Spaniards Search For Legendary Tartessos In A Marsh

M & C ^ | 5-11-2007 | Sinikka Tarvainen

[blam]

Spaniards search for legendary Tartessos in a marsh

By Sinikka Tarvainen May 11, 2007, 11:28 GMT

Madrid - Where was the capital of Tartessos, the legendary pre-Roman civilization which once existed on the Iberian Peninsula?

The culture which flourished from around 800 to 500 BC is believed to have been located mainly around the present-day cities of Cadiz, Seville and Huelva in southern Spain, but no traces of a major urban settlement have been found.

Now, however, scientists have discovered surprising clues to where a major Tartessian city may have been, the daily El Pais reported.

Its ruins could lie in the subsoil of a marsh area known as the Marisma de Hinojos in the Donana National Park near Seville, according to the daily.

Chief researcher Sebastian Celestino declined to comment on the report. His team will give details once the investigation is finished, a representative of the Superior Council of Scientific Investigations (CSIC) told the Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

For years, satellite and aerial images of the Marisma de Hinojos have revealed strange circular structures of different sizes - up to 200 metres in diameter - and rectangular forms.

The area is under water in wintertime, and until now, scientists had thought it had always been inundated.

That had made most of them skeptical of the possibility that the forms visible from the air could be remains of a human settlement buried in the subsoil.

Yet new evidence has now emerged, with electro-magnetic tests indicating that the area may have experienced long dry periods, according to El Pais.

In the bottom of the marsh, there are layers that appear to contain concentrated sand, the daily quoted researcher Antonio Rodriguez as saying.

If the area had always been submerged, the subsoil would only contain mud instead of sand.

Scientists think they stand a fair chance of finding archaeological remains in the marsh, though the link with Tartessos remains a mere hypothesis for the time being.

Knowledge about Tartessos had so far been based mainly on Greek and Latin literary sources, which described it as a civilization on the edge of the known world.

Often identified with Tarshish mentioned in the Bible, the kingdom traded profitably with the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, and may even have discovered a route to Britain.

Some researchers equate Tartessos with Atlantis, the utopia described by the Greek philosopher Plato, which is said to have sunk into the sea.

Tartessos disappeared mysteriously around 500 BC. Some believe it was destroyed by the Carthaginians, but the new geological evidence from the Marisma de Hinojos makes it look possible that two tsunamis wiped out the settlement located there, according to El Pais.

Some remains identified with Tartessos have been found, including a palace-sanctuary near Badajoz and a necropolis in Huelva, but no major urban settlement.

As the next step, scientists intend to make a hole 7 metres deep into the marshland to see what - if anything - lies underneath.

If the remains of a Tartessian city were found, that might bring invaluable information to historians divided over whether Tartessos had an identity of its own, or whether it was just an extension of the Phoenician civilization.

[Fred Nerks]

LOL! No more maps...

http://www.lilithgallery.com/articles/atlantis_forgotten.html

THE OCEANOGRAPHIC ATLANTIS:

Due to the carbon dating of ocean sediments we can conclude that the continents were originally attached.

Most of the continental plates are made from silicon-aluninum, but the area where Atlantis was (according to samples from the sea floor) is also made of silicon-magnesium, which is both highly unstable and heavy. Magnesium is also highly combustible and one of the few metals that can burn underwater.

Geologists have suggested that Atlantis has frequently rose and sunk numerous times in the last 3 million years (the Pleistocene Epoch, which ended circa 10,000 BC).

The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is one of the most active underwater volcanic areas in the world.

Dr. Ewing, a professor, headed an oceanography expedition in 1948. He was actually an opponent of Atlantis, but in spite of himself ended up mapping much of the sea floor around where Atlantis supposedly was and found that the ocean floor had mountainous areas and ‘beaches’ in the areas, and the same shape, as the 1665 map by Kircher. Subsequent expeditions only add more details to this. Ewing cautiously, and trying not to be hypocritical of his previous stances, suggested that Atlantis may well have existed as a continent.

The 1949 expedition determined the ages of the sandy beaches. One group of older sand dates 225,000-325,000 years ago, while a 2nd newer batch of sand dates 20,000 to 100,000 years ago. This suggests that Atlantis has rose and sunk at least twice before. The time frames are the same as the last two ice ages.

The pear shaped area of Atlantis would be roughly the size of Spain when fully uncovered.

Samples taken from the Mid-Atlantic ridge have found fossils of small lake animals (diatoms), fresh water creatures, in addition to fossils of land plants.

