultures on Minorca was influenced by other Mediterranean civilizations, including the Minoan. Those islanders e.g. may have imitated those inverted plastered timber columns found at Knossos (such evidence is probably not “convincing” enough for Stanislawski). There is also a tradition that the Balearics were colonized by Rhodes after the Trojan War. The Pityusic Islands (from Grecian πιτύα, pine tree) are sometimes informally called in English as the Pine Islands, which is identical to the Hellenic name Πιτυοῦσαι, i.e. “pine-covered islands”. In antiquity they were listed in Claudius Ptolemy’s Geography under the names Ophiussis and Ebyssus, which had a town of the same name. It is the port Ibossim founded by Phoenicians in 654 BCE, later known to Romans as Ebusus, hence Eivissa (in Catalan) or Ibiza (in Castilian). The population of the two largest islands (Gymnesians) is stated by Diodorus at 30,000.

Herodotus, by Jean-Guillaume Moitte (1806)

THE PHOCAEAN GREEKS

“Herodotus said that it was Greeks from the city of Phocaea in Asia Minor who were first to navigate in the western Mediterranean waters. It may seem temerous to question the facts of the father of history, but Antonio García (A. G. y Bellido, Hispania Graeca [Hellenic Iberia]) does so convincingly. The Phocaeans, says he, arrived late upon the scene, profiting by earlier maritime contacts. Nor does he accept the statement that the important voyage of Colaeus, the Samian, was a voyage of discovery of Tartessos for the Greeks. This widely heralded 7th century journey was, to him, merely one – although perhaps the most profitable and spectacular up to that time – of many such voyages that had been made by Rhodians, Chalcidians, Samians, and others.⁽¹⁰⁾

• ⁽¹⁰⁾ Another point of view is expressed by H. R. W. Smith in his review of García’s Hispania Graeca. Smith does not deny the thesis of García but says that he can find no reason to believe that the Phocaeans reached Tartessos prior to the time of Arganthonios, the Tartessian king friendly to the Greeks, or before the voyage of Colaeus. (D.S.)

A Satyr on pottery found at Alalia

“Whatever the dating may be – and the archaeological inquiry has far to go – the Phocaeans certainly became the most active and effective Greeks in the area. Their colonization had energy and breadth and was the only one in the western Mediterranean with lasting results… There is no specific evidence that this activity was connected with the decay of Tyre, but there is such a coincidence in time. Tyrian decline had begun by the end of the 8th century BC and was notable during the following century. This was the time of the voyage of Colaeus, the Samian (650 BC), the founding of the Phocaean colony of Massalia, present Marseille (600 BC, or approximately then), and the founding of Alalia in Corsica (640 BC, or approximately 40 years prior to Massalia). Some time before the end of the century, Mainake [Maenaca], the most westerly of Phocaean colonies, was founded near Málaga.⁽¹¹⁾

• ⁽¹¹⁾ Within 20 miles to the east, says García; Smith suggests that it might even be at approximately the outskirts of present Málaga. (D.S.)

● Some dates are different here. The difference in Colaeus’ voyage is not important (650, not c. 640 BCE); but the dating of the founding of Alalia is almost one century earlier (650 instead of 566 BCE). Was it initially a temporary seasonal settlement?

Following the Mediterranean island route, the
Phocaeans arrived from Asia Minor to Iberia.

“This century was one of intimacy between Phocaeans and Tartessians. The reign of Arganthonios of Tartessos began in the 7th century BC. The ancient sources spoke of his 80-year reign but probably, in typical Greek fashion, they dramatized a dynasty or a period by creating a mythical longevity for a single ruler. Whether this represented one ruler or several does not alter the fact that there was frequent and close contact between Tartessos and Phocaea. This was the period of the Phocaean maritime dominance during which the Tartessian king lent money to the Phocaeans to build their fortifications against the threat of the Persians.”

● Arganthonios is a name apparently based on the Indo-European word for silver, hence money. Tartessos was very rich in silver. Similar names appear in inscriptions of the Roman period and on silver coinage in Gaul. Arganthonios, the “Silver Man” (c. 670–550 BCE), ruled Tartessos for 80 years (c. 630–550) and lived to be 120 years old. The idea of great age and length of reign may result from a succession of kings using the same name or title. Nevertheless, one could retort he died… quite young, if we take under consideration that, as the Bible says, “all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine [969!] years”: he supposedly lived almost one thousand years and became a symbol of longevity…

The Tower of Babel, by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

● The weird thing is that no one dares to say: fairy tales! Even more funny is that so many well-intentioned (and a few… bad-intentioned) people try hard to interpret the uninterpretable, although it is well-known that “you better stay away from the Bible’s dates”! It’s weird, so let’s have fun: “such mistakes are made by copyists or translators; are mistaken attempts to correct mistakes; deliberate extensions of the patriarchs’ ages by the ‘Seventy’ [Jews who translated the Old Testament into Greek], multiplying by 5 or 10, for the patriarchs to ‘fit’ with the Flood ‘myth’; confusion between ‘months’ and ‘years’; or between solar and lunar years; or between Sumerian and new numbers; the names do not refer to individuals, but to ‘dynasties’,” as in the case of Arganthonios. We also have fundamentalist interpretations: “a water vapour canopy protected the earth from radiation before the Flood; early humans had a better diet; or the more we sin, the less we live: the humans were originally to have everlasting life, but sin was introduced into the world by Adam and Eve, its influence became greater with each generation, and God progressively shortened human life, particularly after the Flood”… Amen!

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN GREEKS AND PUNIC
PEOPLES IN THEIR RELATIONS WITH IBERIA

The island and bay of Gadir: the Phoenicians’
springboard for attacks against Tartessos

“The period of the decline of Tyre was not only important for the Ionian Greeks, but also for the Tyrian colony of Carthage. During the time of Phocaean colonization, Carthage too was expanding. As early as 653 BC, it had established the colony on Ibiza of the Balearics, which lay athwart the Greek island route to the west. After 573 BC, when Tyre fell to the Babylonians, Carthage showed increasing independence. Competition for western metals was growing between the two great rivals, Carthage and Greece. It is reasonable to assume that the friendship of Arganthonios (or that of his dynasty), through almost a century of time, was more than mere affection and amiability. It probably represented a form of alliance in which the Tartessians aided the Phocaeans in their struggle against the threat to their mother city. In return, Greeks supported the Westerners against the growing aggressiveness of Carthage and the Punic colony of Gadir, which threatened the area of Tartessos. Almost from the time of their founding of Gadir the Phoenicians showed their expansionist tendencies. It was not long before they were using the island as a base of attack against the mainland and the Tartessians.

“Graeco-Iberian friendship: an alliance against Carthage and Gadir’s aggressiveness. From the beginning the Phoenicians used the island as a base of attack against the Tartessians… Graeco-Iberian contacts: history of amity; the Iberian hospitality toward Greeks was proverbial… Friendship and mutual support against the common enemy served both.” (Dan Stanislawski)

Dionysus (the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking
and wine), by Exekias (cylix, c. 530 BCE)

“The Greeks were usually neither pacific nor friendly neighbors when the prospect of gain was apparent. In this they differed little from the Phoenicians. However, in their relations with the Tartessians they had no desire, it would seem, for control of land or people, but merely wanted to trade their products, especially olive oil and wine,⁽¹²⁾ for Tartessian metals. In fact, the history of Greek contacts with Iberians is one of amity, and the hospitality of the Iberians toward Greeks was proverbial. The purposes of both peoples were served by friendly intercourse and mutual support against the common enemy, especially after the increased importance and the expanded ambition of Carthage. A major clash for complete dominance of the area was inevitable. This was speeded by events in the eastern Mediterranean area”…

• ⁽¹²⁾ Pierson Dixon, The Iberians of Spain, and Rhys Carpenter, The Greeks in Spain, state that the olive tree and the vine were introduced into Spain by the Greeks. Olive oil was exported from Greek Akragas [Agrigento] to Carthage in the first half of the 1st millennium BC. No doubt the Greeks traded in wine with Iberia. Wine made from grapes is very old in the countries of the eastern Mediterranean, and the Phoenicians were famous merchants of wine… (D.S.)

Artemis, Phocaea’s patron goddess; Massaliote “heavy” silver drachma (ca 390-220 BCE)

THE ALALIA COLONY AND ITS EFFECTS

DAN STANISLAWSKI, IN THIS PART of his story, turns his attention to the historic developments in Asia Minor: in 546 BCE, Cyrus conquered Lydia and Ionia, causing “a mass migration of perhaps half of the population of Phocaea to their Corsican colony of Alalia… All the men in this city of probably 5,000 to 7,000 people had gone. This population figure suggests the large number of available vessels, and points to the commercial importance of the city at that time”. The Battle of Alalia took place “sometime between 540 and 535 BC”, with its disastrous impact on the Hellenes and, even more, on the Tartessians.

“Carthage may then have sealed the Straits of Gibraltar, as Carpenter suggests. More likely, the Straits had been largely sealed for a long time, but after the battle the land route between Mainake and Tartessos was also blocked. Mainake itself was destroyed by the Carthaginians toward the end of the century, to end its traffic and its competition with the Carthaginian settlement in the location of present Málaga”…

Phocaean electrum coin with playing seals

ECONOMIC CHANGES IN THE WEST

“As Carthage had inherited the western empire of Tyre, so did Massalia fall heir to that of her mother city, Phocaea. Greek trade became centered here, with the end of Phocaean maritime enterprise in the West of the Mediterranean. Trade through France to Brittany and beyond had been undoubtedly important to the Massaliotes previous to this time, but the record had been obscured by the greater drama of the struggle on the Mediterranean. During the last half of the 6th century BC, during which time Carthaginians grasped complete power in the West, the prosperity of Galicia – presumably based upon tin – declined. This decline may have been due to the change from the sea route, by way of the Straits, to that from Massalia, via the French rivers, to the northwest and ultimately to Britain”…

“Galicia’s decline due to the change from the sea route, via the Straits, to that from Massalia, via the French rivers, and ultimately to Britain.” (Stanislawski)

Stanislawski offers four possible explanations for the Galician decline; probably the second one is the most important:

Armor of a Punic officer

“More likely, the Galicians had for some time been not producers, but purveyors, of tin from French Armorica or the British Isles. If this were true, the direct land route from Massalia would have skirted the Carthaginian barrier and eliminated Galician middlemen… At approximately the same period of time there was an increased interest in silver… by the avidity with which the Greeks of Asia Minor sought it for coinage… Perhaps the richest of ancient silver mines was that of Mastia (or Massia), a region second only to Tartessos in commercial importance. The ancient prosperity of the region and of its most important city, also named Mastia (or Massia), the later Cartago Nova, and probably the site of the present Cartagena, was based upon silver mining through several centuries. Great amounts were mined under the direction of Hannibal in the 3rd century BC, and it was still a large operation at the time of Polybius in the succeeding century.”

CARTHAGINIAN DOMINATION OF THE WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN

Bronze Age gold helmet found in Leiro, Galicia

After the battle of Alalia, “Greek commercial activity in Iberia was ended and Carthage was less inhibited in the spread of its control. Tartessos, which had feared the Carthaginians and had allied itself with the Greeks, was left without support and was destroyed.⁽¹³⁾ In the following century, probably 20,000 Iberian mercenaries were fighting in Sicily for the Carthaginians… Celts were also serving as mercenaries in the Carthaginian forces.

• ⁽¹³⁾ If there was no city of that name, it is not important to the larger fact that the area as a whole was put under the control of the Carthaginians of Gadir (Carpenter, The Greeks in Spain). (D.S.)

Dido (or Elissa, founder of Carthage), attributed to Christophe Cochet

“There was an increasing reliance upon mercenaries from the peninsula, not only from the fringes but from deep within the interior as well. In the late 3rd century BC, Hannibal’s army included Celtiberians from the northern interior, Galicians from the extreme northwest, Lusitanians from Middle Portugal, Vettones from the middle Tagus drainage – and these do not complete the list. Such troops, however, were something other than pure mercenaries; many had been forcibly impressed into service… During earlier centuries no general antagonism in Iberia seems to have been engendered by the Carthaginians. Locally there may have been antagonism, such as probably existed between the Carthaginians and the Tartessians, but for the tribes of the interior the Carthaginians may have had a friendly appeal. They offered an opportunity to fight with pay. It was later, when the Carthaginians had expanded their power and increased their need for troops that their tactics changed with regard to these tribes of the interior, which had long served as a source of manpower. When Hannibal, in desperate need for troops and under economic pressure, forcibly impressed some of them into his armies, the others reacted in bitter opposition. The tribes of the interior were a bellicose lot. An opportunity to fight for pay was not distasteful to them but a demand that they submit to enslavement was another matter. According to Strabo they resisted Hannibal as they later did the Romans for somewhat the same reasons.

“Nevertheless, tens of thousands of mercenaries were introduced to new lands and cultures of the middle and eastern Mediterranean. Since this process had been going on from as early as the 6th century BC and many men had returned to the peninsula, the effect upon attitudes of the peoples of the Meseta [‘Plateau’, in the heart of Iberia] and even some of the remote western coasts may have been considerable.”

The harbour of Carthage

● In relation with her mercenaries, Carthage had already had a war in her… liabilities: the Mercenary or Libyan War (240-237 BCE), immediately after the First Punic War. It was a rebellion of her mercenaries, with Libyan support, due to her inability to pay them, since she had to pay first the huge war indemnities to Rome. She confronted a “Foreign Legion”, consisted of Iberians and Celt-Iberians, Celts, Baleares, Greeks and others. Bilateral negotiations were fruitless due to lack of confidence, but also to the multilingualism of the mercenaries, making it impossible to find a compromise. Very soon, hostilities broke out and the mercenaries captured Tunis. Threatened directly, Carthage had no choice but to capitulate to the demands of the mercenaries. The latter, with their strengthened bargaining position, started asking more and more, as e.g. that the Libyans, who were neither mercenaries (they were recruited), nor citizens of Carthage, should be paid, together with the Numidians, or the escaped slaves who were fighting on their side. Once again the Punics had no choice but to agree…

Salammbô, by Alfons Mucha (1896), based on Gustave Flaubert’s same-titled historical novel (1862) that was in turn based on Polybius. The heroine is Hamilcar’s daughter and priestess loved passionately by Mathos…

The conflict would have ended there if two of the mercenary commanders, Spendius, a Campanian slave, and Mathos, a Libyan Berber, had not persuaded the Libyans of the army that Carthage would take revenge for their part in the revolt as soon as the foreign mercenaries were paid and sent home. They were joined by many towns and villages of Libya, as the people there were fed up with the Punic yoke, and finally, by all the mercenaries. What had started as a simple “labour dispute”, exploded into a full-scale revolt threatening an empire… Outmatched in every aspect – men, money, and supplies – and unprepared, Carthage “staggered” as long as Hanno the “Great” was in charge. The generalship was eventually given to Hamilcar Barca, Hannibal’s father, who managed to defeat, in 237 BCE, those who he once commanded in Sicily, fighting against the Romans. He cleverly used the “psychological war”, won over a part of his opponents, and annihilated the rest in the decisive “Battle of the Saw” – that was not even a battle: he blockaded the mercenaries in a steep ravine, until they starved to death. The barbarities and atrocities were far too many in this “relentless”, “truceless war”, according to Polybius, with no rules of conduct – the “most impious war in history”. Mutilations and crucifixions on both sides shocked everyone then.

