3rd October 2017 - Indigenous Phoenicians and others in the far west
Ana Margarida Arruda (UNIARQ- Centro de Arqueologia: Centro de Estudos Clássicos.
Universidade de Lisboa)
Ana Margarida Arruda (UNIARQ- Centro de Arqueologia: Centro de Estudos Clássicos.
Universidade de Lisboa)
The presence of Phoenicians in what is now Portugal territory dates back to the 8th or even as far back as the 9th century BCE. This presence is exemplified in various ways. These include domestic and defensive architecture, building techniques, archaeological remains, language and texts. Found mainly on the littoral, the Phoenician presence had a deep regional impact on social, economic, technological, religious, cultural and social levels and reached the interior in a more or less marked way and at different rhythms.
The arrival and settlement in Portugal of peoples coming from the east was part of a larger planned colonisation in the Iberian Peninsula by communities of Near Eastern origin. Preparations for this process had been probably undertaken by the western Phoenicians of Huelva, since the 10th century and the first half of the 9th century BCE, respectively, and with the active collaboration of indigenous peoples.
Neither their presence nor their relatively early arrival is surprising. On the one hand the abundance of metallic resources like tin, found in these western regions, was a source of attraction, and on the other, and since the Late Bronze Age, large areas - now within Portugal - formed part of a Mediterranean-Atlantic network wherein artefacts from various sources were in circulation since the end of the second millennium BCE.
Ana Margarida Arruda is a Professor and Researcher of the University of Lisbon.
She has more than 200 titles published, among books, articles in national and international journal, chapters of books and contributions in Proceedings of Congresses. She works in archaeological sites in Algarve and in the Estuary of the Tagus river, where the Phoenician and Greek presence is notorious and important.
The arrival and settlement in Portugal of peoples coming from the east was part of a larger planned colonisation in the Iberian Peninsula by communities of Near Eastern origin. Preparations for this process had been probably undertaken by the western Phoenicians of Huelva, since the 10th century and the first half of the 9th century BCE, respectively, and with the active collaboration of indigenous peoples.
Neither their presence nor their relatively early arrival is surprising. On the one hand the abundance of metallic resources like tin, found in these western regions, was a source of attraction, and on the other, and since the Late Bronze Age, large areas - now within Portugal - formed part of a Mediterranean-Atlantic network wherein artefacts from various sources were in circulation since the end of the second millennium BCE.
Ana Margarida Arruda is a Professor and Researcher of the University of Lisbon.
She has more than 200 titles published, among books, articles in national and international journal, chapters of books and contributions in Proceedings of Congresses. She works in archaeological sites in Algarve and in the Estuary of the Tagus river, where the Phoenician and Greek presence is notorious and important.
