Geography, History and Human Universal Culture:

[Montuno]

Gobekli Tepe is 8000-7000 years earlier than Stonehenge

When Stonenghe was being built, there were already millenary urban settlements in Iberia, the Mediterranean, the Orient...

Gobekli Tepe could have certain similarities with Stonenghe : a religious center of celebration where different semi-nomadic groups met in common celebrations : they already had enough surplus resources and organization to be able to realize such megalithic projects, and they were on the verge of total sedentarization and full Neolithic...

In fact, @tobedetermined, long before the end of Stonenghe construction, very close to the Spanish Almagro you visited, the "villages" were already like this...:

Motilla de Azuer (Ciudad Real, Castilla-La Mancha; Spain) 2.200 before Christ.
(And beware that this is a very little village compared not only with the contemporary Cadiz or Huelva that is known, but with cities with up to five of kilométrics concentric circular walls surrounded by moats/artificial water channels, with a millennium older, like Jaen or Los Millares (Murcia) ). :

The last, reconstruction of another more little "Motilla" : "Village or town raised naturally or artificially above the ground, fortified, and with a canalization for access to drinking water."

 

[tobedetermined]

A couple of links for the archeological curious:

Archaeologica – a links site for daily archeology news
The Prehistory Guys – on YouTube - two amateur archeologists discuss all things prehistoric – with site visits, guest speakers etc – mainly in the UK and EU

 

[Montuno]

A couple of links for the archeological curious:

Archaeologica – a links site for daily archeology news
The Prehistory Guys – on YouTube - two amateur archeologists discuss all things prehistoric – with site visits, guest speakers etc – mainly in the UK and EU

ARCHAEOLOGICA has also numerous videos about Spain, Portugal and IberoAmeric, both in spoken English and Spanish with English subtitles...
But I am not able to open this video (!?)....:

​

During the Franco regime, they were unable to visit the place where their loved ones were buried. During the transition, they were entreated silence and patience. Then they were told to forgive and forget. At last, in 2002, Isabel and Asunción were able to open the graves where their brothers’ bones had been cast. They had made this promise to their parents, and now in their nineties...They haven’t much time left.

VIEW SHORT VIDEO CLIP:



Play with Windows Media Player: 300k or 700k

Length: 75 min.
Country: Spain
Language: Spanish, w/ English subtitles
Producer: Laureano Montero Palacio
Producer Web site: N/A
Distributor: Cre-Accion Films S.L.
Distributor Web site: (Under Construction)
Copyright: N/A

Festival Screenings and Awards:
Festival Internacional de Cinema de San Sebastián, 2005
Festival Internacional de Documentales Santiago Hernández, Cuba
Festival Internacional de Documentales “Documenta Madrid,” Madrid, Spain
Festival Internacional de Cortometrajes de Medina del Campo, Valledolid, Spain
Festival de Cine Arquelógico del Bidasoa, Irun, Spain
Semana de Cine por la Paz, Madrid, Spain
Semana de Cine Cántabro, Cantabria, Spain
Festival Extrema-Doc, Extremadura, Spain
Festival de Cine “La Mirada. Joyas del Cine Español,” Melbourne, Australia
Ciclo Recuperant Memòria Històrica en el IX Premis Tirant de la Quincena del Audiovisual Valenciano
Audience Award for Best Film, Festival de Cine Arqueológico del Bidasoa, Irun, Spain.

 

[Montuno]

TO THE GROUND WITH COLÓN?

In 2022: People outraged that statues of Columbus are being pulled down for making slaves in America...

(Protests in Spain)

In 1496: Queen Isabel of Castile to Columbus when she learned of the fact and before freeing them: "Who are you to enslave My Subjects?!?!"...

(1)- The punishment of a furious Isabel La Católica to Christopher Columbus for enslaving 1,600 Indians:​

Video: Were the Spanish really so bad in the conquest of America?

Las Casas criticized Columbus's cruelty to the Indians and stated in his chronicles that it contradicted the spirit "of benevolence, sweetness and Christian peace" claimed by the Catholic Monarchs.​

The Monarchs demanded that the Indians be treated well, that messages be sent to the caciques to meet them and that gifts be brought to those meetings:​

The Catholic Monarchs, like Christopher Columbus himself , believed in 1492 to have reached an island in Asia and not a new continent. However, even in the uncertainty they were clear that this historic opportunity should be guided by evangelization and not by mere economic interests. From the beginning, Isabel La Católica ordered the navigator "to treat these Indians very well and with affection", but she did not always pay attention to what was preached from Spain.

Isabel I de Castilla.

During his first voyage, Columbus described the Indians he found on a Caribbean island , probably in the Bahamas, as "a gentle and peaceful people of great simplicity" to whom he gave little red hats and glass beads that they hung around their necks. gold exchange.

It didn't take long for him to find ways to get more gold and to enslave the locals. In his logbook, he noted the same October 12, 1492 he saw that the natives learned very quickly and "must be good servants." The next day, he pushed for them to go treasure hunting, but they agreed. On the third day he directly noted that "with fifty men he could subdue all of them and force them to do anything he wished."

When trying to make a barter, the natives answered them with bows and arrows, so that the first violent confrontation between Europeans and Americans in the New World took place.
Before exploring other islands, the Spanish chose some Indians to work forcibly in their service, as Kirstin Downey explains in her book “Isabel, La Reina Guerrera” (Espasa). As he advanced, Columbus did not stop looking for new ways to make his discovery profitable and, on an island named Hispaniola, he established a fortress using materials from the Santa María, stranded on that coast. In the settlement, called La Navidad , several Europeans remained waiting for Cristóbal to come and go from Spain.

In early 1493 the Spanish visited one last island before heading home, where, to everyone's surprise, they found the other side of the natives. When trying to make a barter, the natives answered them with bows and arrows, so that the first violent confrontation between Europeans and Americans in the New World took place . They were the ferocious cannibals, of whose dangers the peaceful Indians of the previous islands had warned.

Elizabeth's friendship with Columbus​

Back in Spain, after a stop in Lisbon, Isabel asked to see Columbus as soon as possible, noticing the importance of that find. In the Castilian cities that company was celebrated in a massive way and Columbus was received as a hero wherever he crossed until he met the kings. The son of Columbus described with magnitude the massive welcome in Barcelona, where the monarchs were:

“The whole court and the whole city came out to greet him; and the Catholic sovereigns received him in public, seated in all majesty and grandeur on rich thrones under a canopy of cloth and gold. When he approached to kiss their hands, they rose from their thrones as if he were a great lord and did not allow him to kiss their hands, but made him sit next to him »

Christopher Columbus before the Catholic Monarchs at the court of Barcelona (V. Turgis, 19th century)
Columbus was entertained by the Kings, who listened in amazement to the details of the trip and met several Indians from those lands. Beyond economic possibilities , the meeting spoke of the millions of lives that ran the risk of being condemned if they were not evangelized, since signs of " idolatry and diabolical sacrifices to worship Satan " had been found among them.

Six months later, Isabel ordered a second voyage, this time made up of 17 ships and hundreds of people on board, many of them of high position. The Queen drafted sixteen orders for this expedition, the first point of which referred to the obligation to instruct the Indians in the Christian religion, whom "by all means they should strive and strive to convince" to convert them to "our sacred Catholic faith." », in addition to teaching them Spanish so that they understood the priests he sent with Columbus. Isabel "La Católica" also ordered "to treat said Indians very well and with affection, and refrain from doing them any harm, arranging that both peoples should talk and be intimate and serve each other in everything they can." In the event that Colón knew of any mistreatment, she should « punish them severely ", by virtue of his authority as admiral, viceroy and governor.