Silver coin of Hamilcar Barca

A smaller mercenary revolt in Sardinia was put down with Roman help. Rome, in this war, was an ally of Carthage, so she could continue paying the indemnities! Besides, the Romans would soon occupy both Sardinia and Corsica. Losing the two islands, the Punics had only Iberia to “milk” in order to get back on track. If Thucydides were alive, he would have much to write about… We can act accordingly; drawing parallels between the Carthage-and-her-mercenaries relation and that of the USA with their own mercenaries (Osama, Taliban, the Islamic State, etc.). Or about Carthage’s racist disadvantage, as Punic citizenship was an exclusive privilege; so, they refused to give political rights e.g. to the Libyans, and consequently were obliged to rely more and more on mercenaries. That was Rome’s advantage in the second Punic War, when Hannibal, despite his victories in Italy, was unable to break the ties of Rome with her allies. Or even about how many “Great” men, like Hanno, the “pacifist” – because of his personal interests, i.e. money – are finally so small. The only ones from all those I mention in these Chronicles, who really deserve this epithet, must be Alexander and Cyrus.

Centaur: bronze figurine from Campo de Caravaca (Murcia), probably made in Greece (6th century BCE)

In conclusion…

DAN STANISLAWSKI, I REMIND YOU, was the one who had rejected the possibility of a Minoan presence in Iberia; the one who had “forgotten” the Mycenaeans, attributing the role of the transporters of the Egyptian archaeological finds in Spain to the Phoenicians – and, indeed, during a time of Mycenaean domination in the Mediterranean (1400-1200 BCE); he was the one, in addition, who had “ignored” the Hellenic emporia in Egypt, mainly Naucratis; the one I accused he was “spectacled”, wearing “Phoenician myopic glasses”!

For all the above we can appreciate even more his own personal “view” of Iberia, since it’s anything but biased in favour of the Greeks. All the more so, when we realize that his story is almost identical with the historical panorama in our three “Iberian” Chronicles (21, 22, 25): Ὅπερ ἔδει δεῖξαι, as Euclid would say, or quod erat demonstrandum (Q.E.D), or “what had to be demonstrated”. There is just one last Chronicle left: we shall be dropping anchor at emporia or touring palaces in the Near East, to come full circle back to our starting point, in a voyage full of surprises, as on the way we’ll be meeting itinerant artisans, artists, and masters, “members of the Architects’ and Painters’ Guilds”, whose writing, nevertheless, in Linear A, would puzzle the renowned archaeologist Leonard Woolley…

• >> Chronicle 27. AN ARCHAEOLOGIST’S WATERLOO
• << Chronicle 25. “CARTHAGO DELENDA EST!”

Next Chronicle 27. AN ARCHAEOLOGIST’S WATERLOO ● Emporia in Egypt and the Levant ● Leonard Woolley’s Waterloo ● Itinerant Minoan Artists ● Creto-Egyptian Ties ● Differences Between Minoan
and Pharaonic Society and Art

Left: a clay tablet from Knossos; the Linear A script that puzzled Leonard Woolley.
Right: an inscription in the Greek alphabet by Massaliotes in Catalonia:
“Hail, Thespis Massaliote, son of Aristoteles”.

Chronicle 25. “CARTHAGO DELENDA EST!”

Chronicle 25. “CARTHAGO DELENDA EST!”

/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ Χρονικό 25. “CARTHAGO DELENDA EST!”

● Phoenicians and Punics ● Colonization ● Impact of Persian Expansion
● Tartessos: the Apple of Discord ● Battle of Alalia ● Tartessos and
Carthage Ruined ● Macedonia and Rome

Michales Loukovikas

Back to the ancient Mediterranean troubled waters

Prow of a ship on a Punic coin (replica)

IF PLUTARCH’S PARALLEL LIVES PORTRAYED peoples in pairs, one could very well parallel the Minoans to the Canaanite Phoenicians, and the Mycenaeans to the Carthaginian Punics:⁽¹⁾ the latter expanded not only founding colonies, but also through conquests. Crete and Phoenicia, by contrast, with their limited territories, could not become springboards for war expeditions. Expansion was only possible through trade and colonization, thanks to their navigators.

• ⁽¹⁾ Especially in this Chronicle, a clear differentiation is needed between the Canaanite Phoenicians and the Carthaginian Punics, so as to avoid confusion: the term Canaanite refers to Phoenicia, Canaan; the term Punic to Carthage; while the term Phoenician covers both, the entire family in the Mediterranean.

Attican hydria (vessel to carry water; 6th century BCΕ)

The restrictions the Greeks faced, as soon as they awoke from their “Dark Ages”, in order to expand anew to the West, were the “faits accomplis” the Phoenicians had set up in the meantime. The Hellenes had no problem to cross the Aegean as it was a Greek sea. With Troy burned down, no one could block their entrance to the Black Sea – only Nature. That’s why they euphemistically called it Euxine Pontus, “hospitable sea”, trying to appease Poseidon, and dominate there. But they knew that in the Mediterranean competition was fierce. The Phoenicians, who avoided “cruises” in the Aegean and the Black Seas,⁽²⁾ were “omnipresent” anywhere else, having created their commercial network while they voyaged on the seas almost alone. They were motivated by profit through exchange. Part of the profit, though, had to be paid as tribute to the metropolises, or the empires, which took turns in the role of the master of Phoenicia.

• ⁽²⁾ I do not mean to say that the Canaanites did not sail in the Aegean; Hellenic ships voyaged to Canaan, as well. The Graeco-Phoenician relations were age-old, and their exchange was done on equal terms. What I mean is that the Aegean could never become Tartessos: a Canaanite trader voyaging to Hellas was just a trader; the same person in Iberia acted like a monopolist.

Generally speaking, an ancient colony differed from a contemporary one in that the former was a polis (not a country) founded by another polis, the metropolis. In addition, a Hellenic colony was usually sovereign from its inception. However, in the Phoenician world, a colony, although autonomous, had to pay tribute to the metropolis: Carthage e.g. was a dependency of Tyre. This was out of need: the Phoenicians lacked the population to found large self-sustaining colonies and most of them had fewer than 1,000 inhabitants, with Carthage being one of the few exceptions.

Magna Graecia, Carthage and Etruria

The Greeks had other problems or incentives: hunger, wars, or various disputes, drove many to other lands. Population growth and cramped spaces in Hellas, in combination with a desire to expand the sphere of economical influence, had motivated them to settle in Italy c. 800 BCE. It was the next place to colonize and Hellenize after the shores of Asia Minor or the Black Sea. In the next 150 years, several poleis founded their colonies along the coast of southern Italy and Sicily, controlling trade routes and dominating the Strait of Messina. This zone came to be known as Magna Graecia. The Phoenicians generally avoided any military confrontations with the Hellenes, unless a land of strategic importance was at stake, e.g. Sicily. To the north, the Greeks faced another adversary, the Etruscans, who had risen to the status of a regional power in Italy, and also expanded in the western Mediterranean, due to the mining and trade of metals. The Hellenic presence was undermining their interests, especially since the Phocaeans began founding colonies on the coasts of Corsica, Gaul, and Iberia. This obliged the Etruscans to ally themselves with the Punics, whose interests also collided with those of the Greeks.

A navigator at Zákantha (Sagunto)

The situation began to change dramatically sometime after 640 BCΕ, when the first Hellene trader dropped anchor at Tartessos. It was possibly the first arrival of a Greek at Iberia in historical times, after the voyages of the Mycenaeans and their legendary heroes (e.g. Heracles) to the peninsula. This sailor was Colaeus (Κωλαῖος), a Samian silver explorer and trader, who arrived at Tartessos c. 640 BCΕ, according to Herodotus. In an era when merchants were anonymous, the “father of history” thought that Colaeus was important enough to note. Since no other Greek merchant had previously sailed to Tartessos, Colaeus was able to obtain a cargo of metal (150 kg of silver) and take it back safely to Samos, thus realizing one of the greatest trade profits at the time. The Massalian Phocaeans followed Colaeus’ route many years later and also dropped anchor at Tartessos. Herodotus wrote that the Phocaeans were the first Hellenes to make long sea-voyages, having discovered and explored the coasts of the Adriatic, Tyrrhenia, Iberia, and Tartessos. He added that Arganthonios, the famous Tartessian king, welcomed the Greeks and urged them in vain to settle there. But why “in vain”? After all they did settle there. And why was the king so anxious to have them in his land? The answer to this question is given by the historical developments.

Phocaean warrior (500-480 BCE)

Hearing that the Persians were becoming a dominant power in the area of their metropolis, Phocaea, the king gave them 1500 kg of silver to build a defensive wall about their city. Despite this wall, however, Phocaea was conquered in 546 BCΕ. Rather than submit to Persian rule, most Phocaeans abandoned their city. Some of them fled to Chios, others to their colonies in Corsica and elsewhere in the Mediterranean, they founded Elea c. 540 BCΕ, and some eventually returned to Phocaea. It is the period when Persia captured the Hellenic cities on the Asia Minor coast. Ironically, the Greeks were not alone in this tragedy; the Canaanites suffered even more: the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Tyre in 572 BCΕ; then, in 539, the Persian king Cyrus the Great conquered Canaan; Phoenicia declined further and was obliged to pass the baton to Carthage; the Canaanites moved to their colonies, even to the new rising metropolis. The consolidation of the great Empire of the Achaemenids would re-arrange the map of the entire Mediterranean, not only in the Orient but also in the Occident. The 6th century BCE proved to be a major turning point.

The consolidation of the Achaemenids rearranged the map of the
entire Mediterranean, East and West. It was a major turning point.

Phoenician ship, marble mosaic

PHOENICIAN COLONIES were founded on both routes to Iberia and its mineral wealth: a) along the North African coast, and b) on the northern island route (Sicily, Sardinia, the Balearics).⁽³⁾ As we mentioned before, they paid tribute to either Tyre or Sidon, but neither had actual control on them. This rule changed c. 650 BCΕ, when Carthage gained independence from Tyre, establishing hegemony over other Phoenician colonies in the West. While some of them willingly submitted, giving up their foreign policy, and paying tribute to the Punics, others in Iberia and Sardinia resisted. Carthage sent troops there and appointed magistrates, retaining direct control over them. It was a policy rigidly enforced during the Punic Wars, when Carthage would become the undisputed leader of all Phoenicians, and resulted in a number of Iberian towns siding with the Romans. If that was the treatment reserved for their kindred, their brothers, one can easily imagine what would happen to all the rest.

• ⁽³⁾ What was the purpose of the Phoenician colonies on the second route to Iberia? The first one was the natural route linking Phoenicia with Iberia sailing by the North African coast; while the second one was the natural route linking Greece with Iberia voyaging from island to island. So, this was not a trade route for the Phoenicians. Its exclusive purpose was to block the Hellenes to sail west: it was of strategic importance.

Dido building Carthage (The Rise of the Carthaginian Empire), by J. M. W. Turner (1815)

The founder of Carthage, according to Greek historians, was Elissa, renamed as Dido in Virgil’s Aeneid. The city was built on a promontory, making it master of maritime trade in mare nostrum. All ships crossing the sea had to sail between Tunisia and Sicily, affording the city great power and influence. Founded in 814 BCΕ, it was one of the largest cities in Hellenistic times (by some estimates, only Alexandria was larger). The Punics, unlike other Phoenicians, had a landowning aristocracy, who controlled trans-Saharan trade routes and ruled the hinterland of North Africa. Besides, unlike the Romans, and despite the lack of manpower, Punic citizenship was exclusive, and the goal of the state was more focused on protecting commerce. Exempt from taxation, the citizens were primarily involved in this domain as traders or workers. As a result, Carthage could not afford to wage long wars, because commercial activities slowed down.⁽⁴⁾

Dido and the walled city of Carthage, medal (ca 1550 CE)

• ⁽⁴⁾ This contradiction is the superpowers’ Achilles’ heel. Carthage, as a commercial empire, would prefer peace; but as a commercial empire, had to conduct wars continuously – and this is in fact what happened: first against the Hellenes, and then against the Romans. In addition, the Punics’ refusal to grant their neighbours privileges, in order to integrate them into their society, turned them into a small, privileged, but vulnerable minority until the end, and obliged them to rely more and more on mercenaries during the wars. This would prove fatal for Carthage…

The war machine, however, was very efficient. Its navy was one of the largest in the Mediterranean, using serial production to maintain high numbers at a low cost, while the army included the now extinct North African elephants trained for war. Carthage turned west and became the “middleman” between mineral resource-rich Iberia and the Orient. The eastward expansion along the African coast was blocked by the Greek colony of Cyrene, founded in 630 BCΕ. The wars against Hellenes were due to the vulnerability of the Punic economy to Greek competition, since products “Made in Carthage” were inferior to Hellenic goods. The Greek colonists posed a twofold threat: a) undercutting the Phoenicians by offering better products; and b) taking over the distribution network.

Wars against Hellenes due to the vulnerability of Punic economy to
Greek competition: Punic products were inferior to Hellenic goods.
The Greeks posed a twofold threat to: a) undercut the Phoenicians by
offering better products, and b) take over the distribution network.

