2,600-Year-Old Stone Reliefs In Spain Reveal Early Depictions Of An Ancient Dark Civilization

Archaeologists in Spain have unearthed five 5th-century stone reliefs of human faces belonging to the ancient Tartessian culture of the 8th and 4th centuries BCE.

The two most complete of these artifacts each depict women wearing jewelry. This decoration and the technical skill employed to produce the faces have led scholars to speculate that they may represent female deities from the Tartessian pantheon. Alternatively, women may have been prominent figures in Tartessian society. Another of the figures is believed to represent a warrior.

The Tartessos civilization inhabited the south of the Iberian Peninsula and is known to us only through archaeological finds. It was previously thought to be an aniconic culture that represented deities only indirectly via animal, plant or baetylus (sacred stones) motifs. This new discovery could therefore lead to a major change in the understanding of historians of this obscure ancient period.

The discovery was made at the Iron Age site of Casas del Turuñuelo in the province of Badajoz, which includes a large two-storey building consisting of adobe walls on stone foundations. Although it has been known since the 1990s, it was first explored in 2015 as part of “Tartesos building», a project that analyzes the materials, architectural plans and construction techniques of culture. The building turned out to be exceptionally well preserved, and researchers were even able to walk on the top floor intact.

This latest effort, the fifth excavation of the site, saw archaeologists focus their efforts on an area to the east of the complex as they attempted to locate the front of the structure and the entrance to a courtyard where the animals were. ritually slaughtered.

The research has been carried out since 2015 by the Institute of Archeology of Mérida, an organization that associates the Spanish National Council for Scientific Research and the local government of Extremadura.

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