ERYTHEIA/GADES/CADIZ

[Bianca]

 DISCOVERIES  AND THEORIES



On Sunday, June 6, 2004, BBC News online reported Satellite photos of a salt marsh region known as Marisma de Hinojos near the city of Cadiz showing two rectangular structures in the mud and parts of concentric rings that may one have surrounded them.
                         
Satellite image may show former locations of major temples and rings

                                

Underwater Temples of the Sea God
 

Scientist, Dr. Rainer Kuehne, of the University of Wuppetal in Germany, believes the features could be the remains of a "silver" temple devoted to the sea god Poseidon and a "golden" temple devoted to Cleito and Poseidon - all described in Plato's dialogue Critias.

Dr. Kuehne's theory equates Atlantis with Spartel Island, a mud shoal in the straits of Gibraltar that sank into the sea 11,000 years ago. Plato described Atlantis as having a "plain". Dr. Kuehne told BBC that this might be the plain that extends today from Spain's southern coast up to the city of Seville.

As a result, Dr. Kuehne proposes that the Atlanteans and the mysterious raiders known as the Sea People were in fact one and the same. This dating would equate the city and society of Atlantis with either the Iron Age Tartessos or Tartessus culture of southern Spain or another, unknown, age and culture. See Article by Steven A. Arts THE LOST CITY OF TARTESSUS

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://members.toast.net/rjspina/images/fest.jpg&imgrefurl=http://members.toast.net/rjspina/Ancient%2520Sites%2520and%2520Monuments.htm&h=286&w=400&sz=30&hl=en&start=96&um=1&tbnid=lvcvTCmQcRPiOM:&tbnh=89&tbnw=124&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dancient%2Bcadiz%26start%3D80%26ndsp%3D20%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN 

[Bianca]

                                      ARCHÆOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES AT CADIZ



.
Those who have had the good fortune to visit Andalusia, that privileged land of the sun, of light, songs, dances, beautiful girls, and bull fighters, preserve, among many other poetical and pleasing recollections, that of election to antique and smiling Cadiz—the "pearl of the ocean and the silver cup," as the Andalusians say in their harmonious and imaginative language. There is, in fact, nothing exaggerated in these epithets, for they translate a true impression. Especially if we arrive by sea, there is nothing so thrilling as the dazzling silhouette which, from afar, is reflected all white from the mirror of a gulf almost always blue.

The Cadiz peninsula has for centuries been legitimately renowned, for, turn by turn, Phenicians, properly so called, Carthaginians, Romans, Goths, Arabs and Spaniards have made of it the preferred seat of their business and pleasure. In his so often unsparing verses, Martial, even, celebrates with an erotic rapture the undulating suppleness of the ballet dancers of Gades, who are continued in our day by the majas and chulas.



 
                                            PHOENICIAN TOMBS DISCOVERED AT CADIZ.





         


For an epoch anterior to that of the Latin poet, we have the testimony, among others, of Strabo, who describes the splendors, formerly and for a long time famous, of the temple of Hercules, and who gives many details, whose accuracy can still be verified, concerning various questions of topography or ethnography. Thus the superb tree called Dracæna draco is mentioned as growing in the vicinity of Gadeira, the Greek name of the city. Now, some of these trees still exist in certain public and private gardens, and attract so much the more attention in that they are not met with in any other European country. However, although historically Cadiz finds her title to nobility on every page of the Greek and Latin authors, and although her Phenician origin is averred, nowhere has such origin, in a monumental and epigraphic sense, left fewer traces than in the Andalusian peninsula. A few short legends, imperfectly read upon either silver or bronze coins, and that was all, at least up to recent times. Such penury as this distressed savants and even put them into pretty bad humor with the Cadiz archæologists.

To-day, it seems that the ancient Semitic civilization, which has remained mute for so long in the Iberic territory, is finally willing to yield up her secret, as is proved by the engravings which we present to our readers from photographs taken in situ. It is necessary for us to enter into some details.

[Bianca]

In 1887 there were met with at the gates of Cadiz, at about five meters beneath the surface of the earth, three rude tombs of shelly limestone, in which were found some skeletons, a few small bronze instruments and some trinkets—the latter of undoubted oriental manufacture.