Columbus was granted an infinity of favors and broad authority across the pond, but the Catholic Monarchs placed characters they trusted around him, including Don Juan de Fonseca , who was in charge of the Court to ensure that the guidelines were complied with. of Isabel and the fleets sent. Fonseca was not a sailor or a discoverer, but, unlike Columbus, he was an excellent manager. His constant discrepancies anticipated that the navigator was not in line with Isabel's long-term plans.

 

[Montuno]

(2)- TO THE GROUND WITH COLÓN?

In 2022: People outraged that statues of Columbus are being pulled for making slaves in America...

(Protests in Spain)

In 1496: Queen Isabel of Castile to Columbus when she learned of the fact and before freeing them: "Who are you to enslave My Subjects?!?!"...

(2)- The punishment of a furious Isabel La Católica to Christopher Columbus for enslaving 1,600 Indians:​

The second voyage of discord​

To the east of present -day Puerto Rico , the second Castilian expedition came into contact with the cannibal tribe of the Caribs, in whose camp "they saw seasoned human legs hanging from beams, as we are wont to do with pigs, and the head of a young recently killed, still with wet blood, and parts of his body mixed with goose and parrot meat, "wrote Pedro Mártir . Along with them, they found prisoners from another tribe who were soon to be executed and whom Columbus took with him. Other equally bellicose tribes filled with arrows, smeared with poison, the journey of Columbus to the settlement of La Navidad .

Mosquitoes and indigenous diseases convinced many conquerors that Columbus had exaggerated his story and was leading them towards misery. However, the trip was worse for the natives, infected by diseases that were not fatal in Europe, such as a simple flu, which littered the path of this second expedition with corpses.

The chronicler Bartolomé de Las Casas described how Alonso de Hojeda later arrested several Indians and ordered that one of them cut off his ears on suspicion that he had stolen clothing.
In La Navidad they discovered that the 39 Spaniards had died. A dozen of their corpses had been laid out, many without eyes, to rot in the sun by the natives, who had murdered the settlers when they began stealing their food and women. Columbus did not punish the local leader who had allowed this massacre for fear of reprisals, but allowed other abuses against the indigenous people, against the orders of the Queen .

The chronicler Bartolomé de Las Casas described how Alonso de Hojeda later arrested several Indians and ordered one of them to have his ears cut off on suspicion that he had stolen clothes, a common punishment for this crime in the Old Continent . Far from stopping his men, Columbus ordered the execution of three other Indians, in what was the beginning of a wave of vindictive acts.

Las Casas criticized Columbus's cruelty to the Indians and recalled in his chronicles that it contradicted the spirit "of benevolence, sweetness and Christian peace" claimed by the Catholic Monarchs . The Monarchs demanded that the Indians be treated well, that messages be sent to the caciques to meet them, and that gifts be brought to those meetings. It was not the only kind of criticism the explorer received, who soon proved to be a poor administrator and an authoritarian leader. The Aragonese Mosén Margarit , a personal friend of King Ferdinand , decided to leave, without asking anyone's permission, for Spain with three ships to inform the court of what had happened.

Christopher Columbus, in the painting Virgen de los Navegantes by Alejo Fernández between 1505 and 1536
The height of the challenges to the Crown was the capture of 1,600 natives, who, unable to ship them all, forced Columbus to release 400 of them. The indigenous women “in order to better escape from us, as they were afraid that we would catch them again, they left their children on the ground and fled desperately” to the mountains, Miguel de Cuneo recounted .

In Spain, Queen Elizabeth was furious at the capture of the thousand slaves and ordered the sailor to return those men and women to the New World , which for many of them was too late, due to the Iberian cold and exposure. to unknown diseases.

Among the Indians who were able to return home, was a young man who befriended Bartolomé de Las Casas , whose relatives had traveled on this second trip to America. That encounter lit the spark for the struggle that de Las Casas undertook throughout his life in defense of indigenous rights. The enemies of the Spanish Empire used his texts, which were not very precise in their numbers, to weave the so-called Black Legend .

 

[Montuno]

(3 & End)- TO THE GROUND WITH COLÓN?

In 2022: People outraged that statues of Columbus are being pulled down for making slaves in America...

(Protests in Spain)

In 1496: Queen Isabel of Castile to Columbus when she learned of the fact and before freeing them: "Who are you to enslave My Subjects?!?!"...

(3 & End)- The punishment of a furious Isabel La Católica to Christopher Columbus for enslaving 1,600 Indians:​

The discoverer's fall from grace​

Relations between Columbus and the Queen worsened as a result of this offense, as well as the perception of the skills of Christopher Columbus as an administrator. The Italian's children were insulted in the streets of Granada by the families of those who had lost their lives in America: "Here are the children of the admiral of the mosquitoes, the one who has discovered the lands of vanity and illusion, the tomb and ruin of the Castilian knights!». Still, Elizabeth finally agreed to a third expedition after two years of pleading.

On May 30, 1498, Columbus set out at the head of a fleet of six ships and instructions clear as water to treat the Indians with calm and dignity and lead them with "peace and tranquility" to the Catholic faith. Once in America, the situation he found in Santo Domingo was one of unrest, sedition, and hundreds of people sick with syphilis.

Despite everything, Columbus passed by and went to look for gold in new lands, which in Spain raised more indignation and insults against the navigator. They are " unjust people, cruel enemies and causes of Spanish bloodshed ", people who "enjoyed" killing those who opposed them, in the words of Pedro Mártir. Paranoid and increasingly religious, Columbus began to see enemies everywhere and saw himself as a victim of the designs of the powerful Castile. He had been squeezed and then thrown away like an orange.

In the spring of 1499, Isabel finally took matters into her own hands and sent Francisco de Bobadilla to investigate what was happening on the ground. He had royal license to arrest rebels and assume power in the forts of Colón . In Hispaniola, he came across seven Spaniards hanged and five others waiting to be executed the next day for opposing the navigator and his unconditional supporters. Bobadilla soon discovered that Colón had ordered a woman's tongue to be cut out for the simple fact of speaking ill of him and his brothers, as well as a man's throat being cut for homosexual conduct .

First landing of Christopher Columbus in America (Dióscoro Puebla, 1862)
The envoy of the Catholic Monarchs assumed control of the city and settled in the Italian's house before that anarchy. Upon his return to Hispaniola , Columbus was handcuffed and sent to Europe in shackles. He spent six weeks in prison until he was granted an audience with his beloved Isabel. Still more weeks, several years in fact, were to pass before Columbus was allowed a fourth voyage to America, under many conditions, several of which he breached.

Paradoxically, that was the most profitable of all and in which he found a gold track in significant quantities. The navigator heard in Panama of large quantities of this metal buried and also from another ocean, the Pacific, some eighty kilometers away. Of course, it was another illustrious explorer, Vasco Núñez de Balboa , who was reserved for the feat of being the first European to contemplate the Pacific years later, called the Spanish Lake for a century because of the control with which this country dominated it.

"Do not consent or allow the Indians to receive any injury to their persons and property, but order that they be well and fairly treated"

With Columbus's fall from grace, the American enterprise entered a new, more ambitious phase. The Castilian Queen was clear that she wanted to bring to the New World Castilian education , health care, political systems and Christian spiritual values to millions of people, apart from the fact that, as much as she loved Columbus, she did not want to allow the entire conquest and evangelization occurred through a single man. Isabel opened the range to other expeditions led by Alonso de Hojeda, Juan de la Cosa, Vicente Yáñez Pinzón, Diego de Lepe, Pedro Alonso Niño...

