The Iberian Peninsula is named for the Iberians, people living mostly in the southern part of the peninsula with whom Greek traders had contact from about the seventh century B. C.E. The Greeks named them Iberians probably after the Iberus River (today called the Ebro). Different groups made up the Iberians, some of them organized into proto-city-states centered on trading towns. The most important of these were the Tartessians, whose major center was Tartessos on the southern Atlantic coast of the peninsula, probably at the site of present-day Huelva. Other Iberians had more tribal societies. Iberians had contacts with Phoenicians, Celts, Carthaginians, and Romans in addition to Greeks. Some Iberian and Celtic tribes intermingled, resulting in the ethnic and/or cultural mix known as the Celtiberians. (The Greeks also applied the name Iberians to peoples of present-day Georgia in Asian lands south of the Caucasus Mountains, a people not related to those of the Iberian Peninsula. It is the latter people whom we discuss here.)
Origins
It is probable that at least some of the Iberian known to history were descendants of Neolithic and perhaps earlier peoples living on the Iberian Peninsula, since many of them spoke a nonIndo-European language. Indo-European languages spread though most of Europe sometime in the latter part of the Neolithic Age. For this reason peoples speaking non-Indo-European languages into historic times, especially in more peripheral areas, such as the northern forest zone where peoples spoke Finno-ugric tongues, and the Iberian Peninsula, the home of the Iberians, are thought to have lived there before the spread of Indo-European. Some scholars theorize that people migrated to the Iberian Peninsula from North Africa by the mid-second millennium b. c.e. and intermingled with other Neolithic peoples; archaeological evidence for this hypothesis is ambiguous or lacking.
The Iberian Peninsula was among the first regions of Europe to receive migrations of hominids from Africa. Neanderthals lived there for thousands of years, and some of the latest Neanderthal remains have been found there, including bones of a child, dated to 24,500 years old, who may have been of mixed Neanderthal and modern human parentage. Among the finest examples of upper Paleolithic cave art were made by modern humans in caves along the north coast of the peninsula in the region called Cantabria. The Cantabrian coastal region at that time had a mixed tundra ecology whose huge migratory herds supported human population densities close to those of later agricultural peoples. It was one of the most favored areas of Europe, in the forefront of cultural developments such as the upper Paleolithic Revolution. More than 90 percent of all European cave art of the time is concentrated in a small region that includes northwest Spain, the Pyrenees, and adjacent areas of southwest France.
The ecological challenge posed to people of the Iberian Peninsula during the Mesolithic Age as the Ice Ages ended was lack of moisture,
Rather than the return of dense forests that occurred elsewhere in Europe. Despite the challenges, people here continued making masterful figurative art, paintings on open-air limestone outcrops that are found in the Spanish Levant of archers hunting red deer and other animals. Other pictures show figures climbing trees for honey, in one example carrying a collecting pot and being greeted by a swarm of bees. Other scenes show dancers, and groups of archers confronting one another; the latter have been variously interpreted as battle scenes or, because of what appear to be slain deer shown between the two groups, a cooperative hunt that has rounded up a deer herd.
Sedentary populations settled from about 6500 B. C.E. along Atlantic estuaries of present-day Portugal, where shell middens have been found. Although the evidence for the arrival of agricultural practices in Iberia is sparse and hard to decipher, the existence of such sedentary groups provides good evidence that the relative sedentary existence fostered by agriculture would not have been new to indigenous people. Farming may have come to Iberia both as farming groups migrated there and as native peoples adopted farming practices themselves. Caves in eastern Spain with the earliest evidence of farming, including sheep and goat remains and impressed pottery, date from 6000 B. C.E. Cereals were being grown from the sixth millennium B. C.E. An unanswered question is whether people from North Africa migrated to Iberia, introducing farming practices with them; as yet the evidence is too sparse to determine this. The aridity of southeastern Spain adjacent to the Strait of Gibraltar could have discouraged migration.
In the late Neolithic along the Atlantic coast of Spain and later also the Mediterranean coast large stone constructions began to be built. The megalithic works in Iberia are similar to large timber and stone tombs covered by long or circular mounds built in a zone that
B. C.E.
Eighth century Phoenicians establish trading colonies among Iberians.