In one of these tombs was also inclosed a monolithic sarcophagus of white marble of the form called anthropoid and measuring 2.15 m. in length by 0.67 in width. This sarcophagus is now preserved in the local museum, whose director is the active, intelligent and disinterested Father Vera. Although this is not the place to furnish technical or scientific explanations, it will be permitted us to point out the fact that although it is of essentially oriental manufacture, our anthropoid has undoubtedly undergone the Hellenistic influence, which implies an epoch posterior to that of Pericles, who died in 429 B.C. The personage represented, a man of mature age with noble lineaments and aquiline nose, has thick hair corned up on the forehead in the form of a crown, and a beard plaited in the Asiatic fashion. As for the head, which is almost entirely executed in round relief, that denotes in an undoubted manner the Hellenistic influence, united, however, with the immutable and somewhat hierarchical traditions of Phenician art. The arms are naked as far as to the elbow, and the feet, summarily indicated, emerge from a long sheath-form robe. As for the arms and hands, they project slightly and are rather outlined than sculptured. The left hand grasps a fruit, the emblem of fecundity, while the right held a painted crown, the traces of which have now entirely disappeared. It suffices to look at this sarcophagus to recognize the exclusively Phenician character of it, and the complete analogy with the monuments of the same species met with in Phenicia, in Cyprus, in Sicily, in Malta, in Sardinia, and everywhere where were established those of Tyre and Sidon, but never until now in Spain.

On another hand, for those of our readers who are interested in archæology, we believe it our duty to point out as a source of information a memoir published last year by our National Society of Antiquaries. Let us limit ourselves, therefore, to fixing attention upon one important point: The marble anthropoid was protected by a tomb absolutely like the rude tombs contiguous to it.

The successive discoveries since the third of last January at nearly the same place, and at a depth of from 3 to 6 meters beneath the surface, of numerous Inculi absolutely identical as to material and structure with those of which we have just spoken, is therefore a scientific event of high importance. Those discoveries, which were purely accidental, were brought about by the work on the foundations of the Maritime Arsenal now in course of construction at the gates of Cadiz. Our Fig. 1 represents the unearthing of the loculi on the 14th of April, and on the value of which there is no need to dwell. As to the dimensions, it is easy to judge of these, since the laborer standing to the left of the spectator holds in his hand a meter measure serving as a scale. It will suffice to state that the depth of each tomb is about two meters, and that upon the lower part of three of the parallelopipeds there exist pavements of crucial appearance. Finally, nothing denoted externally the existence of these sarcophagi jealously hidden from investigation according to a usage that is established especially by the imprecations graven upon the basaltic casket now preserved in the Museum of the Louvre, and which contained the ashes of Eshmanazar, King of Sidon.





                                       ANTHROPOID SARCOPHAGUS DISCOVERED AT CADIZ.






Space is wanting to furnish ampler information. Our object is simply to call attention to a zone which is somewhat neglected from a scientific point of view, and which, however, seems as if it ought to offer a valuable field of investigation to students of things Semitic, among whom, as well known, our compatriots hold a rank apart, since it is to them that falls the laborious and very honorable duty of collecting and editing the inscriptions in Semitic languages.

http://www.classicistranieri.com/american/1/5/0/5/15052/15052-h/images/13-sarco.png


On another hand, although in the beginning the sepulchers were taken to pieces and carried away (two of them imperfectly reconstructed may be seen in the garden of the Cadizian Museum), there will be an opportunity of making prevail the system of maintaining in situ the various monuments that may hereafter be discovered. Thus only could one, at a given moment, obtain an accurate idea of what the Phenician necropolis of Cadiz was, and allow the structures that compose it to preserve their imposing stamp of rustic indestructibility.

The excavation is being carried on at this very moment, and a bronze statuette of an oriental god and various trinkets of more or less value have just enriched the municipal collection. Let us hope, then, as was recently predicted by Mr. Clermont Ganneau, of the Institute, that some day or another some Semitic inscription will throw a last ray of light upon the past, which is at present so imperfectly known, of Phenician Cadiz.—L'Illustration.