The directive to treat the Indians well and cooperate with them survived the death of the Queen, although there were conquerors who turned a deaf ear and committed numerous abuses, punished by the Crown whenever possible . The presence of royal representatives in such an extensive territory was always scarce and conditioned by the power of the large landowners.

In the days that preceded her death, on November 26, 1504, one of the few concerns that Isabella the Catholic expressed in her will was for the “innocents” of the New World and the Canary Islands. The Monarch understood that slavery was justified for "infidels" and defeated enemies, not for the inhabitants of the land discovered by Christopher Columbus. She wrote on her bed: "Do not consent or allow the Indians to receive any injury to their persons and property, but order that they be well and justly treated."

El castigo de una furiosa Isabel La Católica a Cristóbal Colón por esclavizar a 1.600 indios

Las Casas criticó la crueldad de Colón con los indios y afirmó en sus crónicas que contradecía el espíritu «de benevolencia, dulzura y paz cristiana» reclamado por los Reyes Católicos. Los Monarcas exigían que se tratara bien a los indios, que se enviaran mensajes a los caciques para reunirse...

www.abc.es

 

[Montuno]

Restoration of plasterwork in the fortress palace of La Alhambra.

(Granada, Andalusia, Spain; Built between 1238 - 1354.
Seat of power of the Nasrid Emirate of Granada from 1238 to 1492)

Watch the video| For the first time, during the restoration of stucco in the Palace of the Lions in the Alhambra in Granada, the original polychrome was revealed​

Where blue and red prevail, hidden until now by successive layers of plaster and lime applied from the 19th century

The Council of the Alhambra and Generalife, affiliated with the Ministry of Culture and Historical Heritage, continues the stucco restoration work in the Palace of the Lions, an intervention that revealed the original polychromy from the Nasrid period, where blue and red predominate, until now they were hidden by successive layers of plaster and lime applied in the nineteenth century On the walls of the monument.

This was highlighted by the director of the Board of Trustees of the Alhambra Palace and Corporal “Rosio Diaz”, who explained that this work began in the plaster on the north face of the room, under the dome of the muqarnas, and will continue on all parts of the walls until reaching the frescoes.

The restoration tasks, which consist of cleaning the plaster by mechanical methods, to remove accumulated dust and dirt, and the subsequent incorporation with synthetic resins, to give stability to the eaves.

Diaz stressed that removing the plaster and preventing its deterioration is part of the conservation and restoration work carried out by the daily workshops of the memorial itself, which is called in the language of heritage preventive conservation.

As part of the scheduled restoration procedures, the Board of Trustees of the Alhambra, the Corporal, is carrying out maintenance work on one of the frescoes in the Patio de Comares, with the aim of restoring its original characteristics and thus limiting the resulting deterioration. Because of rain and other inclement weather.

The workshops for the restoration of the archaeological complex, established more than half a century ago to respond to the needs of the preservation of the monument, combine knowledge of the artisanal techniques used in the various stages of construction and decoration of the Alhambra, which is necessary to counteract conservation and restoration interventions, together with the principles and conclusions that The theory and practice of restoration have reached it in recent years

Pictures from La Alhambra:

 

[tobedetermined]

Alhambra is truly one of man's great architectural achievements. If you ever get to Spain, it should be number one on your (long) list of must sees. Seriously.

To understand Alhambra though, you have to start with this documentary by Bettany Hughes: When the Moors Ruled in Europe

 

[Montuno]

Let's go for the Goths, who are big and strong, but our desire to spend the summer on the Costa del Sol is even greater!
Jihaaaaaaaad !!!

Guadalete Battle (711):

 

[Montuno]

Al-Andalus
THE DECLINE OF THE OLD VISIGOTHIC ORDER

(1)- The Battle of Guadalete and the end of the visigoth kingdom:​

In the year 711, a Berber army crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and fought a decisive battle against the Visigoth king, Rodrigo. The betrayal on the part of the Gothic nobility gave victory to the Islamic troops.​

Al Andalus Visigoths History of Spain

ORONOZ / ALBUM
updated to February 01, 2021 9:04 PM ·



there are characters in history about whom we know few things, but enough to confirm that they were the protagonists of a tragic destiny. One of them is the Visigoth king Rodrigo. We hardly know that he must have belonged to one of the main families of the kingdom and that he exercised a certain authority in the south of the Peninsula, specifically in Córdoba , where it is possible that he had a palace.

Rodrigo carried out a coup d'état after the death of King Witiza in the year 710, which allowed him to assume the crown with the support of a sector of the kingdom's aristocracy. The coup involved the displacement of the sons and supporters of the deceased king in an environment of power struggles. With no time to extend his authority, Rodrigo only issued some gold coins inToledo and Egitania ( Idanha a-Velha , Portugal) in which "In the name of God, Rodrigo rey" could be read and the effigy of the new monarch wearing a crown could be guessed.

The Great Mosque of Damascus was built by the caliphs of the Umayyad dynasty in the capital of their empire. It was erected by Walid I, during whose reign Hispania was conquered.
CHRISTOPHER RENNIE / CORBIS



Ten years later, and after Rodrigo was defeated and killed in the battle of Guadalete, the caliph of Damascus ordered the construction of a small pleasure palace called Qusayr Amra around 720, about eighty kilometers east of Amman, the current capital of Jordan. This palace houses an extraordinary set of wall paintings depicting hunting scenes, dancers and stars, unparalleled in later Islamic art.

In one of these frescoes, a large seated figure appears, possibly the caliph himself –who at the time of the conquest was al-Walid I–, before whom several characters appear, barely visible today, but to whom an inscription written in Arabic and Greek identifies as the Byzantine emperor, the Persian sovereign, the Ethiopian monarch and Rodrigo himself. Above these figures appears the Greek word Nike, "Victory" , which suggests that here they wanted to show the sovereigns subdued by the Arab armies.

But the figure of Rodrigo was not only represented in a lost place in the Jordanian desert more than six thousand kilometers from Toledo. It also fed a good number of Arab legends whose origin was possibly Egypt, and which reflected the dazzle produced by the remote country that was now known as al-Andalus.

THE LEGENDS OF RODRIGO​

In one of those legends, Rodrigo ignores those who warn him not to enter a mysterious mansion in Toledo closed by a door to which each Visigothic king had added a padlock. Pride and curiosity are stronger than any advice, and after having forced entry Rodrigo only finds a chest with a scroll that represents the Arabs and announces that they will invade Hispania the day someone enters the room.

Bronze piece of a harness. The Visigoth cavalry was destroyed at Guadalete.
ORONOZ / ALBUM


In another legend Rodrigo rapes the daughter of the lord of Ceuta, who had been entrusted to him for her education, and he goes to the Arab governor of North Africa, Musa ibn Nusayr, to help him take revenge, thus beginning the conquest of the kingdom. . Mysteries and tales began to envelop the explanation of the end of the kingdom, making historical interpretation a task that was sometimes almost impossible.

With the conquest of Hispania, the dazzling Arab expansion that began after the death of the prophet Mohammed in 632 culminated in the West . In just ten years, the armies of the caliphs (the Prophet's successors at the head of the Muslim community) had taken over the entire Middle East as far as Egypt. In the rest of North Africa, however, resistance was fierce.

The Arab troops suffered here the most severe defeats they had known until then. Seven decades of war were necessary to break both the representatives of the Byzantine Empire that remained in the area and the Berber tribes that dominated a semi-desert territory that extended to the Atlantic. When that resistance died down, Ceuta, which until then had been a Byzantine enclave, was left at the mercy of the conquerors. Left to their own devices, its governor, called Julián (or Urbano), decided to collaborate with the invaders.