Seventh or sixth century Celts migrate to Iberian Peninsula.
C. 630 Greeks establish trading colonies among Iberians.
Sixth century Carthaginians establish trading contacts with Iberians.
Fourth century Iberian culture reaches its pinnacle.
237 Carthaginians occupy southern parts of Iberian Peninsula.
201 Romans defeat Carthaginians, ending Second Punic War, and gain control of Iberian Peninsula.
197 Romans establish colonies on Iberian Peninsula.
147-139 Lusitani rebellion under Viriathus against Romans
133 Scipio the Younger takes Celtiberian town of Numantia, ending serious rebellion in Iberia.
80-73 Lusitani rebellion under Roman expatriate Quintus Sertorious against Romans
13 Hispania divided into three Roman provinces: Baetica, Lusitania, and Tarraconensis.
Iberians time line
Spans the coastal regions of France, Britain, Netherlands, Denmark, and southern Sweden. The constructions are found typically where incoming farming groups met dense populations of Mesolithic foragers, or where farmers and foragers coexisted. In Iberia simple passage graves appeared first in farmed lands inland from the Mesolithic shell mounds. It has been theorized that this development resulted from a kind of compromise between the farming and foraging lifestyles, with prominent mortuary tombs satisfying sedentary impulses of farmers, their sense that farming connected them with the land in a spiritual way that must be acknowledged, while more mobile settlement patterns allowed travel through the landscape to seasonal foraging opportunities. The long-range contacts that seem to have begun among megalith builders along this Atlantic coastal zone would become ever more important in the future. Chambered stone burial mounds first built in Spain in the fourth millennium B. C.E. show stylistic similarities with similar constructions in North Africa. Among the best preserved of all European Neolithic clothing remains, robes and hats made of esparto grass fibers, have been found preserved by the aridity of southern Iberia.
Production of copper began in Iberia, where there were rich local sources of ore, after 3500 B. C.E. Iberia experienced a flowering of tomb building and ritual activity at this time.
People were buried in collective tombs accompanied by fine artifacts such as ivory combs. Ostrich eggshell from Africa was used in artifacts. Elaborate settlements were constructed in some areas, with defensive walls, bastions, and complex entrances perhaps used in ritual processions. They combine elements of contemporary settlements in western France with others, including the bastions, found in Sardinia, Sicily, the Aegean, and the southern Levant. People in settlements in the arid Almeri'a region used floodwater impoundments for irrigation. The settlement at Los Millares had some 100 corbelled chamber tombs and bastioned forts on nearby hills. The rock art tradition of the Spanish Levant that had begun in the Mesolithic continued.
In the Bronze Age Iberia became influenced by the Bell Beaker culture, named for a characteristically shaped pot found in burials, which spread quickly throughout the Atlantic zone from Britain to Spain in about 2800 B. C.E. The Bell Beaker culture was not borne by a migration of people (in a now-discredited theory from Spain) but by a movement of ideology and technology. This was the first European culture to show clear signs of the emergence of a warrior class, for Bell Beaker graves are well equipped with weapons such as daggers, bows, and arrows. The earliest bell-shaped beakers are from the Rhine delta region in present-day Germany, but there is some evidence that the warrior lifestyle may have emerged first elsewhere, possibly Iberia. Iberia received Bell Beaker influences both from Brittany along Atlantic seaways and from west Mediterranean Beaker groups who had connections to the Rhine region via the Rhone River corridor in southern France. These Beaker connections and trade routes remained important for centuries.
The quick adoption of the Bell Beaker pottery and other elements in southern Iberia, so far from the Rhine, implies that the ideology was introduced by traders, rather than by slower means of diffusion such as movement of peoples or gift exchanges. It spread quickly all over Iberia and even to North Africa. The meeting of Beaker users with people living in the large fortified centers such as Los Millares was peaceful. Burials document an exchange of elite goods by the groups. Iberians received horses (which had entered the Beaker network originally from communities on the Middle Danube); northern recipes for food and drink, probably including flavored mead; and a repertoire of geometric motifs for decoration of pottery. Beaker groups in Iberia and also Brittany received Iberian copper and a few objects in silver. A connection of the Beaker network with advances in metallurgy that has been demonstrated in Britain may have existed in Iberia as well, since beakers are found in buildings used in metalworking.
