— Tartessus, Taprrjcrcros, probably a Phoenician emporium, 'whether among the
Tartessii in the vicinity of the present Cadiz, or at some other point within the Mediterranean,
lay unquestionably in Spain. Hither Solomon and Hiram dispatched their
commercial navies (1 Kings x. 22; 2 Chron. ix. 21), ; and thence, about the time of
the Babylonish captivity (Ezekiel xxvii. 12 ; Jeremiah x. 9), silver, tin, iron, and lead,
were imported, through Tyre, into the Levant. - The presence of silver, tin, and lead,
upo^Sgyptian mummies of every age back, to the XVIIIth dynasty, establishes,
beyond dispute, epochas far earlier than those of any . Hebrew writers, Moses inclusive,
for relations of trade between the N ile , and whatever western regions,
probably Spain, whence those articles were introduced : so, no doubts on relative antiquity
need arise upon Iberian Tartessus. It corresponds perfectly to Tarshish in later
parts of Hebrew annals. But there, is a third element in the discussion, unknown to
Anglo-Saxon divinity, which it is due to our contemporary Michel-Angelo Lanci, Professor
of Sacred Philology at the Vatican, not to overlook.
C-— Tarsis does not proceed from Tur-sus ; but from the old Semitic root rasas, preserved
in Arabic, meaning ‘ to wet,’, ‘ to lave.’ With the primeval feminine article t
prefixed to it, Tarshish means ‘ land laved by the sea / that is, the sea-shore ; and, in
consequence, “ vessels of (Tarshish ” often signifies coasters, irrespectively of any geographical
attribution. For example—-w e should read, “ thou breakest the coasiing-
vessels” (not ships of a place,called Tarshish,) “ with an east-wind.” (Es. xlviii. 7.)
Again, “ The kings of maritime states ( Tarshish) and of inland regions (Ilm) shall present
offerings.” (Ps. lxxii. 10.) And finally, not to digress here on that most prolific
theme, the mistranslations consecrated in King James’s Version, compare “ Sheba and
Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish,. with all the y dung lions ( ! ) thereof” — (Ezek.
xxxviii. 13) — with Land’s lucid Italian rendering:. “ The inhabitants of the strong
places of terra-firma, Saba and Dedan, and the maritime merchandizers and their colonists
will say to thee ” — (Gli abitatori de’ forti luoghi di terra ferma, Saba e Dedan, e i
mercatanti marittimi e i loro coloni dir anno a te,}
This derivation of Tarshish, from T-rasas, bears upon the geographical inquiry so far
as concerns the marine position of a territory to which the name is applied.
The following passages are note-worthy in our discussion : —
1st- f - (2 Chron. xx. 36J Jehoshaphat “ joined himself with him (Ahaziah) to make
ships to go to Tarshish ; and they made the ships at Etsion-gaber.” Now, • this arsenal
lay near Elaih, on the Elanitic arm of the Red Sea, not far from Akaba; and therefore,
in those days, the Jews were not likely to have intended a circumnavigation of
Africa to reach Tartessus in Spain ! Nor is it probable that, after building galleys at
enormous cost on the Red Sea, the Hebrews contemplated.transportation backwards
over the Isthmus to launch them again on the Mediterranean.
2d. — (1 Kings xxii. 48.) But we learn that “ Jehoshaphat made ships of Tarshish
to go to Ophir for gold : but they went not ; for the ships Were broken at Etsion-gaber.”
What other construction but “ coasting voyages” will suit Tarshish, in the former passage?
What other than “ coasting vessels” could go by sea from Akaba to Ophir (on
the Persian Gulf, as we shall see,) in the latter ?
Here, then, without question, Tarshish refers to “ coasters,” or “ maritime merchandizers,”
sailing down the Red Sea towards India, and not to Spain.
3d. — (2 Chron. ix. 21.) “ For the king’s (Solomon) ships went to Tarshish with the
servants of Huram ; every three years, once came (back) the ships of Tarshish, bringing
gold and silver, SAiN-HaBIM (teeth, of elephants?), KUPAIM (apes), and TAKIIM
(peacocks?).” The parallel passaged Kings x. 22, enumerates the same articles, but
has “ fleet of Tarshish.” So, “ coasting vessels,” and not a locality, seems intended by
both writers. This is confirmed by Gesenius, who says that “ a ship of Tarshish ” meant
“ any large merchant vessel in general.”