[Bianca]

     

                      RELIEF OF ANCIENT PHOENICIAN SHIP

[Bianca]

CADIZ (ERYTHEIA) ISLAND AND CASTLE

[Mark of Australia]

Great info Bianca ,Thanks

It is interesting that Erytheia was one of the names of the island of Cadiz,very interesting. It sort of goes against the legend I have heard about Erytheia. So I don't think it's going to be cut and dry, but with 'Atlantis' it never is.

Basically from what I have read of Erytheia ,I think it IS Atlantis. I'll explain soon

[Bianca]

Well, Mark I kind of gathered that that was what you were after.

But unfortunately, Erytheia/Gades/Cadiz is all that's out there.

[Bianca]

Mark read the entry by JOHN, TEXAS - about halfway down


http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/northeast/guides/halloffame/historical/king_arthur.shtml


http://books.google.com/books?id=-Hmu4T1YQSYC&pg=RA1-PA200&lpg=RA1-PA200&dq=erytheia+legend&source=web&ots=3IZcoLIeGP&sig=iSIRbUE2hdZUxyFU66JHw9T7iOI



Check here periodically, I'll keep looking for you.

b.

[Bianca]

 Andalusia



Andalusia is a region in modern day southern Spain and host to the lost city of Tartessos, which disappeared in the 6th century BC. The Tartessians were traders and were known to the Ancient Greeks who knew of their legendary king Arganthonios. Werner Wickboldt (2003) in this theory suggest that the Atlanteans were the Sea Peoples who attacked the Eastern Mediterranean countries around 1200 BC, or proto-tartessians atlantic peoples of the Bronze Age (1800-1300 BC).[1] The Andalusian hypothesis was originally developed by the Spanish authors José Pellicer de Ossau i Tovar[2] in 1673 and Juan Fernández Amador y de los Ríos[3] in 1919, and afterwards by the German author Adolf Schulten in 1922, and further studied by Otto Jessen and Richard Hennig in the 1920s, and from 2000 is defended by Georgeos Diaz-Montexano.[4] Satellite images of the area show two rectangular structures and concentric circles which have been hypothesized to be the "temple of Poseidon" and "the temple of Cleito and Poseidon".[5] The original article by Rainer W. Kühne appeared in the "Journal of Antiquity".[6] Geologists have shown that the Donana National Park experienced intense erosion around 600 BC, where it became a marine environment (A. Rodriguez-Ramirez et al., Recent coastal evolution of the donana national park (SW Spain), in: Quaternary Science Reviews, Vol. 15 (1996) pp.803 -809). Due to alluvial sedimentation, the entire area has been above water again since the end of the Roman Empire.[7] See these photos[8] that appear in the Georgeos Diaz-Montexano's book and in the Atlantis Rising Forum.

Teogony of Hesiod, ten labors of Heracles, the castle of Geryon. Hercules killed the grandson of Poseidon, Geryon, at Erytheia, in this place he founded the city of Gaderia (now Cádiz, Spain). Erytheia is also one of the seven daughters of Atlas in the myth of the Hesperides.

The National Library of Norway and the Norwegian Institute of Palaeography and Historical Philology (PHI), assigned to the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and to the University of Oslo, Norway, have decided to consider the hypothesis of Georgeos Díaz-Montexano, a Cuban investigator of Spanish origin[9] on an epigraphical interpretation of one of the most ancient inscriptions of the world[10][11] atal-tarte (atlas/atlantis-tartessos?)[12]


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Location_hypotheses_of_Atlantis

[Qoais]

ERYTHEIA


 
The home of the three-bodied warrior, Geryon, slain by Herakles (Heracles) in the course of his Tenth Labor (Taking the Cattle of Geryon).

The location of Erytheia is simply given as a land in the far West; on the long journey to Erytheia, Herakles became so weary of the burning heat of Helios (the Sun), he raised his bow and shot an arrow at the burning god; Helios was so amused at Herakles’ impudence that he gave the hero a golden bowl to traverse the western sea.