At first the Beaker ideology was absorbed by Iberian communities such as Los Millares with little change. Gradually however the Beaker emphasis on mobility and individuality eroded the centrality of ritual in southern Iberia; possibly a greater desire for elite goods put a strain on the economy, based as it was on the small-scale farming that was all the arid land could sustain, leading to environmental degradation. Around 2200 b. c.e. these settlements were abandoned and new centers established at different sorts of locations, although still in the same southern coastal region. The new settlements were on hilltop sites, some precipitous, defended by thick stone walls enclosing rectangular huts laid out in streets. A radical shift in agricultural practice probably took place, involving a greater reliance on livestock rearing. This culture has been named after the site at El Argar. Individual burial had become the most common rite, both in stone cist graves and later in large pottery storage jars and brewing vats. People were buried with many grave goods—men with copper or bronze axes, daggers, or halberds; women with awls, knives, and sometimes silver ornaments. El Argar pottery is very fine, with elegant shapes and a smooth finish, made of micaceous clay, which gives it a glittering look, perhaps in emulation of silver cups possessed by people in contemporary Brittany.
The culture had an abundance of metal relative to that of other regions in Europe, most from local sources, but technologically simple. Although Iberia continued to participate to some extent in the long-range links established in the Bell Beaker period, the higher standard of metalworking, both in shape and in quality of metal, of northern regions such as Britain, Ireland, and central Europe did not affect southern Iberia at this time. Long-distance trade in bronze and bronze-working techniques in northern Europe was driven by a scarcity of tin and copper and the fact that the two metals seldom occur together in the same region. Iberia’s ready supply of metals may have precluded a need for its people to seek out bronze objects from elsewhere, which would have made them aware of innovations; its isolation, in terms of the capacity of Bronze Age shipping, prevented it from participating in the bronze trade of the north.
Engraved stelae (grave markers) made in Iberia later in the Bronze Age give eloquent testimony to the new world that had been evolving through the period. The most common depictions are of warriors fully armed with sword, spear, shield, and helmet with horns. Perhaps significantly the bodies of the men are no more than stick figures, as if their humanity was less important than their identity as warriors; on the other hand the pictures prevented the dead from disappearing into the anonymity of the grave and may have served as memoirs of their deeds.
The Iberian language is non-Indo-European. It endured into Roman times but was eventually replaced by Latin. Inscriptions, mostly on third-century b. c.e. coins, have been found in the Iberian script, which has 28 alphabetic and syllabic characters, some of them derived from Phoenician or Greek alphabets. Decipherment of the Iberian script has led to an understanding of place-names, but little else. Their language has been studied in relation to the language of the Basques, which manifests some phonological similarities and is thought by some scholars to have evolved from Iberian. Yet separate parent languages seem to be indicated.
Mycenaean and Phoenician Presence in Iberia
The earliest Iberian contacts with the outside world known to history involved the Phoenicians, traders from the eastern Mediterranean, and somewhat later, the Greeks. However, Mycenaean trade there can be deduced by the presence in southern spain of Mycenaean pottery from the 14th and 13th centuries b. c.e. The raw materials of Iberia, especially bronze and silver, must have attracted the Mycenaeans, with their high demand for such goods, which they traded to the civilizations of the Near East. The Phoenicians, skilled mariners, were active as traders by the mid-13th century b. c.e. It has been claimed that they established coastal colonies on the southeastern Iberian Peninsula by about 1200 or 1100 b. c.e., but this hypothesis lacks archaeological confirmation. The earliest evidence for Phoenicians dates only from the eighth century b. c.e. At least by 800 b. c.e. the Phoenicians were probably acting as middlemen
The Iberian tore (neck ring) possibly dates to as early as the fourth century B. C.E. (Drawing by Patti Erway)
Transporting Iberian silver to Assyria, where it was in great demand for coinage. The fifth-century B. C.E. Greek historian Herodotus tells us that the Phoenicians received such great amounts of silver from the Tartessians of the Atlantic port town of Tartessos, in exchange for a little olive oil and sundry other small wares, that in order to prevent their ships from sinking with the weight, they had to make all metal implements and their anchors out of silver. We need not take this story literally; it could easily have begun as a tall tale spun by a delighted Phoenician who had made his fortune in the Tartessian silver trade, but it gives an indication of the large scale of that trade. Their seaports included Abdera (modern Adra), Malaca (modern Malaga), and Sexi (modern Almunecar), as well as Gadir (later Gades, modern Cadiz) beyond the Strait of Gibraltar. These ports attracted products from the rich hinterlands of the intermontane plateau of the Sierra Nevada and the valley of the Guadalquivir River. The Phoenicians also traded along the Tunisian coast, probably a medium through which North African influences arrived in Iberia.
