Tartessos, the Lost Tarshish

The account

A fabulously rich silver kingdom at the mouth of the Guadalquivir, Tartessos vanished around 500 BC. Many call it the biblical Tarshish and the seed of the Atlantis legend, and its capital has never been found.

Known intelligence

• Tartessos was a wealthy harbor civilization at the mouth of the Guadalquivir in Andalusia, thriving from the 9th to 6th centuries BC on silver and tin.
• Many scholars identify it with the biblical Tarshish, the far western land that sent Solomon silver, gold, and tin.
• In 1922 Adolf Schulten argued Tartessos was the real, European source of Plato's Atlantis, an idea rooted in Aristotle tying a river of southern Spain to both.
• The capital has never been found; it may lie under the flooded Marisma de Hinojos in the Doñana wetlands, which drowned just when Tartessos vanished.

Theories of the hunt

• Tartessos is the biblical Tarshish, the silver land of the far west.
• Tartessos is the kernel of the Atlantis legend, a rich western kingdom lost to flood.
• Its capital lies buried beneath the Doñana marshes, awaiting the right dig.

Leads, where the trail points now

• The search centers on the Donana marshes at the mouth of the Guadalquivir in southern Spain, where 2009 to 2010 geophysical surveys found ring-and-rectangle anomalies argued to be Tartessian.
• The Carambolo treasure, found near Seville in 1958, is the physical proof of a rich gold-working culture and the best artifact lead.
• Donana is a protected national park, so the work is remote sensing and limited digs, not treasure hunting.

The trail, in order

• 9th to 6th century BC: Tartessos thrives on Atlantic silver and tin
• around 500 BC: the kingdom vanishes as its lands flood
• 1922: Schulten links Tartessos to Atlantis and the modern search begins

Sources and the record

• Tartessos (Wikipedia)
• The Archaeologist: the lost kingdom of Tartessos