Punic gold coin with a horse

The empire depended heavily on its trade with Tartessos and Iberia in general, from which it obtained vast quantities of silver, lead, copper, and cassiterite that was essential for the manufacture of bronze. Carthage’s trade relations with the Iberians and the naval might that enforced its monopoly on this trade and with tin-rich Britain allowed it to be the sole significant tin broker and bronze maker. This monopoly, one of the major sources of power and prosperity for Carthage, should be maintained at any cost; a Punic sea merchant would rather crash his ship upon the rocky shores of Britain than reveal to any antagonist how it could be safely approached. In addition to being the sole significant distributor of tin, its central location in mare nostrum and control of the waters between Sicily and Tunisia (those “Pillars of Heracles” within the Mediterranean) allowed it to check the Orient’s supply of tin, as well. Carthage was also the largest producer of silver, mined in Iberia or North Africa, and, after the tin monopoly, this was one of its most profitable trades. The purple dye was also one of the most highly valued commodities, being worth 15-20 times its weight in gold. Ancient sources agree that Carthage via its trade had become perhaps the wealthiest city in the world. However, without the monopoly on trade with Tartessos and Iberia at large, the Punic Empire was inconceivable. Its leaders should have been aware of this fact when they replaced the Canaanites as overlords of Iberia c. 575 BCΕ. Sometime afterwards the Massaliote Phocaeans turned up at Tartessos. King Arganthonios’ friendship with the Hellenes must have greatly annoyed Carthage that felt its monopoly was at stake. It was urgent to take action against the “intruders”, in order to establish itself as the greatest economic and military power in the West of the Mediterranean.

The Punic Empire was inconceivable without Iberia.
The Battle of Alalia: a Grecian “Cadmean victory”…

Trireme, a mosaic from Carthage

This “action” took place in the Tyrrhenian Sea c. 537 BCΕ: it was the historic naval Battle of Alalia. When the metropolis Phocaea fell to Persia, most citizens chose to move to Alalia (or Aléria in Roman times), their colony in Corsica. But this led to a decline of Punic and Etruscan trade in the island and to an alliance between Carthage and Etruria. Their joint fleet of 120 ships, disguised as a pirate force, was defeated by just 60 Phocaean ships carrying people to Alalia. It would have been a great tactical victory of the Greeks, who wiped out an enemy force twice as large; but they lost almost two-thirds of their own fleet. Herodotus said it was a Cadmean victory – what would later be described as a Pyrrhic victory.⁽⁵⁾

• ⁽⁵⁾ Cadmean is a victory involving one’s own ruin; from Cadmus, legendary founder of Thebes, who required water from a spring guarded by a water-dragon and all his companions perished. Herodotus could not know the subsequent similar phrase, Pyrrhic victory, achieved at such a devastating cost that it is a prelude to defeat. It is named after Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, whose army suffered irreplaceable casualties in defeating the Romans twice in 280-279 BCΕ during the Pyrrhic War. The Romans suffered even greater casualties but had a much larger supply of men. Pyrrhus is reported as saying: “Another such victory and I come back to Epirus alone”…

King Pyrrhus of Epirus

Realizing that they could not withstand another attack, the Hellenes evacuated Corsica, and sought refuge in Rhegion. According to a legend, Greek prisoners were stoned to death by the Etruscans, while the (more practical) Punics sold them into slavery. Etruria got hold of Corsica, and Carthage kept Sardinia. The Punics would fight two more major naval battles with Massalia, losing both, but still managing to safeguard Iberia and close the Pillars of Heracles, the Strait of Gibraltar, to Hellenic shipping, thus containing Grecian expansion in Iberia until 480 BCΕ. The Massaliotes made no gains and just kept control of their Iberian colonies. It seemed as if the Iberian status quo remained in place; but in fact, a great tragedy was unfolding in Andalusia with the collapse and demise of the Tartessian polity and civilization.

Tartessos… delenda est!

SOME AUTHORS CONSIDER that this Phocaean victory/defeat in Alalia and the absence of Greek traders in Tartessos led to the collapse… Here we go again! During all those centuries of development, these authors saw only Phoenicians trading there. But, all of a sudden, the Hellenic presence became so vital for the Tartessians’ survival that they died out when the Punics cut their “oxygen” off! Other scholars offer the alternative of an “armed conflict”, but in general terms, and avoid being precise as to who was fighting whom. There are also versions of the Tartessian tragedy that specify both the perpetrators and time: “The Punics brought about the collapse by 530 BC”. Carthage should have put Tartessos in “quarantine”, sometime after the death of Arganthonios c. 550 BCΕ. This was the reason why ten years later, with the Punics and Etruscans allied against the Hellenes, the Tartessians did not remain “prudently neutral”; so, they stood by the Greeks and paid dearly. The situation did not allow “luxuries” such as neutralities…

The island of Gadir > Gades > Cádiz

Emboldened by the outcome of the Battle of Alalia, the Punics unleashed such a “reign of terror” that even their kindred in Gadir turned against them. The Punics besieged promptly the fraternal Canaanite colony and captured it. The Gaditans suffered so much and for so long that in 206 BCΕ, during the second Punic War, they rebelled against Carthage; and when Gadir fell to the Romans, they hailed the victors. Certainly, the new overlords were no better: just one year later, the Roman presence was shaken by a mutiny and an Iberian uprising against them. There was at least one aspect where the Canaanites proved to be superior to the Punics: just after the fall of Gadir, the Persian king Cambyses became master of Egypt in 525 BCΕ. Carthage was then spared a trial of arms against the Persian Empire, since the Canaanites refused to lend ships to the Persians for an African expedition against their own brothers. It seems that at least for the Canaanites, unlike the Punics, blood ties were still important. But even without losing a war, the Punic Empire may have paid tribute irregularly to the Great King of Kings.

The Punics were spared a trial of arms against the Persians, because the
Canaanites did not lend ships for a Persian expedition against Carthage.

Bronce Carriazo: a Tartessian bronze plaque found near Seville representing a local goddess of the marshes and assimilated to Astarte and Hathor

Carthage proceeded to destroy Tartessos and drive Greeks away from southern Iberia, defending its trade monopoly in the western Mediterranean, with attacks even on the merchant ships of its rivals. Historical reports indicate that Tartessos had little military defense, as its success was always based on trade and friendly relations with its neighbours. This is hard to believe, however, for the kingdom was so wealthy that many Iberian tribes would covet it. There should have been defensive walls and/or deterrent land and sea forces, i.e. army and navy. As for the year of the catastrophe, in several historical texts we can find one that sets the date as 533 BCΕ, i.e. it is consistent with what was cited before (“by 530 BC”), and another one sometime later, around 500 BCΕ. We cannot be sure if the two dates refer to the same event, or if there was an “armed conflict” between Punics and Tartessians that lasted about thirty years. “It is reported”, we can read in one of those texts, “that around 500 BC, Tartessos was attacked by the Carthaginians, who destroyed the capital and left it without protection from the sea.” It makes sense if we remember those accounts that Tartessos had a sophisticated system to regulate the river flow of its tidal river, and also its supposed similarity to Atlantis.

“Tartessos was attacked by the Punics, who destroyed
the capital and left it without protection from the sea.”

Auletris (woman playing aulos), Iberian high-relief from Osuna (Seville province, end of 3rd or beginning of 2nd century BCE)

The abrupt disappearance, and the fact that its capital has never been found, led to a lot of speculation: how could such an important civilization disappear with no traces left behind? If the capital eludes us, there are Tartessian cities that can “speak” the truth. Balsa–Tavira in the Algarve was violently destroyed in the end of the 6th century, probably together with the capital and other sites, when the Punics proceeded to impose their “iron will” (see Chronicle 21, footnote 11). Maenaca (Mainakē), the Hellenic colony founded close to Málaga under the aegis of Tartessos, is claimed it was also destroyed c. 500 BCE. We additionally know that many Canaanite colonies were deserted at the same time. We cannot be sure if this was connected with Phoenicia’s decline, or Carthage’s “ethnic cleansing” operations, or some local rebellions. Despite the numerous excavations, it has not been possible to locate with certainty either Maenaca, or Acra Leucá at Alicante, or the city of Tartessos. Whatever the result of all these continuous efforts, the ancient texts that mention these cities cannot be ignored; otherwise, the story of Tartessos and its demise should be treated as fiction, as well…

There is a tendency to present the Canaanites as “peaceful colonists”, while the Punics as “warlike colonialists”. However, we have seen the Phoenicians acting in a manner anything but peaceful whenever they could “manage” the adversary.⁽⁶⁾ In a text on the History of old Onuba (Huelva), except numerous open questions and hypotheses, we have some interesting data presented. Tartessos, it seems, began gradually sinking into crisis and decline in the 8th century BCΕ, at a time when there was a co-existence of Phoenician and Grecian colonies such as Gadir and Portus Menesthei, which was identified as a Phocaean site.⁽⁷⁾ The author was impressed by the closeness of the Greek site to the Tartessian capital and noted what the archaeologists in Huelva had observed, i.e. a decrease in Phoenician pottery, in parallel with an increase in Hellenic ceramics of far better quality.⁽⁸⁾

Hellenic helmet, Asta Regia (Jerez de la Frontera), close
to Portus Menesthei

• ⁽⁶⁾ We can’t say that this mentality has been a Phoenician peculiarity; it’s a human characteristic: virtually everyone acts likewise. The Hellenes e.g. very often acted as the “bullies” of antiquity (though this feature sometimes saved them, as it happened during the Persian Wars). Regarding the Canaanites, let’s go back to Chronicle 20. The Enigmatic Sea Peoples: one of them

“the Tjeker, moving to Canaan, captured the city-state of Dor and turned it into a large, well-fortified capital of their kingdom. Dor was violently destroyed in the mid-11th century BCΕ by the expanding Phoenicians, who were checked by the Philistines, and then by the Hebrews.”

And, of course, except these minor local powers that blocked Phoenician expansion, there were superpowers, such as the Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians. Conclusion: there was absolutely no room for Phoenician expansion in the Levant.

• ⁽⁷⁾ Amid all this speculation and conjecture, the author claims that the 8th century was “a time when Phoenician and Greek colonies, such as Gadir and Portus Menesthei, coexisted”. When did this coexistence actually occur? Was it in the 8th or in the 6th century? In Chronicle 22, both versions were presented:

Tartessian King Arganthonios

“The Hellenic cities on the Mediterranean coast of Iberia probably appeared on the ‘map’ after the foundation of Massalia, c. 600 BCΕ”. However, “the Hellenes of the Homeric era (at least their goods) arrived at Iberian ports… in the 9th or 8th century BCΕ. Those who transported the Greek ware… might very well have been the Phoenicians… What the Phoenician ships could not transport and, therefore, made the Greek presence absolutely necessary in Iberia, was Hellenic culture, art, ideas, models, architecture, burial habits, etc.”

• ⁽⁸⁾ The author seems to be obsessed with the Greeks, presenting them as a destabilizing factor, allegedly terrorizing the countryside and promoting their goods by force! He accepts, however, that these goods were better in quality! In such cases, the ones who resort to violence are the monopolists with less attractive products, so as to avoid free competition. Anyway, he admits that all his hypotheses are not based on archaeological finds.

The worsening of the situation in the next century is manifested by the almost total disappearance of open settlements, with the walling of cities. During the 6th century, we notice the outbreak of another crisis evidenced by the decrease of mineral exports. Its tragic climax is attested with the destruction of Tartessos by the Punics, because it was an ally of the Greeks. The conquerors, nota bene, had no intention to eliminate just the resistance of the conquered, indicating how merciless this confrontation had been, equivalent to what we now describe as “genocide”. The descendant culture of the Turdetani in southern Andalusia marks a return to the socio-economic features of the late Atlantic Bronze Age within the Iron Age conditions of the 5th century BCΕ, which is translated as a regression of at least two or three centuries.

The Battle of Salamis, by Wilhelm von Kaulbach (1868)

The Phoenicians’ double crushing defeat in Sicily and Salamis

AFTER IMPOSING “PAX PUNICA” in southern Iberia, Carthage turned its attention to another land of strategic importance mostly controlled by the Hellenes: Sicily. The Punics planned the largest overseas expedition thus far: after three years of preparations, they sailed for Sicily. It was the first Sicilian War,⁽⁹⁾ which coincided with Xerxes’ expedition against Greece in 480 BCΕ, prompting speculation about a possible alliance between Carthage and Persia. But even with no official pact, Carthage should have timed its expedition with that of the Achaemenids to exclude the possibility of any aid sent from Hellas to Sicily. The outcome of both expeditions was disastrous for the invaders. For the Phoenicians it was a double defeat: not only of the Punics in Sicily, but also of the Canaanites fighting in the naval Battle of Salamis under Persian orders. The repercussions brought sweeping changes in Carthage: an oligarchic Republic was then established, and also an isolationist policy was followed for the next 70 years when Carthage took no action against the Hellenes, nor even aided any of their rivals. Economically, sea trade with the Orient was cut off by the Greeks in Hellas, while the cities of Magna Graecia boycotted Punic merchants. This led to the development of trade with the West and caravan-borne trade with the East. Focus was shifted on the exploration and expansion in Africa and Europe. This isolationism explains why the two great maritime empires in the 5th century BCΕ, Carthage and Athens, were not engaged in war. Athens began massive exports of pottery in this period to Iberia, especially in the southeast. But again, as in the previous Canaanite era of Iberia, the archaeologists do not know yet if the ships that transported the ware were Punic or Athenian.

The ancient theatre of Tauromenium (Taormina) in Sicily

• ⁽⁹⁾ Essentially, the seven Sicilian Wars or, more properly, the Greek-Punic Wars, were a lamentable continuation of the relentless “tradition” of civil war among the Hellenes, with Carthage being always involved, changing sides, and finally winning, as a rule, the lion’s share. These wars, the longest lasting conflicts of classical antiquity (600–265 BCΕ), would culminate in the Punic Wars (264–146 BCE) against the Romans, and end with Carthage being razed to the ground.