Erytheia ("the red one") is one of the Hesperides. The name was applied to the island close to the coast

of southern Hispania, that was the site of the original Punic colony of Gades (modern Cadiz). Pliny's

Natural History (4.36) records of the island of Gades: "On the side which looks towards Spain, at about

 100 paces distance, is another long island, three miles wide, on which the original city of Gades stood.

By Ephorus and Philistides it is called Erythia, by Timæus and Silenus Aphrodisias, and by the natives the

Isle of Juno." The island was the seat of Geryon, who was overcome by Heracles.

Just out of idle curiosity, I wonder if anyone can tell me something about this Geryon and Hercules business.

It has always been in my mind, that the islands of the Hesperides - one of these being Geryon's - were south of the straits of Gibralter.  It did not dawn on me until today, reading Bianca's posts about Erytheia, that they were considered north of the straits.  Here's why I figured it the way I did.  Now in the story, Heracles stole Geryon's cattle and he was driving them home to Greece, with Geryon hot on his heels.  Now as the story goes, Heracles hit the rocks with his mace to open the straits of Gibralter so that Geryon couldn't catch him.  Now why would Heracles have to open passage between the north and south, when he was travelling East?  If this island of Geryon's was already on the northern side of the water, Heracles would simply drive the cattle east.  How does opening the straits of Gibralter, help him?  If he turned south with the cattle, THEN opened the straits to block Geryon, that would make sense, but how the hell was he going to get to Greece from Libya?  Ok, lets pretend he was going to load the cattle on a boat.  BUT, the story says he took a wrong turn, and ended up in Italy.  And if he was going by boat, why would he open a passage that Geryon could follow him thru?
Something is wrong with this picture.

Now if Geryon's island was south of the straits, then this makes sense.  Heracles would be driving the cattle north, then east, home to Greece.  By opening the Strait, he would effectively block off Geryon from following him.  The theory that puts the Hesperides off Morocco, makes more sense.   I suppose it's hot in Spain too, but for Heracles to get ticked off at "the burning sun", suggests to me that he's crossing a desert.  The God gives him a golden bowl to cross the "western sea" which to me, is the western end of the Med.

[Bianca]

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/3E*.html






                                                      S T R A B O


                                                  G E O G R A P H Y



 
p123 Book III Chapter 5




1 Of the islands which lie off Iberia, the two Pityussae, and the two Gymnesiae (which are also called the Baliarides),133 lie off the stretch of coast that is between Tarraco and Sucro, whereon Saguntum is situated; they are also out in the open sea, all of them, although the Pityussae have a greater inclination134 to the west than the Gymnesiae. p125Now one of the Pityussae is called Ebusus, and it has a city of the same name; the circuit of the island is four hundred stadia, with the breadth and the length about equal. The other island, Ophiussa, which lies near Ebusus, is desert and much smaller. Of the Gymnesiae, the larger has two cities, Palma and Polentia, one of which, Polentia, is situated in the eastern part of the island, and the other in the western. The length of the island falls but little short of six hundred stadia, and the breadth but little short of two hundred — although Artemidorus has stated the length and breadth at double these figures. The smaller of the two is about two hundred and seventy stadia distant from Polentia. Now although it falls far short of the larger island in size, it is in no respect inferior thereto in the excellence of its soil; for both are blessed with fertility, and also have good harbours, though the harbours are full of reefs at the entrances, so that there is need of vigilance on the part of those who sail in. And it is on account of the fertility of these regions that the inhabitants are peaceable, as is also the case with the people on the island of Ebusus. But merely because a few criminals among them had formed partnerships with the pirates of the high seas, they were all cast into disrepute, and an over-sea expedition was made against them by Metellus, surnamed Balearicus, who is the man that founded their cities. On account of the same fertility of their islands, however, the inhabitants are ever the object of plots, albeit they are peaceable; still they are spoken of as the best of slingers. And this art they have practised assiduously, so it is said, ever since the Phoenicians took possession p127of the islands. And the Phoenicians are also spoken of as the first to clothe the people there in tunics with a broad border; but the people used to go forth to their fights without a girdle on — with only a goat-skin, wrapped round the arm,135 or with a javelin that had been hardened in the fire (though in rare cases it was also pointed with a small iron tip), and with three slings worn round the head,136 of black-tufted rush (that is, a species of rope-rush, out of which the ropes are woven; and Philetas, too, in his "Hermeneia"137 says, "Sorry his tunic befouled with dirt; and round about him his slender waist is entwined with a strip of black-tufted rush," meaning a man girdled with a rush-rope), of black-tufted rush, I say, or of hair or of sinews: the sling with the long straps for the shots at short range, and the medium sling for the medium shots. And their training in the use of slings used to be such, from childhood up, that they would not so much as give bread to their children unless they first hit it with the sling.138 This is why Metellus, when he was approaching the islands from the sea, stretched hides above the decks as a protection against the slings. And he brought thither as colonists three thousand of the Romans who were in Iberia.