 

[Montuno]

Al-Andalus
THE DECLINE OF THE OLD VISIGOTHIC ORDER

(2)- The Battle of Guadalete and the end of the visigoth kingdom:​

In the year 711, a Berber army crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and fought a decisive battle against the Visigoth king, Rodrigo. The betrayal on the part of the Gothic nobility gave victory to the Islamic troops.​

FROM CEUTA TO THE PENINSULA​

The Pillars of Hercules in Ceuta (Spain), on the southern or African side of the Strait of the Pillars of Hercules (aka of Tarifa, aka of Gibraltar : "Strait of the mount/rock of Tariq")


The dealings with Julian were handled by the newly appointed governor of North Africa, Musa ibn Nusayr, then in his sixties. Of uncertain origins – some Muslim chroniclers even doubt that his ancestors were Arabs – the governor belonged to the new class of people who had made a career within the imperial administration of the Umayyad caliphs, although they were not always distinguished by their honesty. . Owner of a territory that had cost so much to subjugate, Musa opted to integrate the same Berber tribes that had fought him until then into his army.

Many of the soldiers now recruited could barely speak Arabic and it is doubtful that their conversion to Islam was more than superficial. But the control of Ceuta granted the key to the Strait, the prospect of new conquests in which the Berbers could definitively integrate was very attractive, and news arrived from Hispania that spoke of a strong internal crisis that invited an easy occupation. Musa does not seem to have given it much thought and soon began to send expeditions to the Peninsula to reconnoiter the territory in order to conquer it.

The most important expedition was entrusted to Tariq ibn Ziyad, in all probability a Berber, who was assigned a force composed mainly of North African troops that the sources put at around 12,000 men. Julián facilitated the passage of the Strait by means of ships that went and returned from Ceuta , and that landed on the Peninsula next to the promontory that became known as "Mount of Tariq" (Jabal Tariq), that is, Gibraltar.

The expeditionary parties soon spread out across the Bay of Algeciras. One of the first enclaves they occupied was Carteia (San Roque), a prosperous Roman city that had declined in the Visigoth period. It was there that the newcomers established their first mosque. It was not a large building, but an oratory to which many years later the inhabitants of neighboring Algeciras continued to come to pray for rain during times of drought.

Don Rodrigo, on the left, and his rival Tariq appear in this miniature from Semblances of Kings. Manuscript from the 11th century preserved in the National Library, Madrid.
PRISM


Consolidating his base in the Bay of Algeciras, Tariq chose to wait for events. Rodrigo did just the opposite. He mustered the army and headed south, seeking to force the battle, convinced that a victory would allow him to consolidate his fragile authority. It was a fatal error. Rodrigo's predecessors had decreed harsh laws against those who disregarded the call to arms by the king, who could confiscate their property, exile them or even kill them.

It is understandable, then, that in the uncertainty of the moment both allies and enemies of the monarch responded to his summons. In view of the army assembled in Córdoba, Rodrigo could think that he had asserted his authority, but the truth is that his forces were nothing more than a meeting of troops to which the magnates had come, bringing with them not only their own soldiers, but also their quarrels and quarrels.

Among those who had joined forces with the monarch were the members of King Witiza's family, who were at odds with Rodrigo over the succession to the throne. What happened then is confusing. The sources disagree on the name of the children of Witiza separated from the throne by Rodrigo, which has given rise to endless controversies. What is beyond doubt is that the relatives of the previous sovereign played a prominent role in the events that were about to precipitate the end of the Visigothic kingdom.

Two sons, or perhaps brothers, of Witiza, called Sisberto and Oppa –others, however, speak of Artobás, Alamundo and Agila– entered into dealings with the enemy. They were the first to establish pacts with the conquerors , by which the witizianos recognized the possession of their extensive properties. In exchange, they were willing to desert combat in the midst of battle.

 

[Montuno]

Al-Andalus
THE DECLINE OF THE OLD VISIGOTHIC ORDER

(3)- The Battle of Guadalete and the end of the visigoth kingdom:​

In the year 711, a Berber army crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and fought a decisive battle against the Visigoth king, Rodrigo. The betrayal on the part of the Gothic nobility gave victory to the Islamic troops.​

Although the sources do not provide many details about the encounter, we do know that Rodrigo commanded the center of the Visigothic army, while Sisberto and Oppa, sons (or brothers) of the previous king, Witiza, commanded the wings. Both were opposed to Rodrigo, because he had prevented the succession of Witiza from falling to the king's descendants. The experienced and skilled Berber horsemen, equipped with lighter weapons than the heavily armed Visigoth cavalry, must have practiced an encircling maneuver to flank the enemy line, surrounding it.​

© SANTI PEREZ​

A decisive clash :

Rodrigo possibly marched from Córdoba in the direction of Seville with the intention of recruiting more forces, and from there he took the direction that would lead him to find Tariq's forces. This one, for his part, had decided to move his troops towards Seville, perhaps looking for a suitable terrain: a famous story shows him haranguing his men, to whom he points out that there is no room for flight because behind them there is only the sea. Both armies met by the Guadalete River. Then a fierce fight began, which perhaps lasted for several days with previous skirmishes and ambushes between both sides.

At the decisive moment of the attack, Sisberto and Oppa would have deserted, allowing the enemy to complete the siege of the Visigothic army and thereby condemning it to destruction. His defeat was complete, and the Gothic monarch himself perished; His body was never found, although his mount was, on the banks of the river. With the disappearance of its sovereign, the kingdom of Toledo collapsed and there was no one to lead the resistance, so that the columns into which the victorious troops were divided were able to take over several main cities, including Córdoba and the Toledo itself.
© SANTI PEREZ


In the decisive combat Rodrigo commanded the center of the army, while the wings had been entrusted to Sisberto and Oppa. Rodrigo resisted with his troops in front of Tariq in the center of the formation, but the Witizians deserted from the flanks in full combat, which caused the disbandment and defeat of the rest of the army. The casualties were numerous and among them was that of Rodrigo, whose body was never located. Only his horse and a boot adorned with precious stones were found. Centuries later, there were those who added a new link to the legend claiming to have seen an epitaph in Viseo (north of Portugal) that proclaimed: "Here lies Rodrigo, the last king of the Visigoths."

The resounding victory convinced Tariq that it was time to go on the offensive. His first objective was Écija, where the remains of the defeated army had taken refuge. Possibly the city was not walled, which is why the Visigothic army engaged in a new pitched battle that resulted in another complete defeat. With the Visigothic army decimated, with part of the aristocracy willing to collaborate with the conquerors and with general political confusion, a situation arose that had already occurred in the East during the great Arab conquests: there were no more attempts at united defense, and cities and territories were abandoned to their fate. Faced with this situation, Tariq made a risky decision but one that turned out to be momentous.

As happened in other regions subjected to Islam, the conquest of Hispania was favored by pacts with members of the indigenous aristocracy. The children of the previous king, Witiza, were the main promoters of such agreements, justified by the confrontation they had with Rodrigo, who had separated them from succession to the throne. In the progression of the invaders they also counted the Roman roads that allowed their rapid movement, the support they found among the Jews persecuted by the Gothic kings and the passivity of a population burdened with taxes by the monarchs.
© EOSGIS


Following Julián's advice, he divided his army into several columns, one of which headed towards Córdoba and the others towards Elvira (near Granada) and Málaga. None of these cities put up serious resistance. Only in Córdoba a handful of defenders resisted for some time in the church of San Acisclo, until they were decimated by the conquerors who had entered the city through a breach in the wall. For his part, Tariq continued to advance until he occupied Toledo, the Visigothic capital.