While Carthage was engaged in another Sicilian War, the rise of Macedon under Philip II and Alexander the Great saw the defeat of the city-states in Greece and the fall of the Achaemenid Empire. All the Phoenician cities in Canaan submitted except Tyre that was besieged and sacked in 332 BCΕ. The thriving Greeks in the Hellenistic period gradually ousted the last remnants of the formerly dominant Phoenicians over trade routes in the eastern Mediterranean, while their culture disappeared entirely in Canaan. So, the Punics were the last of the Phoenicians. And they were spared another perilous ordeal when Alexander died in Babylon, in 323 BCΕ, while raising a fleet in Cilicia to invade Carthage, Italy, and Iberia…

The Punics were spared another ordeal when Alexander died,
while raising a fleet to invade Carthage, Italy, and Iberia…

Alexander with Heracles’ lion sculp,
cast stone plaque (1st-4th century CE)

Battles of the Diadochi with the three-way struggle among Antigonid Macedon, Ptolemaic Egypt and Seleucid Syria were also good news for Carthage avoiding unnecessary conflicts with the successors. Trade relations were reinstated with Egypt, together with sea-borne access to the eastern markets for the first time since 480 BCΕ. It seemed as if Carthage had also inherited the Phoenicians’ good fortune, since two superpowers, the Persian and Macedonian, could not realize their plans to campaign against its domain. But the confrontation with Rome would prove inevitable. The Punic Wars were a series of three conflicts lasting from 264 to 146 BCΕ. The first one was fought for the control of Sicily. Carthage, finally, evacuated it and paid heavy war indemnities. The end of the war found Rome with a large navy able to prevent sea-borne invasion of Italy, control sea trade routes, and invade foreign shores. Sardinia and Corsica were also seized, while Carthage had plunged into another war with its mercenaries. At last, the most powerful state that emerged in the western Mediterranean was Rome.

Hannibal in Italy: his feat in crossing the Alps with elephants, though many did not survive,
passed into European legend: detail of a fresco by Jacopo Ripanda (ca 1510)

Carthage spent the years after the war improving its finances and expanding its empire in Hispania (Iberia), preparing for the next war that is most remembered for Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps with elephants. He resoundingly defeated the Romans in several battles, but was unable to cause a break between Rome and its allies. Equally important, despite his many pleas, he never received sufficient reinforcements, because Carthage opted to send extra forces only to its source of wealth, Iberia. Thus Hannibal was not able to achieve his goal of ultimately conquering Rome and winning the war. This gave the Romans self-confidence, while they were fighting simultaneously in Italy, Sicily, Iberia, and also against Carthage’s ally, Macedonia. Finally, the war was taken to Africa, where Carthage was defeated and its control reduced to only the city itself.

“Ceterum censeo, Carthago delenda est!” (Cato)

Punic tetradrachm with Elissa-Dido and a lion

The resurgence of hostilities fifty years later, when Carthage recovered its wealth and power, was linked with anti-Roman agitations in Iberia and Hellas. Cato the Elder gave the “motto” for the annihilation of Carthage, ending all his speeches, no matter what the topic, saying: “Carthago delenda est!”, “Carthage must be destroyed!”.⁽¹⁰⁾

• ⁽¹⁰⁾ Cato (234–149 BCE) was a reactionary statesman, the first to write a Roman history in Latin, and prominent for his anti-Greek views, since he saw Hellenism as a threat to Roman culture.

Rome presented a series of unacceptable demands, claiming that Carthage must be demolished and rebuilt away from the coast, deep into Africa. In 146 BCΕ, after a three-year siege, it was systematically sacked and burned to the ground, with the fields salted to make the ground completely infertile and useless for future generations.⁽¹¹⁾ No Punic war records exist, since the books of the Library of Carthage were distributed among African tribes and none remain on Punic history.

In the end, Elissa-Dido was deprived of her immortal fame – by Aeneas…

• ⁽¹¹⁾Ares Alexandrou, Ascent (conclusion):

(…) remain there and look on to the end
look at them, those with keys and others with handcuffs
who’ll be demolishing
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . as allies
roofs bridges wells
look at them
while they’ll be leveling down the town you’ve built
and sowing it with salt.

Elissa-Dido was finally deprived of her immortal fame – by Aeneas…

• >> Chronicle 26. IBERIAN CROSS-CHECK
• << Chronicle 24. THE TRIUMPH OF CRETINISM

Next Chronicle 26. IBERIAN CROSS(-CHECK) ● Naucratis ● Adolf Schulten and Dan Stanislawski ● The Trojan War Odysseys ● Metal Attraction ● Cassiterides ● Balearics ● Arganthonios ● Graeco-Tartessian Friendship Against Phoenicians and Punics

Chronicle 21. IBERIAN “EL DORADO”

Chronicle 21. IBERIAN “EL DORADO”

/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ Χρονικό 21. ΙΒΗΡΙΚΟ “EL DORADO”

● Minoans, Mycenaeans, Phoenicians
in Iberia ● Fortunate Isles, Hesperides
● Sardinia ● Odysseus, Calypso,
Ophiussa ● Tartessos

Michales Loukovikas

“ONE FREQUENTLY MEETS CLAIMS that there was contact between the far western coasts of present Spain and Portugal, and Crete of Minoan times”, comments Dan Stanislawski in his Study in Historical-Political Geography: The Individuality of Portugal, and specifically in Chapter 7 about Contacts Βetween the Ancient Civilizations of the Eastern Mediterranean and Iberia.

“It is not only a seductive idea but it makes a reasonable hypothesis, for the Minoans were good navigators, traders, and seekers of metals. Had they known anything of the Iberian Peninsula they might well have been attracted; however, while it is quite possible that the Mediterranean island route to the west was used by them (Rhys Carpenter, The Greeks in Spain), as yet there is no convincing evidence that it was. The excavations of Almerían culture at Los Millares, which may be dated as of 2000–1800 BC, presented certain items reminiscent of Aegean cultures, but there is no evidence that would clearly demonstrate connection. Such items may represent nothing more than casual parallelism. Other finds of a somewhat later period in Spain make better evidence of contact with the eastern Mediterranean lands, for they can be neatly equated with materials of the Egyptian Tell-el-Amarna of 1400–1200 BC. The Egyptian trade items of this period of time are well known to Spanish archaeology and almost surely may be associated with Phoenician intermediaries. As of the present date, such items may be taken as the earliest evidence of direct contact between Iberia and the eastern Mediterranean navigators.”

Where did the Bronze Age Mediterranean find tin to produce bronze?
Who transported this rare and precious metal to the Mediterranean?

A model of Los Millares with its walls

Voilà! Here is a “neat” example of the established historians’ “classic” mentality: reserved if they write or talk about Minoans, even Hellenes, but garrulous when they lecture about Phoenicians. Indeed, why was it so difficult for the peoples of the Aegean to reach Iberia? They were certainly not inferior to the Phoenicians in seamanship and, furthermore, the Aegean was far closer to Iberia in comparison to Phoenicia. Besides, who controlled then (“1400–1200 BC”) the Mediterranean trade? The Phoenicians, or the Mycenaeans – whom Stanislawski “fails to bring in mind”?(!) Why should the Egyptian trade items of this period found in Spain “almost surely may be associated with Phoenician intermediaries”? The crucial question, however, this mentality does not answer is: Where did the Bronze Age Mediterranean obtain tin to produce bronze? Who were established then as sea traders to transport this profitable metal to the Mediterranean? Most obviously, the Mycenaeans. That is why the evidence about the Aegean peoples’ presence in Iberia is anything but “convincing”… Regarding the “opposite point of view”, there are detailed descriptions of Minoans extracting metals from the area of the Lake Superior and carrying them through the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico destined for the Mediterranean! Although we cannot exclude this, we do not intend to take you that far. It is better to remain on Iberian soil…

Los Millares, by Marianne Weil, cast bronze (2008)

Some “non-established” historians link the distinctive culture of Los Millares in Almería with The Early Minoan Colonization of Spain (W. Sheppard Baird). Far more interesting is the following El Argar culture, which flourished in Almería, as well, in today’s eastern Andalusia, between 1800 and 1300 BCE. This Argaric culture was characterized by the early adoption of bronze, which allowed local dominance over “copper age” (chalcolithic) neighbours. That people’s mining and metallurgy were quite advanced, with silver, gold, and bronze being mined or worked for weapons and jewelry. They developed sophisticated techniques, and traded with other tribes.

Argaric gold sword

The ancient collective burial tradition, typical of European Megalithic Culture, was abandoned in favour of individual burials; the tholos or “beehive” tombs in favour of small cists. This innovative trend seems to have come from the eastern Mediterranean, most likely the Mycenaeans – skipping Sicily and Italy, where the collective burial tradition remained for some time yet. In the next phase of this culture, beginning c. 1500 BCE, burial in pithoi (large jars) became most frequent. Again this custom – that never reached beyond the Argarians’ circle – must have come from Hellas, where it was used after c. 2000 BCE. During the Mycenaean era, cultural exchanges are very clear in the Mediterranean, with the Argarians adopting Grecian funerary customs, while the Hellenes also imported the Iberian tholos for the same purpose.

Note that whoever arrived at Iberia could easily find the way to the tin ores of Brittany and Cornwall, through the Western Iberian Bronze cultures that had some degree of interaction, not just among them, but also with other Atlantic cultures in Britain, France, etc. It is the so-called Atlantic Bronze Age complex of c. 1300–700 BCE that consisted of different civilizations in Andalusia, Portugal, Galicia, Armorica (the part of Gaul that included Brittany), and the British Isles. The Atlantic Bronze Age was marked by economic and cultural exchange, which led to a high degree of cultural affinity manifested in the coastal communities from Galicia to Scotland, while commercial contacts extended from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean.

Heracles fighting Geryon, ca 540 BCE

Next notable culture was that of Tartessos, a harbour city and the surrounding region in southern Iberia (in Andalusia). It was the first organized polity of the peninsula, developed culturally and politically by the end of the 2nd millennium BCE. The area is mentioned in the Greek mythology of this era as a reminder of the Mycenaean campaigns and presence in Iberia. Heracles went to perform two labours there: to kill Geryon and obtain his cattle; and to steal the golden apples of the Hesperides. Geryon dwelt in the “Far West” of antiquity, on an island of the Hesperides, Erytheia (Erytheis); that was the name of one of the Hesperides, and also the fearsome giant’s daughter. The Occident, and more precisely Iberia, was called Hesperia. “Geryon was killed by the great strength of Heracles at sea-circled Erytheis”, sang Hesiod in his Theogony. Heracles set up two massive stone spires to stabilize all this area and ensure the safety of ships sailing through the Gibraltar Strait, called the Pillars of Heracles. He also founded colonies; among others, Gádeira, on Geryon’s island, where the Phoenicians would later establish their headquarters: Gadir (now Cádiz). A tumulus nearby Gádeira was associated with Geryon’s final resting-place; and there are legends about Heracles as being buried in Spain, as well.

Geryon is also mentioned among the mythical kings of Tartessos. His grandson, Norax (Norace), conquered the south of Sardinia, founding the city of Nora, and becoming a hero of the Nuragic mythology. He dictated the first laws, divided the society into “seven classes” and forced the aristocrats to work. Later Gárgoris introduced commerce, beekeeping, and new agricultural tools such as the plow. The agricultural innovations are also credited to his (grand)son, Habis (Habido, Abido, Abidas, Abidis, Gabis, or Gabid, as he is mentioned in various variations of the legend), who succeeded him on the throne. Later generations of Hellenes linked the area to Tartessos. They thought the Garden of the Hesperides and the Fortunate Isles, i.e. Isles of the Blessed, or Elysium, could be found somewhere outside the Pillars of Heracles.

Heracles, Hesperides, Fortunate Isles, Sardinia

Medusa Bronze Plaque

● Heracles was great-grandson of Perseus, the legendary founder of Mycenae, who killed the Gorgon Medusa. To achieve that, he had to find the Hesperides who would give him the necessary weapons. Finally, cutting off her head, from her neck sprang Pegasus and Chrysaor (gold + sword), the result of her meeting with Poseidon. Later Chrysaor became king of Iberia. Geryon, his son and heir, dwelt on the Hesperides island of Erytheia, the “red island” of the Vesper, so called because it lay under the sunrays in the sunset. It was identified with Gadir, there were also alternatives, such as one of the Balearics, or even the Delta in the estuary of the Tartessos river (Guadalquivir; see Chronicle 26, Tartessos and the Phoenicians). Heracles, on his way to this area, according to Herodotus, crossed the desert of “Libya” (Maghreb) and became so frustrated at the heat that he shot an arrow at Helios, i.e. the Sun. The god, “in admiration of his courage”, gave Heracles the golden cup (boat) he used to sail across the sea from West to East each night. Heracles reaching Erytheia on it was a favourite motif of the vase-painters. Diodorus Siculus, on the contrary, claimed that Heracles raised a large fleet in Crete to sail against Chrysaor, the wealthy king of Iberia, and his three sons. Stesichorus, in the 6th century BCE, composed a Song of Geryon (Γηρυονηΐς), where he made the first reference to Tartessos, with the Hesperides nearby. Later Strabo reported the same location in his Geographica.

Heracles with nymphs, a satyr, and Pan in the Garden of the Hesperides, by Hesperides Painter, hydria (water jar),
ca early 4th century BCE

Heracles’ way back home with the cattle was eventful. He crossed the Pyrenees that he himself had created when his beloved Pyrene bore a serpent and was so terrified that she fled to the woods where she died. Heracles created a tomb for her by piling up rocks, thus forming the mountain range. Arriving at Gaul, in the Monaco area, he turned away the previous gods. As a result, the temple of Heracles Mónoecos (single + house) was constructed on a promontory – called thus as it was the sole temple in what is now the Côte d’Azur. The Phocaeans built the colony Mónoecos there in the 6th century BCE. The only deep-water port in Monaco is dedicated to the great hero: Port Hercule. Heracles also founded the cities Alesia and Nemausus and became the father of the Celts. Reaching Liguria, two giants, Al(e)bion and Bergion, Poseidon’s sons, attempted to carry off his oxen, but the hero killed them. In this fight, he was assisted by Zeus with a shower of stones. The Italian route was rather uneventful as far as the tip of the peninsula, near Rhegium, where an ox jumped into the sea and swam to Sicily. Eryx, another son of Poseidon, king of the homonymous city and also excellent boxer, appropriated it. Heracles fought with him and killed him in order to take the animal back. The only problem afterwards was when Hera made the cattle mad in Thrace. Heracles was obliged to go as far as the Hellespont to recover the oxen, and take them to king Eurystheus, who sacrificed them to Zeus’ sister-wife.

