Editing Tantalus (section)

==Historical background==
There may have been a historical Tantalus, possibly the ruler of an [[Anatolia]]n city named "Tantalís",<ref>{{cite book | title = History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria And Lycia | page = 62 | isbn = 978-1-4067-0883-7|author= George Perrot|publisher=Marton Press|year= 2007|language= fr, en}}</ref> "the city of Tantalus", or of a city named "Sipylus".<ref>This refers to [[Mount Sipylus]], at the foot of which his city was located and whose ruins were reported to be still visible in the beginning of the [[Common Era]], although few traces remain today. See [[Sir James Frazer]], ''Pausanias, and other Greek sketches'' (later retitled ''Pausanias's Description of Greece'').</ref> [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] reports that there was a port under his name and a sepulcher of him "by no means obscure", in the same region.{{Citation needed|date=March 2025}}

Tantalus is sometimes referred to as "King of [[Phrygia]]",<ref>{{cite book|title= Bulfinch's Mythology|isbn=1-4191-1109-4|pages=1855–2004|author=Thomas Bulfinch|date=June 2004|publisher=Kessinger Publishing Company}}</ref> although his city was located in the western extremity of [[Anatolia]], where [[Lydia]] was to emerge as a state before the beginning of the first millennium BCE, and not in the traditional heartland of Phrygia, situated more inland. References to his son as "Pelops the Lydian" led some scholars to the conclusion that there would be good grounds for believing that he belonged to a primordial house of [[Lydia]].<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":4" /><ref name="Gantz536">{{Cite book|last=Gantz|first=Timothy|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/26304278|title=Early Greek myth : a guide to literary and artistic sources|date=1993|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|isbn=0-8018-4410-X|location=Baltimore|pages=536|oclc=26304278}}</ref>

Other versions name his father as [[Tmolus (father of Tantalus)|Tmolus]], the name of a [[List of Kings of Lydia|king of Lydia]] and, like Sipylus, of another mountain in ancient Lydia. The location of Tantalus' mortal mountain-fathers generally placed him in Lydia;<ref>[[Pindar]], ''Olympian Odes'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0162 1.24–38], 9.9; [[Strabo]], 1.3.17; Pausanias, 5.1.6 & 9.5.7</ref> and more seldom in [[Phrygia]]<ref name=":3">Strabo, 12.8.21</ref> or [[Paphlagonia]],<ref name=":4">
us Siculus, 4.74</ref> all in [[Asia Minor]].

The geographer [[Strabo]] states that the wealth of Tantalus was derived from the mines of Phrygia and [[Mount Sipylus]]. Near Mount Sipylus are archaeological features that have been associated with Tantalus and his house since Antiquity. Near [[Mount Yamanlar]] in [[İzmir]] (ancient [[Smyrna]]), where the Lake Karagöl (Lake Tantalus) associated with the accounts surrounding him is found, is a monument mentioned by Pausanias: the [[Tholos (Ancient Rome)|tholos]] "tomb of Tantalus" (later [[Christianization|Christianized]] as "Saint Charalambos's tomb") and another one in Mount Sipylus,<ref>Various sites called the "tomb of Tantalus" have been shown to travellers since the time of Pausanias.</ref> and where a "throne of Pelops", an altar or bench carved in rock and conjecturally associated with his son is found.

Based on a similarity between the names Tantalus and [[Hantili]], it has been suggested that the name Tantalus may have derived from that of these two [[Hittites|Hittite]] kings.<ref>{{cite book | title = The East Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth| page = 475| isbn = 978-0-19-815221-7 | author= M. L. West|publisher= [[Oxford University Press]] |year= 1999}}</ref>