This succession of triumphs soon reached the ears of Musa. Accompanied by an army made up mainly of Arabs, he landed in Algeciras eager to make his own conquests, and took a route that led him to conquer Seville and Mérida, after brief sieges. When he finally met Tariq in Toledo, the meeting was far from cordial. Between the Governor's reproaches to Tariq for having overstepped his orders, and Musa's distrust of possible illicit appropriations of the loot by Tariq, the tension between the two men erupted with virulence.

The first Christian victory over Islam came in the year 722, with the triumph of Pelayo at Covadonga, in Asturias. In the image, the Asturian church of Santa Cristina de Lena.
ORONOZ / ALBUM


Despite what some sources say, it is doubtful that, once the forces were united, they would even reach Zaragoza. Musa was soon ordered to report to Damascus, where the caliph was concerned about the independence of the governor from him. When he left for the East never to return, he left his son Abd al-Aziz in charge of the new territory. The conquest of al-Andalus had not ended, but many had begun to understand that the old Visigothic order had been buried on the Guadalete battlefield.

to know more:

Abderramán II: The Emir of Cordovan splendor​

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La batalla del Guadalete y el fin del reino visigodo

En el año 711, un ejército bereber cruzó el estrecho de Gibraltar y libró una batalla decisiva contra el rey visigodo, Rodrigo. La traición de parte de la nobleza goda dio la victoria a las tropas islámicas

historia.nationalgeographic.com.es

 

[Montuno]

BATTEL OF GUADALETE (711):​

At the decisive moment of the attack, Sisberto and Oppa would have deserted, allowing the enemy to complete the siege of the Visigothic army and thereby condemning it to destruction. His defeat was complete, and the Gothic monarch himself perished; His body was never found, although his mount was, on the banks of the river. With the disappearance of its sovereign, the kingdom of Toledo collapsed and there was no one to lead the resistance, so that the columns into which the victorious troops were divided were able to take over several main cities, including Córdoba and the Toledo itself.
© SANTI PEREZ

Rodrigo:

Rodrigo & Tariq:

Don Rodrigo, on the left, and his rival Tariq appear in this miniature from Semblances of Kings. Manuscript from the 11th century preserved in the National Library, Madrid.
PRISM

Tariq:

Romance of King Don Rodrigo

The winds were contrary
the moon was grown,
the fish moaned
because of the bad weather,
when the good king Don Rodrigo
next to the Cava he slept,
inside a rich store
well trimmed gold.
three hundred silver cords
that the store held;
Inside were a hundred maidens
wonderfully dressed:
the fifty are tolling
with very strange harmony.
the fifty are singing fifteen
with a very sweet melody.

There spoke a maiden
that Fortune was said:
-If you sleep, King Rodrigo,
Wake up courtesy. twenty
and you will see your bad fates,
your worst end,
and you will see your dead people,
and your battle broken,
and your towns and cities
destroyed in a day
your fortress castles
another lord ruled them.
If you ask me who has done it,
I would very well tell you:
that count Don Julián
for the love of his daughter,
because you dishonored her
and more of her did not have
oath comes throwing
that it will cost you your life.

Rodrigo woke up very upset
with that voice that I heard;
with a sad and sad face
in this way he answered:
-Mercedes to you, Fortune,
of this your message.
Being in this has arrived
one that new brought
how the count Don Julián Four. Five
the lands destroyed him.


Romance of King Don Rodrigo (2)

The Hosts of Don Rodrigo
fainted and fled,
when in the eighth battle
their enemies won.

Rodrigo leaves his shops
and the real one left;
only the unfortunate goes,
who does not have company,
the tired horse
you couldn't change anymore,
walk where you want,
that doesn't get in the way.

The king goes so faint
what sense it did not have;
dead goes of thirst and hunger fifteen
that seeing him was dirty,
it was so red with blood
that an ember seemed.

The weapons are dented,
that were of great rhinestones, twenty
the sword has been made saw
of the blows I had,
the almete, dented,
in his head it sank,
the face is swollen
of the work he endured.

He climbed up a hill,
the tallest I saw;
from there look at his people
how was it defeated;
from there look at their flags
and banners that he had,
how are they all stepped on
that the earth covered them;
look for the captains,
that none seemed;
look at the field red in blood,
which streams flowed.

The sad, to see this,
he had a great stain on himself;
crying from her eyes
in this way it said:

-Yesterday I was king of Spain,
today I am not from a village;
yesterday towns and castles,
today none owned;
yesterday I had servants
and people who served me,
Today I don't have a battlement
that I can say that it is mine...
Unhappy was the hour,
unhappy was that day
in which I was born and inherited
the great lordship,
Well, I had to lose it.
all together and in one day!
Oh death, why don't you come
and you carry this soul of mine
of that petty body,
so would you appreciate it?

 

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(1)- Tartessos (1.300 BC - 400 BC, aprox) is a culture that begins to form in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula around the 12th century before Christ and ends in the 5th century, aprox. It is located in what is now the triangle between Huelva, Cádiz and Seville. The Tartessian culture is born from the mixture between the colonizing peoples of the Eastern Mediterranean and the indigenous people who resided in the Peninsula. We know the details of how they lived thanks to recent excavations.​

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Script and narration: Laia Colomer
updated to December 20, 2021 3:40 PM·Reading:13 minutes
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Tartesso is a culture that begins to form in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula around the ninth century BC and ends in the fifth century . It is located in what is now the triangle between Huelva, Cádiz and Seville. The Tartessian culture is born from the mixture between the colonizing peoples of the Eastern Mediterranean and the indigenous people who resided in the Peninsula.
“It has a fundamentally Phoenician influence, but also a Greek one. Over time, a cultural amalgam is made that is very diverse, but all of it is called Tartessus”.

We listen to Sebastián Celestino, Scientific Researcher at the Institute of Archeology of the Higher Council for Scientific Research ( the CSIC). He is part of “ Building Tarteso ”, the project that won the Palarq Foundation's National Award for Archeology and Paleontology . He has been the director of other Tartessian sites discovered in the south of the peninsula.

Tartessus is the name by which the Greeks knew what they believed to be the first Western civilization.

“From there it is when a legend begins to be made and there are myths about the foundation and development of the Tartessian culture. With the arrival of the Phoenicians in the Iberian Peninsula, what the Greeks do is situate a historical fact and develop it little by little. Therefore, Tartessus is already being referred to by all the Roman and medieval sources... therefore, it becomes what some have called a kind of historical construction to understand what is developing culturally in that area of the Iberian Peninsula”.

The Tartessian culture has aroused great interest and curiosity among archaeologists who have tried to discover this civilization for over a century. There has been much speculation about the funerary rituals they performed, the treasures they hid, or the abrupt way in which Tartessus seems to have died out. A culture always wrapped in a mystical and legendary halo, but which, as the researchers defend, has been a reality.

“Tarteso has suffered like curves, right? Sometimes it's at the top of the curve, other times it's down. For example , when the treasure of El Carambolo is discovered, in the fifties of the last century, the research on Tartessus gives a rush because finally something is found that has a material relationship with what the mythical culture was. Why are you so interested? Because precisely not much is known yet about the Tartessian culture and the less something is known about, the more legend is created. As it happened with Egypt at the beginning, right? Since not much was known and hieroglyphics still couldn't be translated, everyone speculated a lot about Egyptian culture, right? Well, as time has gone by, Egypt continues to dazzle us, but well, we know more and more.