[Bianca]

2.  In addition to the fruitfulness of the soil, there p129is also the fact that no injurious animal can easily be found in the Gymnesiae. For even the rabbits there, it is said, are not native, but the stock sprang from a male and female brought over by some person from the opposite mainlind; and this stock was, for a fact, so numerous at first, that they even overturned houses and trees by burrowing beneath them, and that, as I have said,139 the people were forced to have recourse to the Romans. At present, however, the ease with which the rabbits are caught prevents the pest from prevailing; indeed, the landholders reap profitable crops from the soil. Now these islands are this side of what are called the Pillars of Heracles.

[Bianca]

STRABO - Book III Chapter 5




3.   Close to the Pillars there are two isles, one of which they call Hera's Island; moreover, there are some who call also these isles the Pillars.140 Gades, however, is outside the Pillars. Concerning Gades I have said only thus much, that it is about seven hundred and fifty stadia distant from Calpe141 (that is, it is situated near the outlet of the Baetis), but there is more to be said about it than the others. For example, here live the men who fit out the most and largest merchant-vessels, both for Our Sea and the outer sea, although, in the first place, it is no large island they live in, and secondly, they do not occupy much of the continent opposite the island, and, thirdly, are not well-off in the p131possession of other islands; indeed, they live mostly on the sea, though a mere few keep at home or else while away their time at Rome. In population, however, Gades does not fall short, it would seem, of any of the cities except Rome; at any rate I have heard that in one of the censuses of our own time there were five hundred men assessed as Gaditanian Knights — a number not equalled even in the case of the Italian cities except Patavium.142 But though the Gaditanians are so numerous, they occupy an island not much larger than a hundred stadia in length, and in places merely a stadium in breadth. As for their city, the one they lived in at first was very small indeed, but Balbus of Gades, who gained the honour of a triumph,143 founded another for them, which they call "Nea";144 and the city which is composed of the two they call "Didyme,"145 although it is not more than twenty stadia in circuit, and even at that not crowded. For only a few stay at home in the city, because in general they are all at sea, though some live on the continent opposite the island, and also, in particular, on account of its natural advantages, on the islet that lies off Gades;146 and because they take delight in its geographical position they have made the island a rival city, as it were, to Didyme.145 Only a few, however, comparatively speaking, live either on the islet or in the harbour-town147 which was constructed for them by Balbus on the opposite coast of the mainland. The city of Gades is situated on the westerly parts of the island; and next to it, at the extremity of p133the island and near the islet, is the temple of Cronus; but the temple of Heracles is situated on the other side, facing towards the east, just where the island runs, it so happens, most closely to the mainland, thus leaving a strait of only about a stadium in width.148 And they say that the temple is twelve miles149 distant from the city, thus making the number of the miles equal to that of the Labours;150 yet the distance is greater than that and amounts to almost as much as the length of the island; and the length of the island is that from the west to the east.151

[Bianca]