● The Hesperides (Ἑσπερίδες) in Hellenic mythology were nymphs, aficionadas of singing, who tended a blissful garden in a far western corner of the world, near the Atlas Mountains in northwestern Africa, at the edge of the Oceanus encircling the Oecumene. They were three daughters of Hesperus, the Evening Star of the planet Venus or Vesper (just like other Greek triads, such as the Graces and Moerae, Fates): Aegle (“dazzling light”), Arethusa (“waterer”), Erytheia (“red one”). The Garden of the Hesperides was Hera’s orchard in the Occident, where either a single tree or a grove of immortality-giving “golden apples” grew. In later years, it was thought that they might have actually been oranges, a fruit unknown to Europe and the Mediterranean before the Middle Ages. Under this assumption, the Hellenic botanical name for all citrus species is ἑσπεριδοειδῆ (“hesperidoids”) – implying that they have come from the Occident, while in reality their origin is in the Orient (Southeast Asia).⁽¹⁾

A traditional Rabelo boat in the Douro used for centuries
to transport people and goods, mainly wine

• ⁽¹⁾ In some languages, the orange is named after Portugal, the former main source of imports: Greek portokali (πορτοκάλι), Bulgarian and Slav-Macedonian portokal, Romanian portocală, Georgian phortokhali, South Italian dialectic portogallo or purtualle. Related names are found in non-European languages, as well: Turkish portakal, Arabic al-burtuqal, Persian porteghal, and Amharic (the Ethiopian language) birtukan.

Portugal’s name derives from the Roman Portus Cale that evolved into Portugale during the 7th and 8th centuries. Cale was an early settlement located at the mouth of the Douro River, in the north of what is now Portugal. The etymology of the name Cale is mysterious, as is the identity of the town’s founders. Some historians have argued that Hellenes were the first to settle Cale and the name derives from the Hellenic word callos (κάλλος, beauty), referring to the beauty of the Douro valley. However, the mainstream explanation is that it is an ethnonym derived from the Callaeci, or Gallaeci, who lived there. The same applies to the names Galicia and Gaia, the twin city of Porto, at the Douro mouth. (On Greek colonies there, see Chronicle 26, Odysseys in the Aftermath of the Trojan War: Colonization of Iberia).

Macaronesia: the Azores, Madeira,
the Canaries and Cape Verde

● In the Fortunate Isles, or Isles of the Blessed, heroes and other favoured mortals in the Greek and Celtic mythologies were received into a winterless blissful paradise. These islands were thought to lie in the “Western Ocean”, near the “Oceanus River” encircling the earth. Strabo located them opposite “Maurusia” (Mauritania, Western Sahara and Morocco), beyond the end of the world, where neither snow nor heavy rains ever fell, with the beneficially invigorating cool breath of Zephyrus constantly blowing. Plutarch, referring to these isles several times in his writings, located them firmly in the Atlantic a few days’ sail from Iberia:

“The islands are said to be two in number separated by a very narrow strait and lie [2,000 kilometers] from Africa… A firm belief has made its way even to the barbarians that here are the Elysian Fields and the abode of the Blessed of which Homer sang.”

Geography now names these islands as Macaronesia (from the Greek name Makárōn nēsoe (Μακάρων νῆσοι, Isles of the Blessed): the Azores and Madeira (Portugal), the Canaries (Spain) and Cape Verde.

Metallic model of a Nuragic ship

● Close relations between Iberia and Sardinia implied by mythology are confirmed by archaeological, architectural, linguistic, cultural and historical finds. The Sardinians had also contacts with the Mycenaeans, who traded in the western Mediterranean, and the Cretans, e.g. with Cydonia, modern Chaniá, as shown from pottery recovered in excavations in Sardinia. But influences may have been even wider. The stepped pyramid of Monte d’Accoddi, near Sassari, is somehow similar to the monumental complex of Los Millares in Andalusia and some later edifices in the Balearics. Certain scholars see similarities even with Mesopotamian structures and attribute them to migrations, particularly of Sumerians, to the Occident. Ancient Greek historians and geographers described the mysterious megalithic nuraghe as daedaleia, implying there was a connection with Daedalus who, after working in Crete, where he built the Labyrinth, settled in Sicily and then in Sardinia.

During the Chalcolithic period, in the dawn of the Nuragic civilization of the 18th century BCE, copper was used to make weapons and other items. Soon the island, rich in mines, notably copper and lead, saw the construction of numerous furnaces for the production of alloys traded across the Mediterranean, possibly by Minoans, later on by Mycenaeans, and perhaps even Sardinians. The Nuragic culture acquired skilled metal workers who were among the main metal producers in Europe. Passing to the Bronze Age, they used this new alloy to make a wide variety of products, such as weapons, tools, even votive offerings, e.g. bronze vessels that indicate their close relationship with the sea. Sardinia was not on the vital map of tin sources and trade in ancient times (Cornwall-Devon, Brittany, Iberia, Bohemia–Saxony). But because of its other mineral wealth, it served as a centre for metals trade at that time and likely actively imported tin from Iberia for export to the rest of the Mediterranean. Traders from the Aegean, therefore, and other areas where tin was scarce, went there very often. This fact explains cultural influences on the Nuragic civilization from Mycenae, Crete and Cyprus, as well as the presence of late Bronze Age Mycenaean, Cretan and Cypriot ceramics, and locally made replicas, in half a dozen findspots that seem to have functioned as “gateway” communities.

Sardinian and Corsican tribes

The late Bronze Age (15th–13th centuries BCE; see also previous Chronicles) saw vast population migrations, e.g. those of the Sea Peoples, who destroyed the Mycenaean and Hittite worlds and also attacked Egypt. Some scholars connect the Sherden, one of the Sea People tribes, with the Nuragic Sardinians, who might have settled on the island before or after the failed invasion of Egypt. These theories are controversial to most archaeologists and historians. But Simonides of Ceos, in a lost work reported by Zenobius, spoke of Sardinian attacks against Crete during the Sea Peoples’ raids in Egypt. This would at least confirm that Nuragic Sardinians frequented the eastern Mediterranean at the time. Further proof comes from 13th century Nuragic ceramics found at Tiryns and at the Sicilian Agrigento (Acragas) area, along the sea route that linked the Occidental to the Oriental part of mare nostrum.

The second largest island in the Mediterranean after Sicily was called Ichnussa by the Hellenes. It was most probably named Sardinia after a legendary hero of the Nuragic pantheon, Sardus, who colonized the island from Libya. His father was Makeris, who might be connected with the Phoenician Melqart, also identifiable with the Libyan Heracles. So, Sardus is also associated with the Heracleidae that settled there led by Iolaus, a nephew of Heracles, according to Diodorus Siculus. Iolaus may have given rise to the tribe of Iolei, Iolaensi, or Iliensi,⁽²⁾ who were repeatedly checked by Punics and Romans, but they were never subdued. He also founded many cities from the Black Sea area to Sicily and Sardinia, requesting the assistance of Daedalus. Some of the latter’s edifices were still standing in Diodorus’ time (1st century BCE). Finally, the Phoenicians appeared in this area for the very first time around 1000 BCE, and began visiting Sardinia with increasing frequency. Later, from the 8th century onwards, they started founding (or appropriating) strongholds and cities primarily on the strategic southwestern coast of the island. Common ports of call, where they dropped anchor, were Caralis, Nora, Bithia, Sulcis, Tharros, and Olbia (mostly Hellenic toponyms).⁽³⁾

• ⁽²⁾ Sardinian and Corsican tribes: the Corsi (perhaps from Liguria) moved to Corsica from North Sardinia; the Balearic Balares (from Iberia or South France, perhaps related with the Basques), settled in the north-central of Sardinia; the Iolei (from North Africa, East Mediterranean, or West Sicily) settled in the central-south area. The Gallurese, Logudorese and Campidanese dialects may correspond to these tribes.

Launeddas

• ⁽³⁾ Sardinia and neighbouring Corsica constitute a special case in terms of music, too, cultivating one of the oldest forms of vocal polyphony, as ancient as the polyphony of Epirus and Albania. Unesco classed this kind of song, called cantu a tenore, as intangible world heritage in 2005. A similar style, cantu a cuncordu, corresponds to the Corsican paghjella and is liturgic in nature.

The polyphonic tradition extends to the musical instruments. A typical polyphonic woodwind instrument made of three pipes is the launeddas (also called “triple clarinet” or “triplepipe”). The pipes are played with circular breathing and the sound may be continuous. One of the pipes functions as a drone and the other two play the melody in thirds and sixths. Predecessors of the launeddas can be traced back to approximately 2700 BCE in Egypt, where reed pipes, depicted on tomb reliefs and pyramids, were called memet. The launeddas date back to at least the 8th century BCE and are still played in religious ceremonies and dances (su ballu). The musicians use extensive variations on a few melodic phrases, and a single tune can last over an hour, creating some of the “most elemental and resonant sounds in European music”, as Alessio Surian said.

Legendary Odyssean Lisbon

Cynetic writing with a human figure (8th century BCE)

GÁRGORIS IS MENTIONED AS A LEGENDARY KING of one of the peoples of Tartessos, who lived in today’s Algarve and Low Alentejo of southern Portugal. They were called Cynetes, Cynesioi, or Conii, the westernmost dwellers of Europe, according to Herodotus, who distinguished them from the Celts. Gárgoris, as the legend goes, had incestuous relations with his daughter, whose name has not survived. The… “fateful act” happened one day when a bee strung her; Gárgoris, wishing to heal the wound, massaged her with his mouth, and thus they were overwhelmed by passion (it’s unclear exactly where the bite was)! After she had got pregnant, he ordered that she should be locked up and the child be killed. The boy was abandoned on a hill very close to a lair of wild beasts, which instead breast-fed and protected him. When Gárgoris learned that his (grand)son was still alive, he ordered that he should be taken away from the cave and put to death in another way: in a stampede of cows, devoured by dogs or hungry pigs, or thrown to the sea. Protected by Fortune, Habis managed to survive against all adversities: the animals nursed him, or a sea wave carried him ashore. Raised by a hind (Habis in the Cynete language means fawn), and grown up like a savage, he became a skilful bandit, but was captured by peasants who led him to the king. The boy’s birthmarks made Gárgoris realize that he was his (grand)son. Impressed by his miraculous survival of all ordeals, he named him heir to the throne. Recorded by the Gallo-Roman historian Pompeius Trogus (1st century BCE), the legend was narrated in verse by Jerónimo de Arbolanche in his poem Abidas (1566).

Perseus and Andromeda (1870), by Gustave Moreau

According to Justin, a Latin historian who wrote the Epitome of Pompeius Trogus Philippic Histories, Habis, as a king, made revolutionary social reforms, “dividing the citizens among seven cities”, and forbidding slavery because of debt, which was a common phenomenon in ancient times. Justin also commented on some parallels of the legend with similar stories on other progenitors, such as Perseus, Moses, Romulus and Remus, expressing the view that Habis was superior to the founders of Rome, who were just obliged to milk a she-wolf, without passing all those adversities to demonstrate a similar or superior ability to survive.⁽⁴⁾ With so charismatic a king, the area between the Guadalquivir and the Sado estuary, in Setúbal, was spectacularly transformed, for Habis introduced agriculture, with cereals and cattle farming, thus improving the nutrition of his subjects. The land was ruled by his descendants for centuries. His legislative work was also great, with the laws in rhyme he introduced, which, in the years of Tartessian acme, numbered “six thousand verses”, according to Strabo. This tradition of laws in verse seems to have begun in archaic times, when writing was not widespread, so that people could memorize and observe the laws.⁽⁵⁾ Such laws were obviously written in the Southwest, or Tartessian script,⁽⁶⁾ the oldest of the Paleohispanic scripts (7th – 5th century BCE). It extended between the Guadalquivir and Sado estuaries, even in the interior of Iberia, reaching Alicante and Murcia in the East, where a Graeco-Iberian alphabet was used. There is no agreement about how these scripts originated; some researchers claim their origin is linked only to the Phoenician abjad, while others believe that the Greek alphabet contributed, too. It seems that no one gives priority to the Hellenic script. Alas! All these “Philo-Phoenicians” were unable to find any “Phoenico-Iberian” script!

Odysseus and Calypso, by Max Beckmann

• ⁽⁴⁾ I have commented on the parallels with “baby Moses” (see Chronicle 5, footnote 5): Habis’ stamina was supreme! As regards Perseus, when he was a baby, his grandfather, Acrisius, cast his mother, Danaë, and him into the sea, in a wooden chest, fearful of an oracle that his grandson would kill him. During his trials when he grew up (he beheaded Medusa and saved the Aethiopian princess Andromeda from Cetus), he could not be victorious if he was not the son of Zeus – hence, he was the foremost of all!

• ⁽⁵⁾ More about the ancient Greek musical nomoi, i.e. the age-old tradition of laws in verse meant to be sung in order to be memorized and observed, see Chronicle 11, footnote 1, and Chronicle 16, footnote 10.

• ⁽⁶⁾ Or South Lusitanian, or Bastulo–Turdetanian, or escrita conia (script of the Conii or Cynetes).

There are also other versions of this legend. Gárgoris is identified with Cronus eating his children, while Habis-Abidas is presented as persecuted because he introduced agriculture in pastoral Tartessos. Another version, which found quite unexpectedly its way into a book about fado, is a later adaptation to make the story morally acceptable by covering up the incest factor. Thus it combines the legend with the myth of Lisbon foundation, and the Odyssey, embellishing the story with our cherished Homeric heroes. In this version, as related by Augusto Mascarenhas Barreto in his numerous mythological and historical digressions in the book Fado – Lyrical Origins and Poetic Motivation, Gárgoris is renamed as Gregoris, the Iberian king, while his daughter is none other than Calypso; in this way, her son’s father is, of course, Odysseus, and Ogygia is no longer an island but a location at the estuary of Tagus, the future Lisbon. According to Barreto, the Ithacan king walled the settlement and named it Ulissea (Odyssey) – whence the word Olisipo(na) – while the son he had from Calypso, named Abidis, after passing the aforementioned ordeals, founded Scalabis (Santarém), and some other cities (e.g. Astorga, Astigi; see also Chronicle 5. Iberia’s Odyssey).

Map of the Lisbon area: Olisipo, Sintra, Scalabis, and Salacia, present-day Alcácer do Sal

There are many versions of the Lisbon foundation myth, as well. In one of them, a thunderbolt lit the skies and exploded into flame in an unknown land. Then Odysseus was instructed by Zeus (the great god of Thunder and Lightning) to build a city on the point of impact. This land, says another version, was ruled by charming Ophiussa, who had a huge snake tail instead of legs. The queen fell madly in love with Odysseus and, in order to keep him there, offered him the throne. Our cunning hero pretended to accept the proposal, fearing for his life; but all the while, he was secretly filling up his boat with supplies; and one night, while the queen was asleep, he and his crew fled into the darkness. Outraged the next morning, Ophiussa hit her tail so hard on the ground that she created the seven hills where Lisbon is built. This story introduces us to Ophiussa, the Land of Serpents, a name given by the ancient Greeks to Atlantic Iberia, what is now Portugal and Galicia, and specifically the area around the Tagus estuary.