Tartessus is divided into 2 period s. This is explained by Esther Rodríguez, postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Archeology of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) and co-director of “Building Tarteso”.

The first period...

“It takes place between the arrival of the Phoenicians from the ninth century to the sixth century, which is when the so-called “Crisis of Tartesso” occurs, which focuses mainly on the Guadalquivir Valley, which is the territorial nucleus where the sources place to this culture or territory.

And, the second period, known as the final Tartessian.

“And from these crises of the sixth century Tartessus moved to other regions of the north, in this case to the area of the Middle Valley of the Guadiana and there a new stage was inaugurated that we have called the final Tartessian. That despite being a final stage, it is still one of the stages of greatest splendor, you just have to see the material and architectural remains that have come down to us, such as the Casas del Turuñuelo site, which has a state of conservation exceptional and that is allowing us to discover aspects of the Tartessian culture, especially at an architectural or craft level, that the Guadalquivir Valleys sites have not been able to show up to now simply because their degree of destruction is greater.

 

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(2)- Tartessos​

(1.300 BC - 400 BC, aprox):​

Now we will talk about the discoveries in the Casas del Turuñuelo, because it is for these findings that the Palarq Foundation has awarded the National Archeology and Paleontology Prize to the project. But first, who were the first to investigate and excavate in these lands?

“The first to start investigating Tartesso is Bonsor, he is Belgian, he lived in Carmona and he is the one who starts an investigation but without knowing very well what he was looking for because at that time what he was looking for was a city, not they were looking for a culture, because it was the time of the discoveries of Troy, of Tiryns... and then what they were looking for was the great city of Tartessus . But, without a doubt, the most famous of that same period is Schulten, who is the one who publishes a book on Tartessus that has since been reissued many times, he was a philologist not an archaeologist, and following the classical sources, he is also looking for the city of Tartessus .

Jorge Bonsor in 1882 and Adolf Schulten in 1924 searched for the city of Tarteso, but Tarteso was not a city, it was a culture, therefore there are several cities scattered throughout the geography of the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula. These two researchers were more linked to philology than to archaeology, because until then Tartessus had been approached from a philological point of view. But it is in the year 1958 with the fortuitous discovery of the Carambolo Treasure, in the municipality of Camas, a few kilometers from Seville, when archeology takes center stage.

“At that time there were many indications about the presence of Tartessian elements in the Iberian Peninsula... Until then, all the finds that had been published were isolated finds, such as bronze jugs, bronze braziers, which had an oriental influence, but which they did not know culturally where to fit them, whether to define you as Punic, Phoenician, Iberian. The discovery of El Carambolo, where in addition to a series of architectural structures, a type of pottery that had not been known until then also appeared , gave Tarteso materiality. Being an element that was the first time it appeared, which had a relationship with the Mediterranean world and at the same time gave off a certain indigenous aftertaste, it came to be called Tartessus and from this finding Tartessian archeology began to be built.

The Carambolo was the first great excavation , and later came the excavations of Montemolín, Carmona or Cierro Macareno in the province of Seville. Also in the Guadiana Valley, the Medellín necropolis and the Cancho Roano site, near Badajoz, were excavated. Until reaching the most recent excavations... the site of Casas del Turuñuelo, in the region of Las Vegas Altas del Guadiana. It is located about 40 kilometers from the city of Mérida and the land occupies approximately one hectare.

Excavations at the Las Casas del Turuñuelo site began in 2014 as a result of a study of the territory that we were carrying out in previous years as part of a research project that Sebastián had and within the framework of my doctoral thesis. Of all the burial mounds that we located, we decided to select one with the aim of knowing the cultural horizon in which it was inscribed., the chronology, what type of materials it had, if it was similar to Cancho Roano and La Mata, which were the first two buildings that had already been excavated and we began the excavations in Turuñuelo. Initially, the objective was to achieve a cultural characterization, but the truth is that the findings we made opened the way to the importance that the site might have and we were encouraged to continue the archaeological excavations.

The researcher Esther Rodríguez has just introduced us to the concept of Tumulus, which consists of an artificial elevation that is generated on the ground as a result, in this case, of having hidden a building. When its inhabitants decide to stop using them, they destroy it, set it on fire, and fill it with materials such as earth or rubble, to finally cover it with a huge layer of clay that seals it completely. In this way, an artificial elevation of the terrain is generated.

 

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(3 & end)- Tartessos​

(1.300 BC - 400 BC, aprox) :​

What have the researchers of “Building Tarteso” discovered in the Casas del Turuñuelo?

Sebastián Celestino, Scientific Researcher at the Institute of Archeology of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (the CSIC)

"Undoubtedly the most spectacular is the slaughter of animals, because none have been documented in the entire Western Mediterranean."

A carnage of animals... let's start at the beginning. What is a hecatomb?

“Hecatomb comes from Hecator, which is one hundred in Greek, and therefore it is the sacrifice of 100 animals, usually one hundred oxen. But then the concept was extended to a large indeterminate number of animals that is numerous is enough and they can be varied, lambs, goats... The Bible also alludes to the concept of Hecatomb. “Above all they are sacrifices that are made to favor the Gods in the face of adversity. It seems that sacrificing animals is a way to calm the Gods and turn that misfortune around”

But in the case of Tartessus... what meaning did a hecatomb have for them?

"We interpret them in Casas del Turuñuelo because precisely like that... we don't know what happened climatically in the area at that time, if it was a period of heavy rains, with which the fields were flooded and they had a few years of, for example, without harvests or quite the opposite, a time of great droughts that also impeded growth. So, the sacrifice could be precisely this, something that happened, with a climactic character and what they did was a great sacrifice to see if the gods would reverse that situation. But it seems that they did not and left there.

The sacrifice was made, in Turuñuelo, in a huge patio, 125 square meters, where the animals were arranged. Field work has so far identified the bone remains of 52 horses, 4 cows, 4 pigs and a dog .

The ritual is in the study phase because we really don't know how the horses were sacrificed, we don't even know if they were sacrificed inside the courtyard or later introduced there. Because the patio is a closed space, it only has two access doors, so the horses were surely not sacrificed there, taking into account the complexity of the setting. We don't know if they cut their throats, if they hit them on the head. If they used some type of plant element, or mineral to numb them and thus take advantage of and kill it in a simpler way.

According to the researchers , this sacrifice process, known as the hecatomb, would last a few days and would require a large volume of the population collaborating with the task .

During the excavation in Turuñuelo , not only animal bones were found, but also human bones.

“In the northern room, the bones of an individual, a male, were found. He was buried in the room, he appeared lying between the wall and the floor. We are waiting for the DNA result to find out where it came from and see if we can get a little more guidance on what the causes of death were. But let's say that the exceptional fact is that it is the first time that a buried human has been documented in a Tartessian site. In Tartessos the predominant ritual within the necropolis is cremation ”.

At the end of the V (fifth) century before Christ, the groups that live in Tartessian buildings decide to carry out this ritual, known as the Hecatomb, and decide to leave. But, what leads them to make this flight?

“Traditionally, it has always been avoided that the pressure from the peoples of the north, in this case from the Celts, would have forced the populations of the Guadiana Valley to move. However, this ritual that we are documenting of abandoning these buildings requires planning and teamwork that does not allow you to carry it out in the middle of a situation of political or military pressure. Now we have to look for exactly the reason, the cause... and this is what Sebastián pointed out earlier about analyzing climate issues and seeing if the weather was simply not right, it is not necessary to think of a climate catastrophe and think, for example, of a tornado or tsunami. For a society of 2,500 years ago, the fact that it did not rain for a year or two was a catastrophe.