The Greeks, as were the Phoenicians, were highly skilled mariners who became active traders throughout the Mediterranean and established trading colonies along the east coast of the Iberian Peninsula starting in about 630 C. E. and over the next centuries, such as Ampurias and Rosas and the site of modern Alicante and of modern Sagunto (formerly Murviedro and Saguntum). According to Herodotus Greeks from the town of Phocaea on the Aegean coast of Asia Minor opened up Spain and Tartessos, the latter around the lower Guadalete, Guadalquivir, and Tinto Rivers on the southwest coast. Again the minerals of this region drew the Phocaeans, not only those mined in Iberia—importantly, tin from Galicia—but also metals from Brittany and Cornwall transported along the age-old Atlantic seaways. Tartessos was a major source of tin for Greece. The Tartessian king invited the Phocaeans to emigrate and settle in his kingdom; they declined.
Greek shipping tended to follow coastal routes with established safe anchorages along the way; thus their probable route to Tartessos would have been from the southern coast of France, south along the Iberian coast, then through the Pillars of Hercules and around Iberia’s Atlantic coast to the Tartessian ports on the southwest coast just north of present-day Cadiz. The Greeks’ stopovers along the southern Iberian coast put Iberians for the first time in contact with the burgeoning city-state culture of Greece.
The Iberians and the Celtiberians
It is thought that by about 600 B. C.E. Celtic peoples had settled on the Iberian Peninsula, having migrated across the Pyrenees from the north, and displaced as well as intermingled with Iberians. The term Celtiberia is sometimes used specifically for a region in the north-central part of present-day Spain between the Tagus and Ebro Rivers, where the Celtic presence and influence were strongest. But it is also used for all those tribes in the western two-thirds of the peninsula exposed to Celtic influence to any degree. The Iberian tribes of the east were influenced to a greater degree by other Mediterranean cultures.
The first historical references to the Iberians are in Greek sources, based on colonization of coastal areas. Greek geographers originally applied the name Iberian to tribes of the southeast coast, but Herodotus applied it to all the peoples between the Ebro and Huelva Rivers, who had managed to maintain continuity with earlier times, maintaining their pre-Celtic languages and way of life and having material culture distinct from that of the Celtiberians in the north and west. This distinctive Iberian culture is thought to have reached its pinnacle in the fourth century B. C.E.
The Carthaginians first developed their interests in the southern Iberian Peninsula as traders, along with their kinsmen the Phoenicians, in the sixth century B. C.E. After the collapse of the Phoenician cities of Tyre and Sidon in the eastern Mediterranean they inherited many of the Phoenician trade relations, and Phoenician traders now made Carthage their home base. The Carthaginians took over the Greek trade routes to Tartessos and their southern Spanish ports. As a result the Greeks developed their port of Massalia (modern Marseille) near the mouth of the Rhone River in southern France as an alternate route to obtain tin from the north. This development led to the Greeks’ historic trade with Celtic groups in central France and Germany, the inception of the relationship between northern European and Mediterranean societies (later to include the Romans) that would have such momentous consequences in coming centuries.
