Tartessos
Quibus enim nihil est in ipsis opis ad bene beateque vivendum → Every age is burdensome to those who have no means of living well and happily
Wikipedia EN
Tartessos (Spanish: Tarteso) is, as defined by archaeological discoveries, a historical civilization settled in the region of Southern Spain characterized by its mixture of local Paleohispanic and Phoenician traits. It had a proper writing system, identified as Tartessian, that includes some 97 inscriptions in a Tartessian language. In the historical records Tartessos (Greek: Ταρτησσός) or Tartessus appears as a antecessor semi-mythical harbor city and the surrounding culture on the south coast of the Iberian Peninsula (in modern Andalusia, Spain), at the mouth of the Guadalquivir River. It appears in sources from Greece and the Near East starting during the first millennium BC. Herodotus, for example, describes it as beyond the Pillars of Heracles (Strait of Gibraltar). Roman authors tend to echo the earlier Greek sources but from around the end of the millennium there are indications that the name Tartessos had fallen out of use and the city may have been lost to flooding, though several authors attempt to identify it with cities of other names in the area.
The Tartessians were rich in metal. In the 4th century BC the historian Ephorus describes "a very prosperous market called Tartessos, with much tin carried by river, as well as gold and copper from Celtic lands". Trade in tin was very lucrative in the Bronze Age, since it is an essential component of bronze and is comparatively rare. Herodotus refers to a king of Tartessos, Arganthonios, presumably named for his wealth in silver.
Pausanias wrote that Myron, the tyrant of Sicyon, built a treasury, which was called the treasury of the Sicyonians, to commemorate a victory in the chariot-race at the Olympic games. In the treasury he made two chambers with two different styles, one Dorian and one Ionic, with bronze. The Eleans said that the bronze was Tartessian.
The people from Tartessos became important trading partners of the Phoenicians, whose presence in Iberia dates from the 8th century BC and who nearby built a harbor of their own, Gadir (Greek: Γάδειρα, Latin: Gades, present-day Cádiz).