All the articles named, with one exception, might have been imported equally well
from the African coast of the Gates of Hercules, opposite to the Spanish Tartessus, as
from Southern Arabia, Ophir, &c. ; because elephants abounded m Barbary, even m
Homan times ; wliile “Apes-hill,” at Gibraltar, even now corresponds to the opposite
Atlantic range, where apes are as common as African baboons in Arabia;; whence the
latter are brought now-a-days to Cairo.
But the exception excludes Spain, and all Northern Africa. The singular ,
pointed Thuk, like its homonyme Taodk, and Taobs, in Arabic, Turkish, &c., is considered
to/mean ‘peacock.’ If so — and there is no.actual impossibility tjyit.spch a
“ rara avis” should have been brought rà;Arabia. by the coasting trade — /«'dm is the
country of peacocks; and therefore these birds were not procurable at Tartessus, in
Spain, 1000 years b . c. ... ' (
Peacocks are not impossible; but a new reading is submitted, e q u a l l y destructive
of Spanish Tartessii in these texts.
It is certain that cocks and hens (the common fowl), as well as geese, are never mentioned
in the canonical writings of the Hebrews. Nor fowls in authentic works of
Homer; nor by Herodotus. The Pharaonic Egyptians knew not the common fowl;
using geese, ducks, and these birds’ eggs, instead. But one instance of possibly a
“ cocKs head,” and that a stuffed specimen, occurs on Nilotic monuments. It is m the
“ Grand Procession” of tributes to Thotmes III., as Pickering first indicated. Etruscan
vases, being of later manufacture, are no exception to the rule that the common fowl
had not reached Europe, or Asia west and north of the Euphrates, or Africa, before
the conquests of the Achemænians, É. c. 540, downwards. It is also positive, that the
centres of creation for this bird are Indo-Chinese and Australasian; and that, like
peacocks-, they had' to be imported into Arabia from India. Now, in Arabic, a cock is
called ‘ Dèyk,’ Di'K. Stripped of the modern Masora,. the Hebrew word is T<E, or
D»K.’ May not the common fowl, in lieu of peacock, be alluded to in the above passages?
It is as probable as pheasant, proposed by others; and about the same ages
:(b. c. 1 1 1 0 ) 'white pheasants, probably from Caffraria, were received, at the court of
Tchmg-wang, in China ; according to Pauthier.■
Bochart, following Eusebius’s bapcds % «“ EvMÈ—the Iberians of Spain and the
generality of English commentators, fix upon Tartessus as the equivalent for Tarshish
of Xth Genesis. Continental- orientalists of our day lean towards the Cilician Tharsis,
Tarsus;'upon the earlier authority of Josephus, and of Jonathan, the Chaldee para-
phrast. ■ And, without dogmatizing in the least upon either view, the order in which
Ionic affiliations succeed each other— Æolia, Tarshish, Kiltim the Cyprians, and Rho-
danim the Bhodiahs— coupled with the geographical proximity of Bhodes and Cyprus
to Tarsous, on the Caramanian coast, seems confirmatory of those opinions which
select Tarsus, in Cilicia, as the locality indicated by : the writer of Xth Genesis for
Tarshish. There is .no difficulty with regard to the antiquity of Cilician Tarsous;
because Mr. Birch read, long ago, “ This is the vile slave from Tarsus of the sea,”
inscribed in hieroglyphics, during the thirteenth century b . c., over a captive of
Ramses III.589
13. OTÛ — KTfIM — ‘ K it t im ’ ; plural of KiTf.
Language uncertain. Not, ‘ they that bruise,’ or gold; nor, ‘hidden, &c.
Three Mediterranean countries have been supposed, by commentators to be figured
by the various etymons of this word: Italy, Macedonia, and ■ Cyprus ; besides, many
“ islands.” The.first, resting solely upon the fanciful analogies of Kcna, in Latram,
and K e t o s , a river near Cumæ, although supported by the erudition of Bochart, may
now be dismissed without ceremony.
Kiltim, as Ma/certa, after Alexander’s conquests had made Macedonia renowned, is
the'acceptation in which it appears in two latest books of-the Hebrews Daniel (xi.
30) and 1 Maccabees (i. 1) ; equally canonical in archæology.
The books belonging mainly to the period between Alexander ( b . c . 330) and the
Babylonish captivity — say, from Ililkiah’s high-priesthoodr about b . c. 630, down