There are six terrace levels of beaches, suggesting that Atlantis changed its shape and size at least six times, becoming smaller and smaller until it disappeared quite suddenly. The shrinking island could have resulted in an exodus of people to land that was more stable.

Even the United States Navy once searched for Atlantis, believing the oceanography could be useful for nuclear submarines operating near the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

[SunkenCiv]

related (older first):

Atlantis: New Hypothesis
by Viatcheslav Koudriavtsev
http://www.nii.net/~obie/atlantis.htm

Sea level study reveals Atlantis candidate
19:00 19 September 2001
New Scientist
Jon Copley
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991320

[Don Carlos]

Place marker

[Fred Nerks]

Atlantis: New Hypothesis

by Viatcheslav Koudriavtsev

WHERE ?

According to geological data, there had been no rising or sinking of the earth-crust in the Atlantic Ocean area not only in the last dozens of thousands, but even in millions of years, that would be commensurate with the sinking of a big island or a small continent. The map of the Atlantic itself bears it out graphically: the outlines of the continental platforms of Africa and South America fit in ideally; similarly, North America, Greenland, Scandinavia and Europe make up a perfectly fitting mosaic, in which there simply is no room for an allegedly lost fragment (particularly of such dimensions as Plato described). All the edges of the continental shelf facing the ocean also coincide with the bends of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, and the earth-crust rift zone itself, from which continents are "sliding apart" (See map of Northern Atlantic).

I really didn't want to know that.

[SunkenCiv]

Heh... there’s no such geological data. There are uniformitarian assumptions, but that’s not the same thing.

[Don Carlos]

Hope they don't screw with my summer watering hole!

On the map r_p showed in post 4 -- the little strip of land between Parque Doñata and the Atlantic - see it? That is a sleepy little town named Matasascañas. I got a little place there, with a view from the balcony of the parque to the right, and the atlantic coast to the left. 'Bout a five minute walk down to the beach, and half that to a nice bar, food store, restaurant, freshwater pool, in short every thing a modern man could want. 'Specially if he just wants to get away and pop a few CruzCampo cervezas.

My point? Hope to hell they don't allow a bunch of long-haired anthropology types to come in and start screwing up my little summer place! I'll be pissed!

[Don Carlos]

Matasascañas = Matalascañas

My bad!

[Fred Nerks]

There are uniformitarian assumptions

thanks for reminding me.

[SunkenCiv]

I’ve heard that the main palace of Tartessos is located *right under* the bar and restaurant. Bummer. ;’)

[Grizzled Bear]

Cooling is associated with dry and warming with wet.

---

Don’t bring logic into a global warming issue!

[SunkenCiv]

:’) I’ve heard that “there’s no room for Atlantis” argument from the plate tectonics cheerleaders — it boils down to saying that there’s no seafloor between the Americas and Eurasia/Africa. :’)

[Don Carlos]

Could be. That place gets pretty noisy on Friday and Saturday night!

[SunkenCiv]

‘course, it’s haunted by the ghosts of dead Celtiberians.

[Don Carlos]

I’m sure they enjoyed their beer, too! Prolly a good cold CruzCampo. Hafta remember to pop one (or three) to them next time I’m in their part of town.

[blam]

The Search For Atlantis 'Ends At Ayia Napa' (Cyprus)

[Fred Nerks]

http://www.otsf.org/

A Window to the Stone Age

When the last Ice Age ended, what had once been a land bridge between Europe and Africa was gone. All that remained dry in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea were a few tiny islands now known as The Republic of Malta.

Six thousand years ago, a Stone Age people populated the Maltese islands, bringing with them seeds and livestock. They developed an advanced society, designing and erecting huge stone monuments that still stand today: the oldest freestanding buildings in the world.

For more than a thousand years the people flourished in virtual isolation, creating dazzling art and architecture unlike anything produced elsewhere in the world at that time.

Then, at around 2,500 BC, they simply vanished.

With the fascinating material they left behind . . .

[blam]

I went to Valetta, Malta in the early 60’s...about all that I remember is that it was dry.

[Fred Nerks]

here's a piece of Malta that hasn't quite slipped off yet, the rest split away and sunk into the sea...that's why the so called 'cart-tracks' on Gozo end at the edge of the cliff and can then be found to 'continue' under water.

Whatever happened to Atlantis tore the entire area apart.

[Fred Nerks]

More Malta:

http://users.aber.ac.uk/jpg/malta/arch.html