In the Casas del Turuñuelo there is a lot of material to be investigated, until today 25% of the total of the burial mound has been excavated, where a large number of objects from the Tartessian era have also been found.

Greek vases, Greek sculptures, there is glass, the famous bathtub that is unique in the western Mediterranean. But, it is true that both Esther and I have always said that the best discovery we have made is architecture itself, the power of architecture, the construction techniques that were not known until now in Tartessos and have given us a great surprise. , because techniques that we thought did not reach the Iberian Peninsula until Roman times, we have seen that they are already being developed at this time.

“ Turuñuelo is like a big box of surprises ... It's that feeling... well normally when I've had to work on an excavation I've been very excited. But, the Turuñuelo, awakens that uncertainty and that constant unknown because it is true that every day is a surprise, more and more people join and it is a very big challenge to meet new researchers, new techniques to see how research progresses. The Turuñuelo site gives you that bug to get up every day and say, well, what will Turuñuelo have for us today? It is a constant need to be there and increasingly eager to know more.

“Man, you always think that you will never find something better, but Turuñuelo is unraveling so many unknowns that we could not reveal before, that every day you wake up as if to say to see what will solve me today or what question I have always asked myself, you can answer the deposit today. So it is a very special site.

"Building Tarteso" has been the winning project of the National Award for Archeology and Paleontology awarded by the Palarq Foundation. The jury that awards the prize considers that the project sheds new light on the importance and extension of the Tartessian culture and its enormous relevance for the global history of the Mediterranean.

Many have been the discoveries made in recent years about the Tartessians , but archaeologists hope to discover many more things in the coming years. And it is that, after all, knowing our past is knowing ourselves better in the present.

TO KNOW MORE

El Turuñuelo, a testimony of the end of Tartesso​

read article

Los secretos de los Tartessos, los antiguos pobladores de la península Ibérica

Tarteso es una cultura que comienza a formarse en el suroeste de la península Ibérica hacia el Siglo IX antes de Cristo y termina en el Siglo V. Se ubica en el que hoy es el triángulo entre Huelva, Cádiz y Sevilla. La cultura tartésica nace de la mezcla entre los pueblos colonizadores del...

historia.nationalgeographic.com.es

 

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Journals of the University of Granada

1. Start
2. Records
3. Vol 30 (2020)
4. The Archaeological Document

“STAIRWAY TO TARTESO'S HEAVEN”: THE MONUMENTAL STAIRCASE AT THE CASAS DEL TURUÑUELO SITE (GUAREÑA, BADAJOZ, EXTREMADURA; SPAIN).​

FIRST EVIDENCE OF THE MANUFACTURING OF BLOCKS WITH LIME MORTAR (West Mediterranean, at least)​

Notebooks of Prehistory and Archeology of the University of Granada​

Published: Dec 31, 2020

Main content of the article​

• Esther Rodriguez Gonzalez +
• Sebastian Celestino Perez +
• Alberto Dorado Alejos +
• Mario Gutierrez Rodriguez +

Vol. 30 (2020), The Archaeological Document, Pages 425-457
DOI: https://doi.org/10.30827/cpag.v30i0.15419
Received: May 26, 2020 Accepted: Jun 25, 2020 Published: Dec 31, 2020

Resume​

This paper presents an architectural and material analysis of the monumental staircase that presides over the courtyard of the Casas del Turuñuelo site. The analysis of the lower steps has allowed us to document the first evidence of the anthropogenic manufacture of a lime mortar used for the production of parallelepiped blocks, as ashlars. The work includes a historical view of the discovery, as well as an assessment of the impact of the adoption of this technology and its functional advantages. Likewise, the results of the archaeometric analyzes carried out on five of the steps are presented, through which we can affirm that we are facing the first lime mortar used for the elaboration of ashlars in the protohistory (West Mediterranean, at least)

MORE:

• deutsch
• Español
• Spanish - Spain)
• French (Canada)
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• English

https://revistaseug.ugr.es/index.php/cpag/article/view/15419

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/347973996_Stairway_to_Tartesos_Heaven_la_escalera_monumental_del_yacimiento_de_Casas_del_Turunuelo_Guarena_Badajoz_Espana_Primeras_evidencias_de_la_fabricacion_de_bloques_de_cal_en_la_Peninsula_Iberica#pf6

1. Start /
2. Records /
3. Vol 30 No 2 (2019) /
4. Articles

A space for sacrifice: the courtyard of the Tartessian site of Casas del Turuñuelo (Guareña, Badajoz)​

• Sebastian Celestino PerezCSIC – Junta de Extremadura
• 
  
• Esther Rodriguez GonzalezCSIC – Junta de Extremadura

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5209/cmpl.66337
Keywords: Tarteso, Guadiana Middle Valley, Turuñuelo Houses, earthen architecture, hecatomb
Support agencies: This work is part of the ID i Research Project: “Building Tarteso: constructive, spatial and territorial analysis of an architectural model in the middle Guadiana valley” (HAR2015-63788-P).

Resume​

The first results of the excavations of the courtyard of the building from the Tartessian period of Casas del Turuñuelo (Guareña, Badajoz) are presented, as a result of the excavations carried out in the years 2017 and 2018. This work analyzes both its architecture and the techniques constructive used to form this space, where the presence of a monumental staircase that bridges the distance between the two conserved floors of the building stands out; likewise, the documented Mediterranean import materials in this area are disclosed. Lastly, the first data about the slaughter of animals documented on the floor of the patio are offered, within which the figure of the horse stands out.

MORE:

Un espacio para el sacrificio: el patio del yacimiento tartésico de Casas del Turuñuelo (Guareña, Badajoz) | Complutum

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Themes / Archeology
GREAT DISCOVERIES

El Turuñuelo, a testimony of the end of Tartesso :​

In 2014 the signs of an imposing building appeared in Guareña that was sealed after a massive sacrifice of animals​

Archeology Tartessos

Sebastián Celestino and Esther Rodríguez Ronzález, directors of the Construyendo Tarteso project, CSIC
updated to August 24, 2021

between the end of the 5th century and the beginning of the 4th century BC, a series of monumental buildings located in the middle course of the Guadiana River, in Extremadura, were ritually destroyed and sealed. In some cases, burial mounds remained as the only testimony to their presence, artificial mounds under which the architectural remains lay. At the end of the 1970s, one of those imposing constructions, known as Cancho Roano, came to light by chance. But the next spectacular find had nothing to do with chance, but with the methodical work of archaeologists.

CHRONOLOGY :
back to life
5th century BC
After an animal sacrifice , the Tartessian building of Casas del Turuñuelo is ritually destroyed and remains battered to this day.
2015
The Archeology Institute of Mérida leads the first excavation of Turuñuelo.
2017
The banquet room, the stairway and the courtyard with the animal sacrifice are excavated.
2018
A new excavation campaign leads to the discovery of the first corpse at the site.
In May 2014, a small team from the Autonomous University of Madrid, led by the CSIC Institute of Archeology, chose the burial mound that met the best conservation conditions, on the Casas del Turuñuelo estate, in Guareña (Badajoz), to carry out survey and extract information about the ancient landscape by studying pollen and seeds. They also wanted to certify, through ceramics, that it was a Cancho Roano-type building and that, like this one, it would date from the final period of the Tartessian culture, which had flourished for two hundred years in the southwest of the peninsula., as a result of trade with the Phoenicians. But the works planned for a week dragged on for almost a month. The magnitude of the burial mound, the size of the walls that surfaced and the richness of the material discovered led the archaeologists to request the Junta de Extremadura, in 2015, a permit for a more extensive excavation of the site.

