Editing Tartessos (section)

== Location ==
[[File:Tartessos in Iberia.svg|thumb|Tartessos location on the Iberian Peninsula]]
[[File:AMF0500 tn.jpg|thumb|[[Cancho Roano]] archaeological site located in [[Zalamea de la Serena]], Extremadura]]
Several early sources, such as [[Aristotle]], refer to Tartessos as a river. Aristotle claims that it rises from the Pyrene Mountain (generally accepted by modern scholars as the [[Pyrenees]]) and flows out to sea outside the Pillars of Hercules, the modern [[Strait of Gibraltar]].<ref name=freeman>Freeman, Phillip M. (2010). "Ancient references to Tartessos", chapter 10. IN: Cunliffe, Barry and John T. Koch (eds.), ''Celtic from the West: Alternative Perspectives From Archaeology, Genetics, Language And Literature''.</ref> No such river traverses the [[Iberian Peninsula]].

According to the fourth century BC [[Greeks|Greek]] [[List of Graeco-Roman geographers|geographer]] and explorer [[Pytheas]], quoted by [[Strabo]] in the first century AD, the ancestral homeland of the [[Turduli]] was located north of [[Turdetania]], the region where the kingdom of Tartessos was located in the Baetis River valley (the present-day [[Guadalquivir]] valley) in southern Spain.<ref name=freeman1>{{cite book|last=Freeman|first=Phillip M.|title=Celtic from the West Chapter 10 - Ancillary Study: Ancient References to Tartessos|year=2010|publisher=Oxbow Books, Oxford, UK|isbn=978-1-84217-410-4|pages=322}}</ref><ref name=strabo>{{cite book|last=Strabo|title=Geography|pages=Book III Chapter 2 verse 11|url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/3B*.html}}</ref>

[[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], writing in the second century AD, identified the river and gave details of the location of the city:

<blockquote>They say that Tartessus is a river in the land of the Iberians, running down into the sea by two mouths and that between these two mouths lies a city of the same name. The river, which is the largest in Iberia and tidal, those of a later day called [[Guadalquivir|Baetis]] and there are some who think that Tartessus was the ancient name of [[Carpia]], a city of the [[Iberians]].<ref>Pausanias ''Description of Greece'' 6.XIX.3.</ref></blockquote>

The river known in his day as the Baetis is now the [[Guadalquivir]]. Thus, Tartessos may be buried, [[Adolf Schulten|Schulten]] thought, under the shifting wetlands. The river delta has gradually been blocked by a sandbar that stretches from the mouth of the [[Rio Tinto (river)|Rio Tinto]], near [[Palos de la Frontera]] to [[Almonte, Spain|Almonte]], the riverbank that is opposite [[Sanlúcar de Barrameda]]. The area is now protected as the [[Doñana National Park|Parque Nacional de Doñana]].<ref>Thirty kilometers inland there still is a mining town by the name of Tarsis.</ref>

In the first century AD, [[Pliny the Elder]]<ref>Pliny, ''Natural History'', 3.7.</ref> incorrectly identified the city of [[Carteia]] as the Tartessos mentioned in Greek sources while [[Strabo]] just commented.{{clarify|date=April 2023}} <ref name=strabo1>{{cite book|last=Strabo|title=Geography|pages=Book III Chapter 2 verse 14|url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/3B*.html}}</ref> Carteia is identified as El Rocadillo, near S. Roque, Province of Cádiz, some distance away from the Guadalquivir.<ref>Talbert, Richard J. A.  (ed.). [http://mail.nysoclib.org/Barrington_Atlas/B_ATLAS.PDF ''Map-by-Map Directory to Accompany the Barrington Atlas of The Greek and Roman World'' (2000), p. 419.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110727134814/http://mail.nysoclib.org/Barrington_Atlas/B_ATLAS.PDF |date=2011-07-27 }}</ref> In the second century AD, [[Appian]] thought that Karpessos ([[Carpia]]) was previously known as Tartessos.<ref name=freeman/>