In general the foreign trade contacts experienced by the Iberians during this period fall into two phases: an opening phase from about 800 to 600 B. C.E., during which the Phoenicians and Greeks established and developed their trade networks peacefully, followed by a phase of conflict and competition among them from 600 to 450 B. C.E., during which the Carthaginians ousted the Greeks from the Iberian trade.
Carthaginian and Roman Battleground
With victory in the First Punic War of 264-241 B. C.E. between Rome and Carthage Rome appropriated Carthaginian trading centers in Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica, thus depriving Carthage of revenue. As a result Carthage placed new emphasis on its holdings in Spain. However, it now set out to conquer where before it had been content to trade.
Carthaginian forces campaigned in southern Spain under Hamilcar Barca from 237 B. C.E. until his death in battle in 229 or 228 B. C.E. In 237 B. C.E. Carthage founded the city of Cathargo Nova or New Carthage (modern Cartagena) on the southeast coast, which served as the major Carthaginian supply base on the Iberian Peninsula in a northward expansion. Some Iberian settlements sought to eliminate Carthaginian expansion through Roman contacts. The Greek cities on the coast of southern France and northern Spain appealed to Rome for help. Rome and Carthage negotiated a treaty in 226 B. C.E., in which Carthaginian influence extended as far north as the Ebro River, with Roman interests to the north. One exception was the seaport of the Roman-allied Saguntum, 100 miles south of the Ebro River. In 219 B. C.E. the Carthaginian general Hannibal laid siege to and captured Saguntum. In 218 B. C.E. the Roman senate declared Spain a Roman province. This was the start of the Second Punic War of 218-201 B. C.E. between Rome and Carthage. At its end the Carthaginians relinquished claims to lands on the Iberian Peninsula.
In 197 B. C.E. Rome divided Spain into two provinces, known as Hispania Citerior (Hither or Near Spain) and Hispania Ulterior (Farther or Far Spain). Even before the end of the war with Carthage Romans began founding new towns, including Italica, near present-day Seville, and Cordoba in the Guadalquivir River valley. Rome extracted huge quantities of Iberian silver and gold; some 40,000 slaves were reputed to work in the silver mines near Cartagena. Moreover the Guadalquivir River valley held fertile farmlands, where olives, wine, and grain were produced in abundance. The rewards reaped in Iberia showed Rome the advantages of colonization, an encouragement for further expansion. Before and after reorganization Roman legions were forced to campaign against the Iberians and Celtiberians, many tribes of whom offered stiff resistance. Starting in 206 B. C.E. the Ilerges and in 197 B. C.E., the Turdetani battled the Romans until final defeat by the consul Marcus Porcius Cato in 195 B. C.E.
The Lusitani living to the west in present-day Portugal mounted a number of organized but small-scale revolts against the Romans in 195-190 B. C.E. Roman troops under Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus destroyed 300 Celtiberian “cities,” probably typical Celtic towns or hill fort compounds, in 179-178 B. C.E. By 170 B. C.E. Roman colonies were established, although the Romans did not attempt to occupy the entire peninsula. Lusitani finally mounted a full-scale rebellion in 154-150 B. C.E., with Celtiberians as allies. The murder of tribal representatives by Roman troops during peace negotiations furthered Celtiberian resolve to continue fighting. Beginning in 147 B. C.E. the Lusitani and allied tribes under Viriathus, whose charismatic leadership counted for much in the victories they achieved, waged a successful guerrilla war until the Romans bribed his retainers to assassinate him in 138 B. C.E., after which Lusitanian resistance crumbled, but the Celtiberians continued to fight.
The Romans waged war among the Celtiberian tribes along the Ebro valley. Among the Roman generals was Scipio Aemilianus Africanus Numantinus (Scipio the Younger), grandson by adoption of Scipio Africanus, who became consul in 134 B. C.E. The next year Aemilianus took the fortress of Numantia (from which he took his honorific) from the Celtiberians after a long siege, ending their rebellion.
Even while resistance continued in parts of Iberia, the products of the country were having an important impact on the Roman economy. Pliny, writing in the first century C. E., emphasized Iberia’s raw materials, but also her people: assiduous laborers, robust in body and character, perfect slaves. Manpower, including slave labor, was a crucial component of the Roman economy.
