BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

The Mediterranean’s Master Traders

A Phoenician settlement in southern Spain

The Phoenicians were the maritime traders par excellence during the Iron Age. By the late ninth century BCE, they had ventured from their home cities of Tyre and Sidon in the Levant, sailing across the Mediterranean to establish coastal settlements in Cyprus, North Africa, and western Europe. At multiple locations in what is now southern Spain—likely biblical Tarshish—there arose thriving commercial centers where the Phoenicians developed vital trade relationships with local populations, thus extending Mediterranean trade to the western end of the ancient world.

Among the settlements built by the Phoenicians in Spain was the site of Cerro del Villar on the edge of the Bay of Málaga. In the Summer 2025 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, archaeologists Caroline López-Ruiz, David Schloen, and José Suárez Padilla share a rich summary of their findings at this fascinating site in their article entitled “From Tyre to Tarshish: The Phoenicians in Spain.”

The site of Cerro del Villar sits alongside the mouth of the Guadalhorce River near the modern city of Málaga. In antiquity, the area was a marshy network of islets and channels by which the river made its way to the coast. Contemplating the reasons this site was chosen for settlement by the Phoenicians, the authors highlight the robust trade relationship that the coastal settlement had with the local population of Tartessos (whence the biblical name “Tarshish”), who rose to prominence due to their control of the region’s rich metal resources. Yet notably, as at other Phoenician sites in southern Spain, a clear sense of identity was maintained by the settlers; about 100 miles away in Gadir (modern Cádiz), for example, a temple was built to Melqart, the chief Phoenician deity. The bonds they maintained with their Levantine homeland thus went beyond Mediterranean trade and extended to social, cultural, religious, and political connections as well.

This meant that the Phoenician trade network at its height was both robust and lasting across the entire Mediterranean world. A wide variety of lucrative industries powered the Phoenician maritime economy, including timber, purple dye, ivory, ostrich eggs, salted fish, and, probably most profitable of all, metals such as silver and tin. Needless to say, these expert sailors and traders gained great renown throughout the ancient world, as we know from Assyrian, biblical, Greek, and Roman texts.

Cerro del Villar is nearly 20 acres in size, built on what was in antiquity the largest of several islets at the mouth of the Guadalhorce. The coastal settlement thrived between the eighth and sixth centuries BCE. Building on excavations conducted decades ago, a joint team from the University of Málaga and the University of Chicago’s Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures returned to the site to learn as much as they could about the urban layout of the town, the commercial and industrial activities conducted there, and its position as a bridge between local and greater Mediterranean trade networks.

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The town was one of a handful in the Guadalhorce delta, and together these sites provide archaeologists with a unique perspective on the lives of the Phoenicians in Spain. Cerro del Villar itself was a well-planned urban community featuring a regular grid of streets that were lined with large multi-room residences as well as indoor commercial structures. One street in particular has revealed a series of buildings on whose ground floors were dedicated industrial spaces for tasks such as metalworking, pottery production, and the conduct of trade-related business.

The town’s houses are built with multiple rooms surrounding a central courtyard. They are mixed-use buildings with both working and living spaces, and closely resemble other Phoenician homes both at nearby sites and at locations across southern Spain—indeed, the late Spanish archaeologist María Eugenia Aubet observed that they are nearly identical in style and construction to the homes built early in the Phoenician settlement of Carthage on the coast of northern Africa. The clear implication is that Cerro del Villar was home to a significant number of wealthy merchants.

As a center of pottery production, Cerro del Villar exported a wide array of goods in locally made amphorae, including salted fish and agricultural goods, to sites across southern Spain as well as the broader Mediterranean. In return, this brought a wide variety of fine ceramics—not only Phoenician pottery from distant locations, but also Greek and Etruscan wares. Likewise, the abundance of fishhooks and fishing weights discovered at the site speak to its dependence on maritime trade.

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Meanwhile, plant remains discovered at Cerro del Villar demonstrate its intimate connection to local cultivated lands across Iberia. The agricultural labor of local populations generated a variety of staples such as barley, wheat, legumes, grapes, and olives; in return for these supplies, local peoples gained access to international goods and luxury objects, including worked metal and ivories. This relationship with regional groups made Cerro del Villar an important “node of exchange” between Iberia and the broader Mediterranean.

Although archaeology has revealed little about the social and political dynamics at the site, it has been more forthcoming with regard to ritual practices. One house in Cerro del Villar yielded a room partially paved with seashells that contained possible ritual deposits, including ostrich eggs and oil lamps. Additionally, a fragment of a volute capital, similar to those found in monumental graves and shrines across the Phoenician world, was discovered at the site. When we view finds like these in conjunction with data from other Phoenician sites in southern Spain—many of which attest burial grounds, cultic structures, and the like—we begin to glimpse the complex ritual life of the inhabitants of Cerro del Villar.

Ultimately, the natural environment played a significant role in the life—and demise—of the town at Cerro del Villar. Given its location in a marshy lowland area, the town was prone to flooding both from upstream and from the sea. It was flooded several times over the two centuries of its existence, with at least some of these events being catastrophic enough to require wholescale rebuilding and renovation. It is likely that this precarious situation is what ultimately led to the abandonment of Cerro del Villar as a residential settlement in the sixth century BCE.

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For more on Cerro del Villar, read the article by Carolina López-Ruiz, David Schloen, and José Suárez Padilla entitled “From Tyre to Tarshish: The Phoenicians in Spain,” published in the Summer 2025 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

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Subscribers: Read the full article, “From Tyre to Tarshish: The Phoenicians in Spain,” by Carolina López-Ruiz, David Schloen, and José Suárez Padilla, in the Summer 2025 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

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