A female Uraeus Serpent, one of the forms in which Isis is depicted (Ophiussa’s sister perhaps?)

● The land the Hellenes called Ophiussa was the Oestriminis (Extreme or Far West) for the Romans, something like Finis terrae (“end of the earth”, from a Mediterranean perspective). Rufus Avienus Festus, a Roman poet of the 4th century CE, in his Ora Maritima (Sea Coast), inspired by the Massaliote Periplus (6th century BCE), a Greek mariner’s log, wrote that the Oestrimni, a people who had been living in this area for a long time, had to flee after an invasion of serpents. In fact, these serpents were not snakes but people linked to the Saephes, or Ophis (People of the Serpents), and the Dragani (People of the Dragons), who came to colonize this land. The Saephes were neighbours of the Cynetes, living in an upland region near the Tagus estuary, close to an island Avienus called Poetanion; along with another tribe, the Cempsi, they had taken that territory by force from the Oestrimni. The newcomers were most probably proto-Celts or Celtiberians, while the Oestrimni were the Paleolithic inhabitants of Atlantic Iberia.

The Ophis, who worshiped serpents, lived mainly on inland mountains of northern Portugal and Galicia, or by the mouths of the rivers Douro, Cávado, Tagus and Sado. The Saephes lived in Cynetic land (in the Algarve and Low Alentejo, where Gárgoris reigned), together with the Cempsi. The latter, perhaps with strong Germanic and Ligurian influences, entered Iberia c. 650 BCE and finally settled in the Tagus valley and in the peninsula of Setúbal, where Avienus located the lugum cempsicum, the current Cabo Espichel. Finally, the Dragani, who settled in the north-western Iberia (Cantabria, Asturias, Galicia, Beira), must have come from Liguria, a region of north-western Italy, with strong Celtic influences, that is, they were Celto-Ligurians. Their name shows that they may have introduced the dragons into Iberia, where the locals must have already had their own griffins in their cults.

Another supernatural being in the Portuguese and Galician mythical tales is Moura Encantada (Enchanted Moura). A legend relates that on the summer solstice a maiden-serpent, a chthonic goddess, revealed hidden treasures to people journeying through forests. This maiden lived, as they said, in the area of Porto. Festivities related to this goddess occurred during the solstice. She would change into a snake during the rest of the year, living under rocks, and shepherds would set aside some milk from their flocks as an offering to her.

Calypso and Odysseus, by William Russell Flint

Calypso, according to Greek mythology, was not a princess but a nymph on the island of Ogygia, daughter of Atlas, hence she was also called Atlantis (Homer), or an Oceanid, that is, a daughter of Oceanus (Hesiod). However, both versions are linked with either the Pillars of Heracles area or the Atlantic Ocean. Atlas, the Titan who held up the celestial sphere, was identified with the Atlas Mountains in northwest Africa. Scholars who have examined Homer’s work and geography, among them Strabo and Plutarch, have suggested that Ogygia and/or Scheria, the Phaeacians’ island, were located in the Atlantic,⁽⁷⁾ and some have identified either or both with Atlantis. Besides he makes clear that

“an Ogygian isle lies far out at sea, distant five days’ sail from Britain, going westwards”.⁽⁸⁾

Deucalion and Pyrrha, by Andrea del Minga, throwing stones behind to recreate mankind

• ⁽⁷⁾ On the geography of the Odyssey, see Chronicle 15. Sailing to Rio de Janeiro!, Appendix: An Atlantic Odyssey

• ⁽⁸⁾ Ogygia is linked to the Ogygian deluge and the mythical king of Attica and/or Boeotia, called Ogyges, in the sense that Ogygian means “primeval, primal, at earliest dawn”. This means that Calypso’s island was very ancient. So, when Aeschylus calls the Nile Ogygian, he doesn’t suggest that the island was in Egypt, as some thoughtlessly thought.

● The Hellenic mythology mentions three deluges: those of Ogyges, Deucalion, and Dardanus.

Plutarch additionally mentions “the great continent”, which was interpreted as a reference to either America, or an allusion to Plato’s Atlantis. Many traits of the Phaeacians, including their seamanship, are suggestive of either Minoan Crete or Atlantis. The description of their palace is that of a very advanced civilization. Above all, their ships were superb, quite different from the galleys of the Trojan War, and… steered by thought!⁽⁹⁾ Hence the view that it was Homer before Plato who first spoke of Atlantis.

• ⁽⁹⁾ Computerized ships: the best a “Periplus in the Archipelagos” can have! Of course, with this technology in mind among other things, the idea that Scheria-Phaeacia could be Corcyra-Corfu must be ruled out. It appears far more plausible that the Phaeacians were after all the Minoans with the palace of Knossos and their amazing ships!

Homer

● Homer described the ships as faster than falcons, while King Alcinous explained to Odysseus what sort of information the ships required in order to take him home:

“Tell me your country, nation, and city, so that our ships may shape their purpose accordingly and take you there. For the Phaeacians have no pilots; their vessels have no rudders as those of other nations have, but the ships themselves understand what it is that we are thinking about and want; they know all the cities and countries in the whole world, and can traverse the sea just as well even when it is covered with mist and cloud, so that there is no danger of being wrecked or coming to any harm.”

“Fairy tales”… As with the foundation of Lisbon, the refrain we can hear in chorus over and over again after all these stories is that they are myths; it’s not reality. Again and again, traditions about Hellenes are “legends”, those concerning the Phoenicians “history”… Possibly true, there were no Grecian settlements west of the Pillars of Heracles; only voyages of discovery. Olisipo’s foundation myth by Odysseus is nothing but a myth. On the other hand, there is not the slightest evidence to support the “history” of a Phoenician foundation of Lisbon “around 600 BC”, or as far back as 1200, under the name of Alis Ubbo (“Safe Harbour”), even if there were some organized settlements in Ulissea-Olissipona with clear Mediterranean influence, either at that distant time or later; it’s nothing but a myth, as well.⁽¹⁰⁾ Likewise, except the voyages of discovery, there is no record of Phoenician or Punic colonies beyond the Algarve, namely Balsa–Tavira, close to the Portuguese-Spanish border,⁽¹¹⁾ with substantial Phoenician settlement and influence since the 8th century BCE. Essentially, Phoenician influence in today’s Portugal was due to cultural and commercial exchange with Tartessos.

• ⁽¹⁰⁾ Such a Copper Age settlement is the Castro Zambujal, the most important in the peninsula of Lisbon. The locals, probably together with Eastern Mediterranean settlers, based their economy on intensive farming, and were also part of an economic network importing minerals like gold, copper, amphibolit stone, and ivory, between 3000 and 1700 BCE. It is a site with relatively good conservation – some walls still exist up to a height of 4 meters, as the community constructed a wall around to protect itself from attacks.

Balsa: a coin depicting a horse and a fish (50 BCE)

• ⁽¹¹⁾ Tavira’s origins date back to the late Bronze Age (1000-800 BCE). The Phoenicians took hold of the town in the 8th century BCE, when it became one of their first settlements in the Iberian West, creating “a colonial urban centre, with massive walls, two harbours, at least two temples, and a regular urban structure”. This last characteristic, however, reminds ancient Hellenic city planning, and not that of Phoenician or other Semitic settlements (see in Chronicle 22, in the beginning, a comparison made by Strabo between the Greek Maenaca and Phoenician Malaca, in the area of today’s Málaga). The original Phoenician name of the town was perhaps Baal Saphon, or Baal Shamin, after the NW Semitic and Mesopotamian Thunder and Sky gods. It was later shortened to Balsa. Others, on the contrary, insist that the term Balsa is of Iberian, perhaps Basque, origin. It can be found now in other parts of the world.

The town was violently destroyed by conflict, at the end of 6th century BCE and was deserted for a century. This probably happened while Tartessos was devastated by the Punics. During the post-Tartessian, or Turdetanian period, the Iberian colonies seceded from Punic hegemony (410 BCE). As a result, Tavira recovered, during the urban bloom of the area, and became bigger than ever. But this renaissance did not last long: the city was destroyed and abandoned again by the end of the 4th century BCE. After Carthage was razed to the ground, in the mid-1st century BCE, the Romans created a new port, some 7 kilometres from Tavira, which inherited the name Balsa.

“The Tartessian fortunate city.” (Herodotus)

Arganthonios

RETURN TO TARTESSOS. The legendary polity appears, circa the middle of the 1st millennium BCE, in Greek and Near Eastern sources. Homer must have been again the first one to sing in the Iliad of a gold-bearing land in the western limits of the world (Iberia), before the Great (Atlantic) Ocean, where people lived happily for many years. The “Tartessian fortunate city”, according to Herodotus, was just outside the Pillars of Heracles, at the estuary, or precisely οn the Delta, of the homonymous river, and governed by a centenarian king named Arganthonios – a name that certainly referred to his great wealth.

Another historian, Ephorus, described in the 4th century BCE

“a very prosperous market called Tartessos, with much tin carried by river, as well as gold and copper from Celtic lands.”

Around the end of the millennium, however, there are indications that the name fell out of use creating the impression that the city might have been lost due to natural or other causes. Apart from Thera, Tartessos is a strong candidate for the site of Atlantis. They must have had more in common due to Minoan influence. The Andalusians, just like the Hellenes, may have benefited from the Cretans not only economically, but culturally, as well. Archaeological finds in Tartessos have built up a picture of a widespread culture, with the core area extending from the Guadalquivir valley to Huelva, but also covering the entire southern Iberia, from the Tagus estuary to the southern land of Valencia. Pausanias, writing in the 2nd century CE, identified the river and gave details on the location of the city:

“They say that Tartessos is a river in the land of the Iberians, running down into the sea by two mouths,⁽¹²⁾ and that between these two mouths lies a city of the same name. The river is the largest in Iberia, and tidal, that of a later day called Baetis” – named Guadalquivir (“Great River”) even later by the Moors.⁽¹³⁾

View of the river Guadalquivir (1854), by Manuel Barrón y Carrillo

• ⁽¹²⁾ Strabo also spoke of two mouths, creating a Delta at the river’s estuary, while describing the region and estimating its size. In this passage, which is like a periplus of the Pillars of Heracles area, he doesn’t refer to Tartessos city (non-existent in his time) – though it is mentioned by the later Pausanias. The land, says Strabo, has its “natural borders” drawn by the riverbeds of Ana (Guadiana) and Baetis (Guadalquivir), eloquently nicknamed “the silver river”. Tartessis was the toponym referring to the land, while the capital was called Tartessos, like the river.

• ⁽¹³⁾ Aristotle’s idea about the river was even grander, as he thought it rose from the Pyrenees! You see, even a genius can fail miserably! But Pausanias also erred, because the Guadalquivir is just the fifth longest river of Iberia, after the Tagus, Ebro, Douro and Guadiana. According to Livy, the local (Tartessian and Turdetanian) names for the Guadalquivir were Kertis and Rerkes.

The eastern mouth of the river, the only one existing now, was much wider at that time. The western mouth does not exist anymore, but it is thought that it was located near Huelva. In this area we now find only a number of lakes. At that time, between these two river arms, there was a large lagoon with at least one island in it where the legendary city was probably located. The landscape is completely different now. Some findings lead to the conclusion that there must have been two natural disasters (tsunamis) that caused the islands and the dry areas to sink, one that happened around 1500 BCE, and the other in 200 CE.⁽¹⁴⁾ Therefore, none of them is linked with the demise of Tartessos, between the late 6th and early 5th centuries BCE, when most sites were inexplicably abandoned…

Geography of Tartessos and Iberia; 7th-5th century BCE. N to S: Dragani, Oestrimni, Ophiussa, Saephes, Cempsi, Cynetes.

• ⁽¹⁴⁾ These natural disasters are significant, as they give us some clues about the city of Tartessos – its founding and disappearance. The first catastrophe, around 1500 BCE, implies that the city was apparently founded in the following period, i.e. at some point during the second half of the 2nd millennium BCE. As for the second disaster, ca 200 CE, it must have changed so dramatically the topography of the area that it has not been possible to locate the city until now. Moreover, we do not know the extent of the destruction caused by the Punics when they set out to raze the Tartessian civilization from the face of the earth. That is why Tartessos remains a legendary city to this day.

The Tartessians were excellent in engineering and had created a sophisticated system to regulate the water flow of a tidal river. Strabo described an advanced, urbanized society with many flourishing, wealthy cities along the banks of the Tartessos-Baetis-Guadalquivir River:

“They are considered to be the most educated of the Iberians, they have a scripture, even historical chronicles, poems, and laws in 6,000 verses”, he wrote.

Treasure of Tartessos, El Carambolo

Tartessian culture is divided mainly into two periods: The first is characterized as “geometric” and coincides with the late Bronze Age ranging from 1200 to 750 BCE – corresponding somehow to the Greek geometric art (Parallel Lives in art? Who knows)… The second is termed “oriental”, influenced by Phoenicians and Hellenes alike, ranging from 750 to 550 BCE, when it was gradually superseded by the classic Iberian culture. A similar shift to the Lusitanian culture occurred in the southern Portuguese territory, mainly in the Algarve and Low Alentejo, with littoral extensions up to the Tagus mouth. Significant elements of the period were the introduction of the potter’s wheel, and several other major advances in craftsmanship, e.g. architecture, and also in agriculture. Another noticeable and notable element was the increase in specialization and stratification. Writing was a very important development. With the arrival of the Hellenes, whose influence extended far beyond their colonies,⁽¹⁵⁾ this “orientalism” began to transform itself into the Iberian culture, especially in the South East. Greek influence is visible in the gradual change of the style of the monuments approaching more and more the architectural models of the Hellenic world. The Iberian script evolved from the Tartessian with noticeable Greek influence. A variant of the Hellenic alphabet (Ibero-Ionian script) was also used to write Iberian texts.

• ⁽¹⁵⁾ There are maps showing only one Greek colony in the entire Iberia: Emporion. All other cities
  are shown as local or Phoenician. Even Acra Leucá (a toponym made up of two Hellenic words) is shown as a Phoenician colony! By what magic wand did the Greek cultural influence spread? How could it penetrate even the Phoenician sphere of influence?