The increasing importance to Rome of its Iberian provinces, given Roman distrust of sea travel, made securing the land route through
Iberians of Portugal used this small silver cup in about the third to first century B. C.E. (Drawing by Patti Erway)
Southern Gaul a prime goal and turned Rome’s attention toward southern Gaul itself as a trading opportunity. Local pirates preyed on shipping from Massilia and other Greek cities there, which appealed to Rome for help. Successful intervention gained for Rome the territories of the tribes involved, further involving Romans in affairs in Gaul, a harbinger of the future.
In 80 B. C.E. the Roman expatriate Quintus Sertorius, who had been sent to govern Hither Spain, led a campaign against other Roman factions. He sought the support of Iberians and Celtiberians, even establishing a school to educate the sons of chieftains. His other allies were Mediterranean pirates, for whom he set up a naval base at Dianium (modern Denia) in southeastern Spain. Sertorius was defeated by Pompey in 73 B. C.E., whereupon he was executed. The Lusitani were defeated once and for all by troops under Julius Caesar in 61 B. C.E., three years before his first campaigns in Gaul.
Continuing resistance from the northwest corner of Iberia was suppressed during the reign of Emperor Augustus by the year 19 B. C.E., allowing withdrawal of troops there to take part in the conquest of Germania east of the Rhine. In 13 B. C.E. Rome divided Hispania into the provinces Tarraconensis, which comprised the north, northeast, and part of the southeast of the peninsula; Lusitania, comprising the southwest; and Baetica, comprising the south, including the Strait of Gibraltar. As part of the Roman provincial system the Iberians became increasingly Romanized.
Many Romans emigrated to Hispania and stayed for generations, in some cases intermarrying with Iberians. One of these families produced the great emperor Hadrian, who ruled Rome at its zenith of power and cultural achievement, both due in large part to his efforts. Hadrian’s ancestors had entered Spain generations before his birth, from the town of Hadria in Picenum, at the end of the Second Punic War. His mother, Domitia Paulina, was from a distinguished family of Gades. Although it is not certain whether Hadrian was born in Baetica, as was his kinsman and predecessor, Trajan, he can be considered to some degree a product of Romano-Iberian culture and had probably spent much time there while growing up. His Iberian ties, which he shared with Trajan, fostered a bond between them beyond kinship, that, no doubt, contributed to Trajan’s decision to name Hadrian as his heir. Hadrian’s upbringing in the less sophisticated society of
Iberia, away from the increasingly decadent Rome, may have bred in him his hardihood both in battle and in pursuit of his lifelong habit of travel to the roughest far reaches of the empire, and the relative moderation of his personal life.
In the fifth century C. E. the Romans lost control of the Iberian Peninsula. The Germanicspeaking Vandals and the Suebi occupied Spain in 411 C. E.; the Germanic Visigoths occupied southwestern Gaul and Spain in 412-414, driving the Vandals into Africa. The Visigoths ruled Spain from Toledo, near the southern limits of their territory in northern Spain. The south continued to be the most prosperous area with the highest standard of culture, and the culture of Visigothic Spain was hardly Gothic at all, dominated by that of the Romano-Iberian south. The intellectual life of Visigothic Spain was unmatched in any other Germanic state, as attested by the career of the great scholar Isidore of Seville. The Visigothic kingdom was quickly toppled by the Arabs, who invaded in 711.
Iberian tribes included the already-mentioned Tartessians, as well as the Bastetani, Bastuli, Carpetani, Ilergetes, Oretani, Turdetani, Turduli, and Vascones (assumed tribal ancestors of the Basques). There were many other Iberian groups (as distinct from Celtiberian), and some of them organized around a single urban center. The second-century c. E. geographer Ptolemy, living in Alexandria in North Africa, cited more than 60 groups, with different names appearing at different times in history. The mountainous terrain led to the formation of isolated enclaves. The Lusitani of central Portugal and western Spain are classified as either Celtiberians or Iberians. They manifested some Celtic cultural traits but spoke a different language, Lusitanian.
