Recent discoveries by archaeologists in Spain include five life-size busts
of people from the long-extinct Tartessos civilisation.
Five life-size human busts that were discovered by archaeologists in Spain
may be the earliest known representations of the Tartessos people, whose
ancient civilisation vanished more than 2,500 years ago.
The stone carvings, which date to the fifth century B.C., were discovered
concealed within a sealed hole in an adobe temple at Casas del Turuuelo, a
historic Tartessian site in southern Spain. According to a translated
statement issued on April 18, the fragments were dispersed amid animal bones,
especially from horses, that most likely resulted from a mass
sacrifice.
According to
Erika López, a representative for the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), "the
novel thing about the new finding is that the representations correspond to
human faces."
This ancient civilization, which existed from roughly the eighth to the
fourth centuries B.C., was long thought to be an aniconic culture in which
divinity was represented through animal or plant motifs, rather than
idolized humans, so archaeologists from the CSIC called this discovery "a
profound paradigm shift in the interpretation of [Tartessos]," according to
the statement.
Two of the figurative reliefs are almost finished, and they appear to show
female divinities wearing earrings, which may be a reference to the Bronze
Age peoples' mastery in goldsmithing. According to the statement,
archaeologists only discovered parts of the other three reliefs, although
one was identified as a warrior wearing a helmet.
Although the Tartessos left little in the way of archeological evidence,
goldsmithing evidence has been found at two neighboring Tartessian sites,
Cancho Roano and La Mata, which indicates that they were accomplished
goldsmiths. According to a
Vice story
from April 21, these places were burned to the ground in a way comparable to
the recently found pit site, but the reasons and methods behind these
conflagrations are still unknown.
Aristotle, a Greek philosopher, and other historians originally connected
the Tartessos people with the fabled Atlantean sunken city. However, a 2022
BBC article states that this notion "has been widely rejected in the scientific
community."
In the statement that was translated, López added that the discovery "only
further influences both the importance of the site and the importance of the
Tartessian culture in the Guadiana valley during its last moments."