SURPRISES​

The results of the second campaign, developed in that year, were spectacular. The so-called Estancia 100 came to light, a space of 70 square meters where an altar in the shape of a bull's skin, characteristic of Tartessian sanctuaries,, had been erected. The chamber was enclosed by thick red-plastered adobe walls and had a door facing the rising sun, flanked by two adobe pillars.

Aside from more than 200 plates and an ivory box containing beads for a glass necklace, the most extraordinary find was a sarcophagus or bathtub carved from a large block of lime mortar., something unprecedented in the Iberian Peninsula or Western Mediterranean.

It was even more surprising to verify that this large room was covered with a brick vault, a technique that had not been documented in the Peninsula until Roman times.

In 2017, a three-month long excavation campaign was organizedthanks to the help of the Provincial Council of Badajoz and the General Secretariat of Science of the Extremaduran community. The so-called "banquet room" was excavated, where a rich trousseau was recovered made up of high-quality bronzes, irons and ceramics, all related to a banquet held before the enclosure was abandoned. A new and impressive discovery followed: a stairway almost three meters high and eleven steps; the six lower ones had been built with blocks made with lime mortar (a technique that had only been documented in Roman times) imitating stone ashlars; the rest were made with slate slabs on adobe. The staircase led to an open courtyard, which made it clear that the building once had two floors.

Pedestal with the feet of a marble statue found in the courtyard. The pedestal was carved with marble from Pentelic Hill, in Athens.

THE BACKYARD​

The excavation of the Turuñuelo patio is one of the most outstanding archaeological events in ancient Mediterranean history. This large space, almost 125 square meters, was occupied by more than fifty animals sacrificed –especially horses, mules and donkeys– as a hecatomb or offering to the divinity. No less impressive were the material remains found: glass from Macedonia and the Carthaginian area, a complete system of bronze weights and a sculpture made of marble from the quarries of Mount Pentelicus, next to Athens, whose pedestal preserved traces of Egyptian blue with that was painted

A wide corridor of large slate slabs crossed the patio to a monumental door five meters wide, which must have been the main entrance to the building and was demolished after the sacrifice of animals; archaeologists have yet to cross this threshold. The excavation of the courtyard was a real challenge for the archaeologists, since the materials with which it was covered to seal it had a thickness of 4.22 meters. The upper layer was composed of 30 centimeters of yellow clay; Beneath it were other layers formed with materials from the ritual destruction of the enclosure, such as bricks, adobes and fragments of the bathtub in the banquet room, and remains of amphorae. Towards the middle of the filling, on the same level, clusters of quartzite stones with ashes and charcoal appeared at four points in the patio: they were old bonfires in which pieces of meat were roasted (beef in one case and equine in another). ; next to them were numerous fragments of amphorae, the contents of which may have been consumed during the banquet. On that same level, an enormous quantity of seeds scattered all over the surface was collected, especially barley.

Bath or sarcophagus. Placed on a pedestal made of adobes, it measures 1.53 m long by 0.46 m wide.
Photo: Building Tartesso

Already in 2018, a new room was excavated where the body of a man was found lying next to a boarded-up door; Beside him were three bronze braziers. In addition to the excavations, which for now cover less than 20 percent of the burial mound, the animals sacrificed in the courtyard are being studied to understand the meaning of such an extraordinary hecatomb, while the corpse is being analyzed to find out its DNA, diet and possible diseases, although the greatest efforts are focused on the study of the novel construction techniques of the monument. The complexity of these tasks was recognized in 2018 with the granting of the Palarq Foundation's National Award for Archeology and Paleontology to the "Building Tarteso" project., which studies the great Tartessian adobe buildings excavated in recent decades.

Due to the findings made, it is inevitable to confer a prominent religious value to this enclosure . But these monumental buildings that dot the Guadiana must also have controlled that rich and vast territory at the time, and we know that in those times political and religious power sometimes intermingled and confused. Surely the burial mound still hides surprises that will help reveal the true use of this construction.
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View of the patio with the animal sacrifice, the great staircase and the path of slate flagstones that starts from its base.

Photo: Building Tartesso

Excavation of the sacrificed horses.
Photo: Building Tartesso

ENIGMATIC RITUAL​

The sacrificed horses were arranged in pairs (suggesting that they may have drawn the same chariot), with their heads crossed or facing each other; some still had their iron bits on. It is possible that the animals were slaughtered elsewhere and then moved here.

FROM SURPRISE TO SURPRISE​

In the site, whose excavated area is shown here from the east, five spaces have been found: Estancia 100 and, before it, a vestibule that gives access to two other rooms and the patio. In the latter, a slate path leads to a door that was perhaps the main entrance to the building.

This article belongs to number 204 of the National Geographic History magazine.

El Turuñuelo, un testimonio del final de Tarteso

En 2014 aparecieron en Guareña los indicios de un edificio imponente que fue sellado tras un sacrificio masivo de animales

historia.nationalgeographic.com.es

 

[Montuno]

El Turuñuelo , Turuñuelo de Guareña or Casas del Turuñuelo is a Tartessian archaeological site from the 5th century BC. C., [ 1 ] which is located in the municipality of Guareña ( Badajoz ), [ 2 ] near Yelbes . [ 3 ] About 3 km away is the Tartessian necropolis of Medellín . [ 4 ]

Tartessos (in ancient Greek , Τάρτησσος Tártēssos , in Latin , Tartessus ) is the name by which the Greeks knew what they believed to be the first civilization of the West . Possible heiress of the Atlantic Bronze Age , it developed in the triangle formed by the current provinces of Huelva , Seville and Cádiz , on the southwest coast of the Iberian Peninsula , as well as in that of Badajoz during the Late Bronze Age and the first Iron Age.. It is presumed that it had the Tartessos river as its axis, which could be the one that the Romans later called Betis ( Guadalquivir ). However, there are authors who place it at the confluence of the mouths of the Odiel with the Tinto (Huelva river), since important remains are known to be buried under the Huelva city itself. The nucleus of the Tartessian country has also been located around the Barbate river (Porlan, 2015).

important settlements
anthropological information
geographic information
Historic information
Tartessos
Period	Bronze Age and Iron Age 13th century BC to 5th century BC
cultural area	Western Andalusia , southwestern Iberian Peninsula
Current equivalence	Spain Portugal Gibraltar
related towns	Turdetanians Turdulous Cones Oretanians
Idiom	Tartessian
Spal ( Seville ) Onoba ( Huelva ) Olissipo ( Lisbon ) Ossonoba ( Lighthouse ) Conobaria ( The Heads of Saint John ) Nabrissa ( Lebrija ) Mastia ( Cartagena )
Approximate area of extension and influence of the Tartessian civilization.
[ edit data at Wikidata ]

Tartessos influenced the interior lands and the Portuguese Algarve . The Tartessians developed a language and script distinct from that of neighboring peoples, and in their final phase had cultural influences from the Egyptians and Phoenicians .

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[VenerableHippie]

I have no trouble understanding that Human has not changed much in the 4 million or so years scholars say he has been around.

We imagine we are very clever ... and in some ways we are ... but we like to forget we are Mammals and have ALL our mammalian traits ready to go beneath a veneer of civility.

All it takes is, say, hunger ... and the lizard brain kicks in. Then we are older than Mammals!