Economy
Farming, particularly cattle and sheep rearing, formed the basis of the Iberian economy. Fishing also provided sustenance and trade goods. Mining provided raw materials—iron, lead, gold, silver, tin, and copper. Ironwork reportedly was taken to the region by Phoenicians. Iberian pottery also was traded; archaeologists have located it in France, Italy, and North Africa. It is thought that the Greeks introduced grapevines and olive trees, and wine and olive oil became exports.
Trade with Phoenicians and Greeks greatly intensified the Iberian economy in terms of the amount of materials being exchanged. An excavation in present-day Huelva, which is thought to be located on the site of ancient Tartessos, found in a single six - by four-meter trench the shards of some 1,400 Greek pots from Athens, the islands of Chios and Samos, and other places, dating from the seventh and sixth centuries b. c.e. If representative of the entire site, the density of material implies that hundreds of shiploads had arrived during this period.
Tartessos also participated in the Atlantic coastal trade, which linked it with ports as far away as the Shetland Isles of Britain, and with Armorica (Brittany), Wales, Devon, and Cornwall. A ship excavated there that was wrecked probably in the seventh century contained a consignment of bronze Irish spearheads. The poem Ora Maritima by the Roman poet Avienus, based on a now-lost source that was already ancient in Avienus’s time, mentions Tartessian traders’ traveling to Armorica, Ireland, and Britain.
Burials indicate the wealth enjoyed by elites in Tartessos. In one excavated tomb the deceased was accompanied by a walnut wood chariot with bronze decorations. Other burials contained finely carved ivories and lavish gold jewelry made both locally and from Syria and Egypt.
The reorientation of trade that occurred as the Carthaginians ousted the Greeks after the sixth century also led to a change in trade dominance among Iberians. The Carthaginians seem to have begun to establish contacts with the interior Sierra Morena silver-producing region from Iberia’s Mediterranean coast via the Guadalquivir River valley, resulting in the rapid rise of towns there during this period. The Atlantic ports of the Tartessian region accordingly became less important. The discovery of new sources of silver near Cartagena may have stimulated the development of ports along the southeast coast, such as Ibiza. By the fifth century a vibrant urban-based society had emerged along the whole Mediterranean coast of Iberia.
In Roman times the region, along with North Africa, served as a primary granary for the Roman market, with wheat a major export. Garum, a sauce made from decomposing fish entrails, was sought after in Rome. The Romans introduced irrigation projects, which increased agricultural output. Peoples of the south also acted as middlemen for products. Gadir (Cadiz) was a stopover point between the Mediterranean and the North Atlantic commerce in tin. Coins became a medium of exchange among peoples.
The Iberians evolved from a tribal people to urban dwellers, especially in the east. Urban centers, many of them independent of one another, began to emerge especially as a result of foreign trade; the Guadalquivir River valley underwent rapid urban development in the period of 770 to 550 b. c.e.
As elsewhere in undeveloped societies who formed Phoenician and Greek contacts, Tartessian society was transformed by the luxury trade, which led to greater social stratification as elites acquired the wealth and demonstrated their status. Local craftsmen stretched their skills as they strove to copy the exotic luxury items, and in general the local economy was invigorated and conducted on a more intensive scale than ever before. And Tartessian elites adopted new customs from the foreigners in their midst.
By the end of this period substantial towns had been built with encircling defensive walls. In these towns sophisticated artwork began to flourish, testimony to the wealth of local elites, who marked their high status by their patronage of the arts. By the fifth century the whole east coast of Iberia had developed urban centers, in which writing in a distinctive Iberian alphabet made possible a more sophisticated governmental and military structure than in the tribal past. In Galicia, long the major source of tin for the Mediterranean world, large hill forts (castros) were built during the Iron Age. Some of the southern peoples, such as the Tartessians, organized into monarchies.
The Iberians were known in the ancient world as accomplished cavalrymen, riding the local breed of horse known as Lusitano, known for its agility. In about 370 b. c.e. the Greek historian Xenophon described the effectiveness of the quick charges and retreats of Iberian and Celtiberian cavalrymen in the Peloponnesian wars between Athens and Sparta in Greece. The Romans, who adopted some of these techniques, set up stud farms in Spain. Some Iberian infantrymen typically wore flax armor, leather helmets, and small shields hanging from their neck and carried long spears and a short dagger. Celtiberians developed a two-edged sword that later became the standard sword used by Roman legions.
