RT Journal Article
T1 The location of Tartessos: a fresh case for the reliability of Avienus' Ora Maritima
A1 Villarías Robles, Juan José R.
A1 Rodríguez Ramírez, Antonio
A1 López Sáez, J. Antonio
A1 Celestino Pérez, Sebastián
A1 León, Ángel
AB Recent geomorphological, paleoenvironmental, and chronological evidence allowsfor a reconstruction of the coasts of southwest Iberia during the firstmillennium BCEthat accords with descriptions of the region offered by authors of antiquity, mostnotably the description by the fourth-century CE Roman writer R. F. Avienus in hispoem Ora Maritima. This poem contains information that appears to date from thesixth century BCE regarding, for instance, the pre-Roman polity of Tartessos. Thereliability of this work as a historical source has been questioned for decades. Criticsargue that the information is pertinent to our understanding of the literary, ratherthan historiographical, context of the Late Roman Empire. However, philological aswell as historical analyses reveal no clear cause to doubt the documentary value ofthe Ora Maritima. Furthermore, geomorphological research makes it possible toidentify most place-names in the poem; for example, the city embraced by the riverTartessos, apparently the political and trade center of the realm, may likely havestood on the present-day spit of La Algaida, which was an isle in the first millenniumBCE. While this hypothesis has been advanced elsewhere, this article offers anentirely new set of evidences to support it.
PB Frontiers Media
SN 2296-7745 (electrónico)
YR 2024
FD 2024-05
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10272/23862
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10272/23862
LA eng
NO Villarías-Robles, J. J. R., Rodríguez-Ramírez, A., López-Sáez, J. A., Celestino-Pérez, S., & León, Á. (2024). The location of Tartessos: a fresh case for the reliability of Avienus' Ora Maritima. In Frontiers in Marine Science (Vol. 11). Frontiers Media SA. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2024.1379920
NO The author(s) declare financial support was received for theresearch, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Funding wasprovided by Fundación Caja de Madrid (“Proyecto Hinojos:Contrastación de la Hipótesis Wickboldt-Kühne, en Hinojos(Huelva), Fase II”), Fundación Doñana 21 (“Proyecto Hinojos:Fase II"), the town council of Hinojos, Huelva (“ProyectoHinojos, Fase II”), the Spanish Ministry for Science andInnovation (MICINN) (Research Project of Excellence“Construyendo Tarteso, HAR2015-63788-P”), the RegionalGovernment of Andalusia (support to the RNM-276 ResearchGroup of The University of Huelva, as well as to theEnvironmental Archaeology Research Group of CSIC-IH for theirparticipation in the Project of Excellence “Relictflora, P11-RNM-7033”), and the FUHEM Foundation (“Proyecto Hinojos”). Thearticle is a contribution to the International GeosciencesPrograms (IGCPs) of UNESCO nos. 526 (“Risks, Resources, andRecord of the Past on the Continental Shelf”), 567 (“EarthquakeArchaeology and Paleo-seismology”), and 588 (“Preparing forCoastal Change”).
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Huelva
RD 31 may 2026