The queen of Tarshish

Classical Antiquity believed that Tartessos, from the Pillars of Hercules over to the Algarve, was the most ancient European society - older than Greece herself. The Bible mentions a far-west "Tarshish" which most scholars assume is the same. This culture never quite made it to the Punic Age let alone to the Romans.

I was intrigued by this because Iron Age Tarshish didn't really look all that special in context. I mean, sure: they had monumental literacy (in a language-isolate), wealth, trade. But we get the same Early Iron vibe from the Philistines. Even the Etruscans passed down that linen wrap with all that magickal silliness.

So now we find, not from the southwest of Spain, but its southeast in Murcia: 2200-1550 BC grave goods. Comparing volcanoes - the culture spans Avellino and may even survive Thera.

Third from the top Roberto Risch from Barcelona is head of this dig, I'm guessing a German-ancestral Jew, maybe by way of the Americas. Cristina Rihuete Herrada is another headsperson on the paper.

Interesting title on this one - Bronze age burial site in Spain suggests women were among rulers. Read on and Risch says shortly after the woman dies, the whole settlement is burned down. Before we let /pol/ handle this one (or /r9k/) . . .

By the way 1550 BC isn't EBA, it's MBA even LBA. Bio-females could be excellent kings [male gender] in the Middle Bronze Age. Pharaoh Hatshepsut might have been the best ruler Egypt ever had. As for the Murcian Queen, I think this one - like Isabella - ruled Spain as a woman. But she was no Hatshepshut.

The likeliest (final) cause of death was tuberculosis. If a plague caused a succession crisis, sometimes a monarchy will pick what they got. And if she dies too, well... they're basically screwed. But she was ailing before that. She was born a mutant with a bad back and a short thumb. Looks like an inbred. She had a child: they found that infant's remains too. It all looks like the last days of Sasanian Iran. Or the last Eighteenth Dynasty princes in Egypt.

As for what came next, well, it's not Sea People Time yet, but there could have been some Lusitanians and Celts roaming the place, because that's what the Carthaginians will be seeing in the Age Of Iron. Did the Murcian survivors pack up and move west?