Punic Córdoba

[Justin of the New Yorkii]

Did such a thing exist?
Recently I've been reading a lot of material on Phoenician/Punic colonies in North Africa and Spain, and thanks to archaeological research in the past century it is now possible to trace many of these settlements back to the year they were founded by Phoenician colonists, or at least to the century in which they were founded (Lixus, Mogador, Ibiza for example).

But I'm having trouble narrowing down the origins of Córdoba, the Spanish city in Andalusia. The only concrete dates I have found are 206 BC, when the Romans won the Battle of Ilipa, and 169 BC when they established a colony there.

Everything that I have read online has vague references to it being a Punic settlement before the Romans arrived, but no specific information.
In fact, it's usually so vague that I read about "Phoenician influences" arriving centuries earlier, which leads me to believe that maybe the traders from Gades and Malaga had found their way up the Guadalquivir river to trade with the locals, but I'm still having a hard time finding when Punic power and authority extended into the Guadalquivir River Valley, at least until the Barcids arrived in Spain.

And if you look at a map, the site of Córdoba doesn't really look like a cookie-cutter Phoenician trade settlement. With every other Phoenician settlement I've seen, the most striking thing is how close they built to the sea shore. For example, it could not have been possible to build Mogador, Ibiza and Gades any closer to the sea. Carthage itself is another example. But Córdoba is almost 100 miles inland, north of Malaga.
That said, the Guadalqivir was navigable all the way up to Córdoba during Punic times. So maybe they brought their boats up the river.

So does anyone know if there is archaeological or literary evidence of Punic power and authority in Córdoba before the Barcids arrived? Was it like a regular colony, where citizens were imported to live there and work the land year-round?
Or was it firmly under the control of some Iberian tribe, allowing the Phoenician traders access solely for commerce?

[Jona Lendering]

If I remember correctly, part of the evidence is linguistic. You can still recognize the element "Kart" in the name, "city". The present name of the river, Guadalquivir, is of course Arab (Wad al-Kivir, "great river"), but its ancient name, "Baetis", is also a rendering of a Semitic word, comparabale to "wad".

I remember (from a visit in 1991 or so) that some masonry in Carmona was believed to be Punic; I have duly noted it but am unable to confirm or contradict it.

[Justin of the New Yorkii]

Thanks Jona. I was actually going to ask if anyone knew what 'Baetis' means, but you're one step ahead of me.

I probably shouldn't have asked "did [a Punic settlement at Cordoba] exist?', because one did clearly, but the question is for how long. For all I know, it could have been founded as 700 BC, or it could have been one of Hamilcar Barca's projects.

One thing I do know is that the Phoenician traders from Tyre established Malaga and Gades at a very early date, earlier than Carthage was founded, so it's tempting to assume that Córdoba has to be really old too simply because of its proximity to those other two settlements.

But those traders clearly preferred to hug the shores, and to me, it doesn't seem unreasonable to say that perhaps the old Phoenician traders stayed right there on the shore for centuries without bothering to go farther inland until the Barcids came with the goal of consolidating Punic holdings in Iberia during the 3rd century BC.

Like most Punic things, it's shrouded in mystery. That's part of what makes it so cool. :wink:

[Nearco]

I got a question, in my father's village (Puebla de Alcocer, Badajoz province) there is a carthaginian tower. Have you got any info about it? I can't find too much

The village is not too far from the Cordoba province and 160 km north of Cordoba city

[Justin of the New Yorkii]

I got a question, in my father's village (Puebla de Alcocer, Badajoz province) there is a carthaginian tower. Have you got any info about it? I can't find too much

The village is not too far from the Cordoba province and 160 km north of Cordoba city

I am starting to think that until the Barcids were tasked with consolidating southern Spain in the 3rd century BC, the Phoenician and Carthaginian traders hugged the coast as closely as possible and mostly stayed away from the interior. As the scholar Michel Gras said, "the Phoenicians always install themselves between land and sea."

Certainly the Carthaginians expanded as far as Cordoba and the site of that tower where your dad lives, but from what I can tell it appears this didn't come until relatively late in Punic history. Serge Lancel refers to the Barcid conquests as "the Spanish hour" of Carthaginian history.
But the Guadalquivir, or Baetis, flowed out to to a place where the Phoenicians were present at an early date (the Gulf of Cadiz), which explains the Semitic nature of its name.

The only sites in southern Spain that date back to the end of the Bronze Age and of which we can be reasonably certain were Punic based on archaeological evidence are Villaricos, Adra, Amunecar, Chorreras, Toscanos, Mezquitilla, Malaga, Guadalhorce, Gibraltar and Cadiz. There are other Punic sites in southern Spain, but none that show archaeological evidence dating back to the end of the Bronze Age, only later.
And on a map with those sites you can see what I mean by "cookie-cutter" Phoenician settlements; they could not possibly be any closer to the shore, and they're spaced out almost like rest stops on a modern roadway, regularly spaced at intervals that would allow traders to stop for supplies and rest.
It should also be noted that "settlements" in the Punic sense are not like the colonies that the Greeks established. The Greeks often would build entire cities from scratch and send thousands of colonists to populate them.
Punic settlements were more like outposts; Ibiza for example, was for centuries basically just a dock, a warehouse, a lodge (I wouldn't use the word "palace") for the boss man, some houses and simple defensive structures, maybe a temple and a plot set aside for a cemetery.
But who knows? A lot of the discoveries in that area have come during the past 50 or 60 years, so maybe there's more waiting to be uncovered.

Tartessos is a real pain in the neck because literary sources make it seem like a gold mine, but it was located somewhere at the mouth of the Guadalquivir, which unfortunately has changed course several times over the years and left wetlands that some archaeologists think might have consumed the ruins of Tartessos entirely.
But I would LOVE to pick up a newspaper someday and read about archaeologists finding the site of Tartessos intact. Unlikely, I know, but it would make my day.