Tartessos attracted the admiration of the Hellenes for being a culture as ancient as Egypt. I always thought that was Tartessos in Spain south of the Lusitanians, those latter being paraCelts like Italians so not particularly civilised. We just had some work done which noted that Lusitanian barbarism petered out toward Gades, which became a famed port with the Punici. So: how about Tartessos?
Tartessos might, in fact, not just be Spain. h/t Reynolds: Oued Beht. Morocco didn't just share their U5b women across that Strait; they also shared ostrich eggs and ivory. And customs.
If we accept that the Greeks were several days away by ship so not always clear on the cultures on the Atlantic edge; Tartessos might actually be as ancient as the Greeks thought it was. One must consider if the thirteenth-century BC upheavals hit the Maghreb too.
"Tartessos" in the early Classical age may have been reduced to a rump state in Spain; desperately learning Punic, Greek, and/or Celtic to survive. Tartessians would remember they were once more than this.
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