Among the Iberian clothing documented are garments made of black woolen cloth or goat fur.
Art
The Iberians were known for metalwork and ceramics. Among their works are bronzes and terra-cotta figures. As in so much else, the goods taken to Iberia by Phoenicians and Greeks had strong influence on craftsmen. In the period from about 770 to 550 b. c.e. Iberian pottery, especially in the Guadalquivir valley, changed dramatically from its former dull gray to a lighter, ochre color painted with red and black geometric patterns.
Soon after the sixth century a fully developed, indigenous Iberian fine art style appeared with great suddenness, beneficiary of the wealth generated by the Phoenician and Greek trade. Large stone sculptures were made, often of limestone, clearly influenced from the east but fully original in style and details of clothing and armor. Subjects included animals, prominently bulls, and full-size human statues, often of participants in religious ritual and of mounted warriors.
Religion
A number of menhirs, upright slabs with carved reliefs, of the megalithic period in Iberia have been interpreted as depicting female figures, possibly deities. They are similar in style to others found in France and elsewhere in the Atlantic zone, suggesting a common cult. At Los Millares bone and schist figures called “eye idols” have been claimed as evidence of goddess worship, although this belief is not universally held.
The many sculptures of bulls made by Iberians of the first millennium b. c.e. strongly suggest the presence of a cult whose deity was manifest in these animals, understandable in a society for whom cattle rearing had long been central. There is some evidence that a goddess similar to the Roman Venus was worshipped in coastal cities and received offerings of doves.
Tartessians, especially the elite, seem to have adopted elements of religious belief and ritual from the eastern Mediterranean through their contacts with Phoenicians and Greeks. Some elite burials contain ritual bronze vessels, including incense burners.
After Iberia fell under Roman rule the Romans, as was their wont, rather than imposing their own religion on the Iberians, identified Iberian deities with Roman ones who had similar attributes. For example Ataecina was an Iberian goddess identified with the Roman Proserpina, an underworld goddess. Such identifications give us an idea of Iberian gods and their functions. Candamius, whose cult was strongest in northern Iberia, was identified with Jupiter, the Roman ruler of heaven. Eacus was a weather god identified with Jupiter probably as creator of thunder and lightning. Cariociecus was a war god conflated with Mars. Dercetius ruled mountains and upland regions.
The Iberians were one of the many Mediterranean peoples, such as the ETRUSCANS, whose rich and distinct culture was subsumed into the Greco-Roman culture that became dominant during the first millennium b. c.e. Their culture is thus something of a mystery. They became so intertwined with the Romans that in some cases it is difficult to unravel what aspects of what we think of as Roman culture were actually Iberian. Historically the importance to Rome of its experiences in Iberia can hardly be overstated, for the annexation of this rich province greatly affected the Roman economy as well as Roman politics, making both to some extent dependent on con-quest—or at least extension of trade relations— in new territories. The Roman economy ran on booty from conquest, large-scale export of goods—importantly wine and pottery—to annexed lands, and importation of foodstuffs made necessary because so much land in Italy was given over to wine production. Roman politicians after Caesar used successful campaigns of conquest to make their political fortune. For several centuries after annexing Iberia Rome was in a sense “addicted” to conquest until the Iberian-raised Emperor Hadrian halted expansion and turned to consolidation instead.
Further Reading
James M. Anderson. Ancient Languages of the Hispanic Peninsula (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1988).
Richard J. Harrison. Spain at the Dawn of History: Iberians, Phoenicians and Greeks (London: Thames & Hudson, 1988).
Enrique Fausto Jimenez. Struggle and Survival of the Pre-Roman Languages of the Iberian Peninsula (Lewiston, N. Y.: Edwin Mellen, 2001).
Arturo Ruiz. The Archaeology of the Iberians: Culture Contact and Culture Change in Iron-Age Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
World History