Culture (from Cicero’s “cultura animi”) is also material, denoting the artifacts a society creates and their connection to social relations. Civilization is certainly inconceivable without division of labour and technology. Culture and civilization necessitate an economic base in order to thrive. In the case of Iberia, it was the metals that opened the way to the dawn of the Bronze Age, sped up later when some Easterners arrived there. But mining and smelting preceded the coming of Minoans, Greeks, or Phoenicians. Alluvial tin was panned in the Iberian streams from an early date. The Río Tinto mines, along the river that flows into the Gulf of Cádiz at Huelva, are estimated at 8,000 to 10,000 years old. They have been mined for copper, silver, gold, and many other minerals, by Iberians, Tartessians, Phoenicians, Hellenes, Romans, Visigoths, Moors and Spaniards, for such a long time that the place has turned into an environmental disaster zone.⁽¹⁶⁾

Río Tinto: beautiful colours but… poisonous!

• ⁽¹⁶⁾ After its exploitation for ten millennia, the Tínto area looks like a “lunar landscape”, or even worse. Recently it has gained scientific interest due to the presence of so-called extremophile aerobic bacteria that dwell in the water. The extreme conditions there may be analogous to other locations in the solar system thought to contain liquid water, such as subterranean Mars, or Jupiter’s moon Europa, where an acidic ocean of water is theorized to exist under its frozen ice surface.

El Corazón de la Tierra: the Heart of the Earth (uprooted…)

Thus the river is of interest to astrobiologists. Based partially on research done near the Río Tinto, two NASA scientists reported in 2005 they had found strong evidence of present life on Mars! They may have been obliged to retract, but who knows? The Americans may one day employ… Martians as slaves! That is the reason why Europe, eternally in the role of a satellite, is being transmuted into… Europa, moving inexorably towards the gates of El Dorado vigilantly guarded by Cerberus!

Giant geysers of water vapour are thought to eject off the frigid, icy surface of the Jovian moon Europa.

The invention of coinage intensified the search for bronze and silver in the 7th century BCE. Consequently, trade links, formerly largely in elite goods, assumed a broader economic role. By that time, silver extraction in Huelva Province had reached industrial proportions. Huelva city was certainly connected to Tartessos; it contains the largest accumulation of imported elite goods and should have been an important centre. Excavations in the heart of the town revealed a great industrial and commercial emporium that lasted several centuries. Some 90,000 ostraca (ceramic fragments), indigenous and imported (Phoenician and Greek), were exhumed. All these vessels, dated from the 10th to the 8th centuries BCE, precede finds from other Phoenician emporia. The existence of foreign produce and materials together with local ones permits us to imagine its old harbour as a major hub for the reception, manufacture and shipping of diverse products of various and distant origins and destinations. Finds in other parts of the city help us estimate its habitat in some 20 hectares, which constitutes a sizable extension for a site in Iberia during that period. The analysis of written sources and the products exhumed, including thousands of Hellenic ceramics, some of which are works of excellent quality by known potters and painters, tends to identify this habitat with the lost city of Tartessos.

• >> Chronicle 22. AN IBERIAN PERIPLUS REVIVAL
• << Chronicle 20. THE ENIGMATIC SEA PEOPLES

Next Chronicle 22. AN IBERIAN PERIPLUS REVIVAL ● Tartessos (B) ● Colonies in Provence, Iberia, Maurusia ● Tin and Silver Routes ● Democritus and Plato ● Topography of the Area Beyond the Pillars of Heracles

Oceanus, Roman mosaic at Ossonoba, modern Faro, Algarve, Portugal.

Chronicle 17. MINOAN CRETAN THALASSOCRACY

Chronicle 17. MINOAN CRETAN THALASSOCRACY

/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ Χρονικό 17. ΚΡΗΤΟΜΙΝΩΙΚΗ ΘΑΛΑΣΣΟΚΡΑΤΟΡΙΑ

● Minoan Society and Art ● Linear A-B, Phaestos Disc
● Tin Bronze ● Bull-Leaping (Taurocathapsia)

Michales Loukovikas
Swallows and lilies, fresco on Thera-Santorini (ca 1650 BCE, detail)

The palace of Minos at Knossos

THE MINOAN CIVILIZATION, the crème de la crème of the Aegean cultures in the Bronze Age, arose on the island of Crete, flourished from the 30th to the 15th centuries BCE, and then vanished. It came to light again at the outset of the 20th century CE, thanks to the British archaeologist Arthur Evans. The term Minoan refers to the legendary Minos. We presume, on no evidence, that it was not a name but a royal title. In the Odyssey, composed centuries after the demise of the Minoans, Homer calls the natives of the island Eteocretans (“true Cretans”); most probably, they were true descendants of the Minoans. In addition, there were several settlements in the Aegean and the Ionian Seas, as well as in Sicily and Canaan, known by the name Minoa. The root min– appears in some Aegean languages, toponyms, and in the name of an autochthonous people inhabiting the Aegean, the Minyans.

The Ship Procession or the Flotilla frieze at Acroteri, Thera (detail)

We assume (again, on no evidence) that the Cretans were not Indo-Europeans, but a Mediterranean people, possibly related to the Pelasgians and the Minyans – the pre-Hellenic dwellers of the Aegean. Crete remained free from invasions for many centuries, and managed to develop an independent and very distinct civilization, one of the most advanced in the Mediterranean during the Bronze Age, together with that of Egypt. Linear A, the Minoan script, has not yet been deciphered – though it is similar to Linear B, the Mycenaean Hellenic script. It possibly represents an Aegean language, unrelated to Indo-European tongues. (On the Aegean, Crete, Minoans, Mycenaeans, sea voyages, etc. see Chronicle 3; on the Pelasgians, Minyans, Greeks see Chronicle 15, footnote 7, and Chronicle 20, The historicity of the Iliad).

Grace in the Aegean: the art of the Minoans (Eugene Hirschfeld)

Bronze Apollo with Lyre, Pompeii

“Crete was well placed in relation to sea trading routes”, observes Eugene Hirschfeld, writing on Grace in the Aegean: the art of the Minoans. “Thucydides wrote that Minos was the first to build a navy:

“‘The first person known to us by tradition as having established a navy is Minos. He made himself master of what is now called the Hellenic sea, and ruled over the Cyclades, into most of which he sent the first colonies… and thus did his best to put down piracy in those waters, a necessary step to secure the revenues for his own use’.”⁽¹⁾

• ⁽¹⁾ Piracy is most ancient; in all likelihood, it appeared together with navigation. The Tyrrhenians, Illyrians and Thracians were known as pirates in ancient times. The Aegean island of Lemnos, a haven for Thracian pirates, long resisted Hellenic influence. By the 1st century BCE, there were pirate states along the Anatolian coast, threatening the commerce of the Roman Empire.

“With their merchant fleet,” says Hirschfeld, “the Minoans came to dominate the seas, sailing for hundreds of miles in search of trade from Spain in the west to Syria in the east…⁽²⁾ It is possibly a measure of both the Minoans’ geographical isolation and the strength of their fleet that their coastal towns seem to have had few fortifications. Thus their period of ascendancy was called by Arthur Evans the Pax Minoica or ‘Minoan peace’ – a time when cities needed no walls.⁽³⁾ Like Pax Romana, of course, such a peace, if it existed, would have been the product of military strength rather than pacifism.”

Replica of the Uluburun shipwreck

• ⁽²⁾ “We should never under-estimate how ‘joined up’ the ancient world was”, Hirschfeld footnotes. “See for example the late Bronze Age shipwreck [at Uluburun], which was carrying a remarkable assortment of international goods from northern Europe, Africa and Mesopotamia”.

● The ship carried one of the most spectacular late Bronze Age assemblages to have emerged from the Mediterranean Sea dated to the late 14th century BCE. It was similar to Graeco-Roman vessels of a later time and was found in 1982 by a sponge diver in south-western Asia Minor.

• ⁽³⁾ Although Evans’ vision of a Pax Minoica has been criticized recently, it seems there was little armed conflict in the island itself until the following Mycenaean period. Archaeologists say the Minoans often show weapons in their art, but only in ritual contexts. Claims that they produced no weapons are erroneous; Minoan swords were the finest in all of the Aegean. Furthermore, no evidence exists for a Minoan army, or domination of peoples, outside Crete.

The Pleiades, by the Symbolist Elihu Vedder (1885)

● The Minoan Cretans used celestial navigation. Besides, they surely had knowledge of astronomy: the palaces and mountaintop sanctuaries have architectural features that align with the rising sun on the equinoxes, as well as the rising and setting of particular stars. The Cretans voyaged to Thera, Egypt, Iberia… Such trips, even that one to Santorini, would have taken more than a day’s sail; thus the sailors would have been left travelling by night across open water. Then the sailors would use the locations of particular stars, especially those of the constellation Ursa Major, for their orientation. Written records of such navigation using the stars go back to Homer’s Odyssey, where Calypso tells Odysseus to keep the Bear (Ursa Major) on his left, and at the same time observe the position of the Pleiades, the late-setting Boötes and the Orion, as he sailed eastward from her Ogygia isle traversing the Ocean. Celestial navigation was as important as shipbuilding: the development of nautical know-how and technology was necessary for the expansion of the Mediterranean civilizations.

● This knowledge characterized all major navigating cultures. Before the Minoans and Mycenaeans, well before the Phoenicians, who were last in line, such a seafaring people covering long distances with their ships had been the Carians. According to Thucydides, it was largely the Carians who settled the Cyclades (and other Aegean islands) prior to the Cretans. The Minoan expansion during the Middle Bronze Age into this region seems to have come at their expense: they were pushed eastwards towards this area in Asia Minor called later Caria, and many turned to piracy as a way of life. Then Minos established his navy to control the Aegean and put down piracy. Ironically, the Carians did not find peace not even on the Asia Minor coast. Hellenic colonies in Doris and Ionia pushed them further into the hinterland, and those who started as seafarers ended up as land people (see the map).

One after the other, all the unique features of this marvelous civilization seem to arise from only one: the Minoans’ thalassocracy, their “geographical isolation and the strength of their fleet”, as Eugene Hirschfeld points out and explains in detail immediately afterwards:

“As a maritime trading civilization, it is unsurprising that the Minoans left us some beautiful fresco images of their ships, wooden sailing vessels superior to any others on the Mediterranean. Perhaps because of this fleet and the protecting seas, military images are unusual in Minoan art. Until the attacks by the Mycenaeans in 1450 BC, there is no real evidence that the Minoans fought wars with any other culture. This is in stark contrast to their contemporaries: the city states of Mesopotamia were constantly at war, celebrating their exploits on such works as the Stele of the Vultures, and Egypt covered tomb walls with images of military pomp. The Minoans preferred leisurely scenes or sports. They loved to decorate walls with murals of dolphins, flowers and fish. Their art has a grace, movement and exuberance distinct from the art of Egypt and Sumer, and… their craftsmanship is second to none.”

The Dolphins mural at Knossos

A cultural paradox: a great power without militarism; a palace that was
not a royal residence, neither the king was glorified; a religion with no
grandeur; while women were equal to men and free – or so it seems…

Knossos Palace (reconstruction)

This civilization is really an astonishing paradox: a great power without a military aristocracy; a palace that was not a royal residence, and neither the anax (king) was glorified; a religion with no grandeur; while women were equal to men and free – or so it seems. Besides, free expression was a basic feature of Minoan art.

“The Minoans were skilled and sensitive architects, and the palaces count amongst their greatest works of art. The most famous is the palace at Knossos, often called the ‘Palace of Minos’. A multi-storey complex of corridors, rooms and staircases built around a central courtyard, the palace boasted impressive plumbing as well as lovely frescos, columns and gardens. Visitors found its ‘agglutinative’ architecture of over 1000 rooms so confusing that it is thought to have inspired the myth of the Minotaur’s Labyrinth. Knossos was an entire community, a centre for religion, pottery production and storage of trade goods, and a venue for festivals. For this reason the term ‘palace’ is not adequate for describing these Minoan complexes.”⁽⁴⁾

Sacred symbols: bull and labrys

• ⁽⁴⁾ The Palace of Knossos is five times the size of Buckingham Palace, with 3-4 floors, a sewerage system, a type of hot water heater, flush toilets and lots of red coloured columns. Millennia later, the Versailles had no toilets at all except for the royal couple! That’s why not only the palace but its gardens, as well, stank awfully…

● On Minoan architecture, true fresco, or how they spread in the Near East with itinerant Cretan craftsmen and artists, see Chronicle 27. An Archaeologist’s Waterloo.

“Sitting at the apex of a trading empire, the Cretan kings were extremely wealthy. It is therefore interesting that they appear to have ordered no sculpture, memorials, king-lists or other works to boast of their power and status… We find nothing like the mighty monuments to the god-kings of Egypt. We have no record either of a king Minos or of any other named monarch, male or female… Historian R. F. Willetts has suggested that the apparent modesty of the Minoan aristocracy can be explained by a difference in religious emphasis: the Minoans did not seek to associate the king with the immortal gods, like the Egyptians or Mesopotamians, but worshiped a particular vision of nature. From this standpoint, images glorifying the king were unnecessary.”

Minoan Snake Goddess

“Women seem to have enjoyed higher status in Minoan culture than was usual in the Bronze Age and… served as administrators and priestesses… Women’s relative equality may be because of the absence of military threat, giving far less impetus to the development of a male warrior discourse and thus a greater role and respect for women. It is tempting when looking at images of young women somersaulting over bulls with the men to conclude that women enjoyed considerable freedom… As for religion, Minoan art provides us with faience figurines of a ‘snake goddess’, and frescos… on which women priests outnumber men. No images of male deities have been found from the peak of Minoan civilization. The apparent prominence of women in Minoan religion has led to conjecture that the principal deity or deities of Minoan Crete may have been female, e.g. an earth or mother goddess.”

What conclusions can we draw?

“The absence of battles, kings, boastful inscriptions and historical
events in Minoan art is surprising for the time.” (Eugene Hirschfeld)

A Minoan beauty on Thera

“Minoan art does show a greater emphasis on spontaneity and invention, and is more secular and informal… less constrained by rigid conventions and geometry”, Eugene Hirschfeld remarks. “The absence of battles, kings, boastful inscriptions and historical events in its art is surprising for the time. We need to recognize such distinctions [but] without falling into the crude formulations sometimes used in the past, such as posing cultured Minoans against barbarous Mycenaeans.