4.   By "ERYTHEIA," in which the myth-writers place the adventures of Geryon, Pherecydes seems to mean GADES.152 Others, however, think that Erytheia is the island that lies parallel to this city and is separated from it by a strait of a stadium in width,153 that is, in view of the fine pasturage there, because the milk of the flocks that pasture there yields no whey. And when they make cheese they first mix the milk with a large amount of water, on account of the fat in the milk. Further, the animals choke to death within fifty days, unless you open a vein and bleed them. The grass upon which they graze is dry, but it makes them very fat and it is from this fact, it is inferred, that the myth about the cattle of Geryon has been fabricated. The whole of the coast, however, is peopled jointly.154

[Bianca]

STRABO - Book III Chapter 5




 5.   In telling stories of the following sort about the founding of Gades, the Gaditanians recall a certain oracle, which was actually given, they say, to the Tyrians, ordering them to send a colony to the Pillars of Heracles: The men who were sent for the sake of spying out the region, so the story goes, believed, when they got near to the strait at Calpe, that the two capes which formed the strait were the ends of the inhabited world and of Heracles' expedition, and that the capes themselves were what the oracle called "Pillars"; and they therefore landed at a place inside155 the narrows, namely, where the city of the Exitanians now is; and there they offered sacrifice, but since the sacrifices did not prove favourable they turned homeward again; but the men who were sent at a later period went on outside the strait, about fifteen hundred stadia,156 to an island sacred to Heracles, situated near the city of Onoba in Iberia, and believing that this was where the Pillars were they offered sacrifice to the god, but since again the sacrifices did not prove favourable they went back home; but the men who arrived on the third expedition founded Gades, and placed the temple in the eastern part of the island but the city in the eastern. For this reason some are of the opinion that the capes at the strait are the Pillars; others, Gades; and others that they lie on ahead still farther outside the strait than Gades. Again, some have supposed that Calpe and Abilyx are the Pillars, Abilyx being that mountain in Libya p137opposite Calpe which is situated, according to Eratosthenes, in Metagonium, country of a nomadic tribe; while others have supposed that the isles near each mountain, one of which they call Hera's Island, are the Pillars. Artemidorus speaks of Hera's Island and her temple, and he says there is a second isle, yet he does not speak of Mount Abilyx or of a Metagonian tribe. There are some who transfer hither both the Planctae and the Symplegades, because they believe these rocks to be the pillars which Pindar calls the "gates of Gades" when he asserts that they are the farthermost limits reached by Heracles.157 And Dicaearchus, too, and Eratosthenes and Polybius and most of the Greeks represent the Pillars as in the neighbourhood of the strait. But the Iberians and Libyans say that the Pillars are in Gades, for the regions in the neighbourhood of the strait in no respect, they say, resemble pillars. Others say that it is the bronze pillars of eight cubits in the temple of Heracles in Gades, whereon is inscribed the expense incurred in the construction of the temple, that are called the Pillars; and those people who have ended their voyage with visiting these pillars and sacrificing to Heracles have had it noisily spread abroad that this is the end of both land and sea. Poseidonius, too, believes this to be the most plausible account of the matter,158 but that the oracle and the many expeditions from Tyre are a Phoenician lie.159 Now, concerning the expeditions, what could one affirm with confidence as to their falsity of the trustworthiness when neither of the two opinions is contrary to reason? But to deny that the isles or p139the mountains resemble pillars, and to search for the limits of the inhabited world or of the expedition of Heracles at Pillars that were properly so called, is indeed a sensible thing to do; for it was a custom in early times to set up landmarks like that. For instance, the people of Rhegium set up the column — a sort of small tower — which stands at the strait;160 and opposite this column there stands what is called the Tower of Pelorus.161 And in the land about midway between the Syrtes there stand what are called the Altars of the Philaeni.162 And mention is made of a pillar placed in former times on the Isthmus of Corinth, which was set up in common by those Ionians who, after their expulsion from the Peloponnesus, got possession of Attica together with Megaris, and by the peoples163 who got possession of the Peloponnesus; they inscribed on the side of the pillar which faced Megaris, "This is not the Peloponnesus, but Ionia," on the other, "This is the Peloponnesus, not Ionia."164 Again, Alexander set up altars,165 as limits of his Indian Expedition, in the farthermost regions reached by him in Eastern India, thus imitating Heracles and Dionysus. So then, this custom was indeed in existence.