“Arnold Hauser’s first explanation for the particular character of the Minoans’ art is the relatively modest role of religion in their society. Minoan shrines seem to have been small, even in the palaces, kept in people’s homes or built in out of the way places like hills and caves. There is nothing like the great cult of the dead seen in Egypt, or the grandiose works that went with it. There was therefore less impetus towards sternly imposed conventions. He also admires the urbanity of the cultural life that arose around the palaces:

“‘The freedom of Cretan art can be partly explained by the extraordinarily important role which city life and commerce played in the island’s economy… Probably city life was nowhere so highly developed as in Crete’.

“The ‘palace’ was the centre of Minoan life: of trade and agriculture, but also of art. It was perhaps this union of trade and culture in a context of long internal stability that gave Minoan art its urbane liveliness. Crete’s geopolitical situation may also have exerted an influence. With the natural protection of the sea and backed by their fleet, the Minoans had little need to fear invasion. In the absence of a warrior class, not only were women’s rights better than in most Bronze Age cultures, but art was less constrained by the military and religion.”

“It was perhaps this union of trade and culture in a context of long internal stability that gave Minoan art its urbane liveliness.” (Eugene Hirschfeld)

The mysterious Phaestos Disc (side B)

“It is very likely that writing arose in Minoan culture for the same reason it did in Sumer: to keep accounts”, adds Hirschfeld. “An early pictographic script… was replaced in around 1700 BC by one which represented sounds, i.e. a true alphabet, known as Linear A… It has still not been deciphered… If there is imaginative literature among these writings, we cannot read it. We have no Minoan poetry, no songs, no history, no scripture. It is a great culture, but a silent one… One of archaeology’s more mysterious objects is the Phaistos Disc… A fired clay disc, covered on both sides with spirals of stamped symbols… They belong to none of the writing systems mentioned above.”⁽⁵⁾

• ⁽⁵⁾ The Phaestos disc is unique because all these symbols seem to have been impressed into the clay using 45 stamps, reproducing a body of text with reusable characters. The German linguist and typographer Herbert Brekle maintains that the disc is an early document of movable type printing, because it meets the essential criteria of typography, while the American geographer, historian and anthropologist Jared Diamond described it as “by far the earliest printed document in the world”. Discovered by the Italian archaeologist Luigi Pernier in the palace of Phaestos in 1908, the disc (15 cm wide) captured the imagination of amateurs and professionals, and many attempts have been made to decipher it – but in vain…

“We have no Minoan poetry, no songs, no history, no scripture. If
there is imaginative literature among these writings, we cannot
read it. It is a great culture, but a silent one.” (Eugene Hirschfeld)

Theran antelopes

Minoan Trade and Influence

MINOAN CULTURE’S INFLUENCE outside Crete manifests itself in the presence of Minoan handicrafts on the mainland of Greece. After around 1700 BCE, the material culture of the Hellenes achieved a new, higher, level due to Minoan influence. The connections between Crete and Egypt were prominent. Minoan wares were found there, while several Egyptian items were imported, especially papyrus, as well as artistic ideas. The Egyptian hieroglyphs served as a model for the Minoan pictographic writing, from which the Linear A writing system developed.

Later (late 15th – early 14th century BCE), the Minoan palaces were occupied by the Mycenaeans, who adapted the Minoan Linear A script to the needs of their own language, a form of Greek, which was written in Linear B. The Mycenaeans generally tended to adapt rather than destroy Cretan culture, religion, and art, and they continued to operate the Minoan economic system and bureaucracy. After about a century of partial recovery, most Cretan palaces and cities went into decline in the 13th century BCE. When the Bronze Age came crashing down some time later, Crete did not feel the agony of death…

A Theran fisherman

The Minoans were traders, and their cultural contacts reached far beyond Crete – to copper-bearing Cyprus and Asia Minor (or Anatolia), Egypt and Canaan (the Levant), the Balkans and the Black Sea area, mainly Colchis (Georgia–Abkhazia), Mesopotamia, even faraway Afghanistan. Paintings in Thebes, Egypt, from the 15th century BCE, depict a number of Minoans bearing gifts. Inscriptions record these people as coming from the “islands in the midst of the sea”, and may refer to gift-bringing merchants or officials from Crete. Minoan techniques and styles in ceramics also provided models for Helladic Greece. Along with Thera, Cretan ‘colonies’ can be found on Cythera, an island close to the mainland that came under Minoan influence in the 3rd millennium and remained Minoan in culture for a thousand years, until the Mycenaean occupation in the 13th century, as well as on Melos, Cea, Aegina, Rhodes, Miletus, and elsewhere. The Cyclades and the Dodecanese were in the Cretan cultural orbit.

Certain locations in Crete emphasize it as an “outward looking” society. The palace of Kato Zakros e.g. is located within a bay, 100 metres from the modern shore-line. Its large number of workshops and the richness of its site materials indicate a centre for import and export. Such activities are elaborated in artistic representations of the sea with ships and sailors, e.g. the Flotilla fresco on Thera. Homer recorded a tradition that Crete had 90 cities. Multi-room constructions were found also in “poor” areas, revealing a social equality and even distribution of wealth derived through trade. There was a high degree of organization, with no trace of the military aristocracies that characterized the following cultures. While the Mycenaeans relied mainly on conquest to expand, the Minoan Cretans were a mercantile people engaged primarily in overseas trade. No doubt they should have been involved in the Bronze Age’s most crucial trade of tin: tin, alloyed with copper, obviously from Cyprus, was used in the manufacture of bronze. The Minoan decline seems to be correlated with the decline in the use of bronze tools in favour of iron ones.

Multi-room constructions were discovered even in the ‘poor’ areas, revealing
a social equality and even distribution of wealth derived through trade. There was a high degree of organization, with no trace of military aristocracies…

The entire Ship Procession or Flotilla frieze at Acroteri, Thera

Bronze and Orichalcum or Chalcopyrite (Brass)

A Thracian bronze deer, 9th-6th century BCE

● In the beginning, bronze was made from naturally or artificially mixed ores of copper and arsenic. That is why it was called arsenic bronze. Tin was used only later, becoming the sole type of major non-copper ingredient of bronze in the late 3rd millennium. Tin bronze was superior in that the alloying process could be easily controlled and the alloy was stronger and easier to cast. Moreover, unlike arsenic, tin is not toxic. The earliest tin-alloy bronzes date to the late 4th millennium in Iran, Mesopotamia and China. Copper and tin ores are rarely found together (exceptions include one ancient site in Iran); thus, serious bronze work has always involved trade. The major source for tin in Europe was England’s deposits of ore in Cornwall, traded as far as the eastern Mediterranean. Though bronze is generally harder than wrought iron, the Bronze Age gave way to the Iron Age because iron was easier to find and to process into a poor grade of metal. Bronze was still used in the Iron Age. Roman officers e.g. had bronze swords while foot soldiers had iron. Archaeologists suspect that a serious disruption of the tin trade precipitated the transition. Mass population migrations c. 1200-1100 BCE reduced the shipping of tin around the Mediterranean (and from Britain), limiting supplies and raising prices. As cultures advanced from wrought to machine forged iron, they learned how to make steel, which is stronger than bronze and holds a sharper edge longer. There are many bronze alloys but modern bronze is typically 88% copper and 12% tin. Historical bronzes are highly variable in composition, as most metalworkers used whatever scrap was on hand.

Andean birdman, tumbaga

● Orichalcum is mentioned in several ancient writings, most notably in the story of Atlantis as recounted in Plato’s Critias dialogue. It is first mentioned by Hesiod in the 7th century BCE, and in a Homeric hymn dedicated to Aphrodite. Plato says that the metal was considered second only to gold in value. But by his time, it was known only by name. Pliny the Elder points out that it has lost currency due to the mines being exhausted. The name derives from the Hellenic word ὀρείχαλκος (from ὄρος, “mountain” and χαλκός, “copper”). Plato’s orichalcum has been held to be either a gold-copper alloy, or a metal no longer known, or mythic like Atlantis. The Romans transliterated “orichalcum” as “aurichalcum”, meaning “gold copper”. The Andean alloy tumbaga is something similar, being a gold-copper alloy. In Virgil’s Aeneid, a gold-silver alloy is mentioned. In later years, orichalcum was used to describe the sulfide mineral chalcopyrite or brass, that is, a copper-iron or copper-zinc alloy. The colour of brass is generally golden-yellow, while that of bronze is brown-red.⁽⁶⁾

• ⁽⁶⁾ Once I had the naïve impression – based on a mechanistic perception of the succession of historical ages (where what comes next is “deterministically superior” to what has preceded it) – that the Iron Age was superior in every aspect to the Bronze Age. Generally this is true. But there are some anomalies, some logical paradoxes, especially in the beginning of the new age, since you have to accept that the “iron” Dorians were more civilized than the “bronze” Achaeans.

Brass French horn

● A similar sham, by the way, is the idea of the “superiority” of monotheism versus polytheism, while in fact it is a colossal setback – and the Christian obscurantism of the Dark Ages proves it. When everyone claims the exclusivity or monopoly on truth, when polytheistic tolerance is lost, then the result is… Jerusalem as the capital not of Israel but of hatred among monotheists!

● Iron weapons, made out of necessity, were “poor weapons”, but also the “weapons of the poor”. Thus the aristocratic monopoly on the conduct of war ceased. One could perhaps argue that “war was democratized”. Even so, is the right to kill a “democratic” right?(!)

Where did the Minoans find tin, the necessary component to produce
bronze? No doubt, Minoan ships should have transported British tin…

Theseus with Ariadne and the Minotaur,
mosaic at Paphos: a Cretan theme in Cyprus.

The Cassiterides

CYPRUS WAS THE MEDITARRANEAN “copper island”; the word copper comes from the name of the island: from the Latin phrase Cyprium (aes), “Cyprian (metal)”. A possible etymological origin of the name Cyprus is the Sumerian words for copper or bronze (zubar / kubar), due to the massive deposits of copper ore found in the island. But where did the Minoans find tin – the necessary component – to produce bronze? Tin was very rare in the eastern Mediterranean. The only known source of cassiterite in the area was Kestel-Göltepe on the Taurus Mountains of south-central Anatolia. It supplied tin from the late 4th millennium to the mid-19th century BCE, when the ores became uneconomical or ran out. There were three other sources of tin available to the Minoan traders: the distant northeastern Afghanistan, central Europe (Bohemia), and the Occident, with vast amounts of tin in places such as Iberia, Brittany, in northwestern France, and especially Cornwall, in southwestern Britain. For the seafaring Cretans, the West was the destination they probably preferred best.⁽⁷⁾ When the Taurus mines shut down, western tin became more important and the Minoans would have completely monopolized the supply of tin into the Eastern Mediterranean with their navy and shipping. Objects made by Minoans suggest there was an extensive network with mainland Greece, Anatolia, Cyprus, Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and westwards as far as Iberia, and also even further, that is, Bohemia, Brittany and, of course, Cornwall. Trade in nearby lands was direct, while in distant lands it could also be indirect through middlemen. Undoubtedly, Minoan ships should have transported British tin. If they also dropped anchor at British harbours it’s another story.

• ⁽⁷⁾ Not that the Minoans disregarded tin coming from the Orient: a tablet from the Mari archives mentions a Cretan who purchased tin at Ugarit from agents of the Mari palace in Mesopotamia. This tin came in part from Afghanistan, where Minoan items have been found. Others, however, insist that the said tablet refers, on the contrary, to the purchase of Cretan tin by Mari (500 kg, in 1670 BCE). Mesopotamia, they say, imported mainly Cretan tin and Cypriot copper to make bronze. Central European tin was carried through the Amber Route leading from the Baltic to the Adriatic Sea.

The blue monkeys fresco on Thera

The Cretans derived their surplus from trade, unlike Babylonia and Egypt that principally relied on agriculture. They were the unrivalled long-distance traders, masters of the sea routes, having developed the most advanced navy that had ever been seen. They traded not only their own manufactured goods, “Made in Crete”, such as ceramics and metalwork, but acted as intermediaries, as well, trading raw materials and finished products throughout the Mediterranean and beyond. Their most valuable re-exports were pottery, copper, tin, gold, or silver. They were on the move not only in the Orient but also in the Occident, founding emporia all around. Their most privileged trade contacts in the East were surely those with the Egyptians, while their most significant Western partners should have been the Iberians, as the peninsula was rich in metals, especially silver, but also tin. Trade in tin was very lucrative in the Bronze Age, because, as we have seen, it is an essential component of true bronze, and comparatively rare: only gold and silver are rarer. Apart from the cassiterite deposits in Iberia, the locals obviously knew the route to the Cassiterides…⁽⁸⁾

• ⁽⁸⁾ The Cassiterides, that is, the Tin Islands (from the Greek word for tin: cassíteros), were thought to be situated somewhere near the west coasts of Europe. Ancient writers (Strabo, Poseidonius, Diodorus Siculus, etc.) described them as islets off northwest Iberia. Dionysios Periegetes (i.e. the Voyager) mentioned them in connection with the mythical Hesperides. Stesichorus and Strabo wrote that the Hesperides were by legendary Tartessos (where we shall voyage in due time). But if information of those ancient writers is ignored, it is traditionally assumed that these isles refer to the British Isles as a whole, because of the significant tin deposits in Cornwall; these deposits have become very limited due to their over-exploitation for millennia. (About the Cassiterides see especially Chronicle 26, Early Political Groups).

The metals were just the opening move of a far broader economical and cultural exchange. A lot of Iberians e.g. are nowadays intrigued by the fact that so long ago the Minoans were practicing their own version of “bullfight”. In his bilingual (in Portuguese and English) book, Fado – Lyrical Origins and Poetic Motivation, Mascarenhas Barreto refers to the Neolithic hunting rituals as a possible origin of the bull-leaping “pegas” during Portuguese bullfights, or even other similar daring games with bulls, and wonders

Cretan gold ring: four women with long robes
and bare breasts in a “cult scene” (ca 1500 BCE)

“whether the peoples of the Iberian Peninsula learnt this from the Cretans of the 3rd millennium BC, or if they themselves may have been the teachers, since the bulls were taken from their natural habitat in the peninsula to the island of Crete” (see, as well, Chronicle 5. Iberia’s Odyssey, Creto-Iberian ties).

Nevertheless, when one speaks of such extensive exchanges taking place in the 3rd millennium BCE, with customs adopted and bulls transported so far away, is it really so important to know who imitated whom?

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Next Chronicle 18. AEGEAN: KNOSSOS, MYCENAE, TROY ● Stonehenge ● Dorians and Sea Peoples ● Mysteries ● Trojan War and Bronze Age Collapse

Ταυροκαθάψια (bull-leaping) depicted on a Knossos fresco (15th century BCE)