Digs

Phoenician Spain

Since 2022 the University of Chicago has been collaborating with Spanish archaeologists to excavate the Iron Age Phoenician colony at the site of Cerro del Villar on the outskirts of the city of Málaga on the beautiful south coast of Spain (the Costa del Sol). Archaeological investigation of the remarkable efforts by Canaanites from the kingdom of Tyre (whom the Greeks called Phoenicians) to send ships and colonists to far-away Spain and Portugal is of great interest to biblical scholars. This was a major development, connecting for the first time the two ends of the Mediterranean and eventually all the places in between, and transforming economic and cultural relations and productions through the region. The colonization occurred in the ninth and eighth centuries BCE, from the time of King Ahab of Israel and his wife Jezebel, a princess of Tyre, to the reign of King Jeroboam II. A memory of the fleets sailing regularly to Spain is preserved in the references to “the ships of Tarshish” in the Book of Kings and the investment of the kings of Israel in this endeavor in alliance with the neighboring kings of Tyre.

The eight-hectare (20-acre) archaeological site of Cerro del Villar lies beside the Guadalhorce River, just one kilometer from the Mediterranean seashore. In ancient times it was an island in the wide mouth of the river, which has since silted up and has been canalized into two parallel water courses, as shown in the aerial photograph. The site was previously excavated by María Eugenia Aubet of the Pompeu Fabra University of Barcelona, a leading figure in the archaeology of the Phoenicians in Spain and author of the seminal book The Phoenicians and the West: Politics, Colonies, and Trade (2nd ed.; Cambridge, 2001). Professor Aubet found evidence that the site was settled by Phoenicians from the Levant no later than the early eighth century BCE, a bit later than the earliest Phoenician colony on the island of Cádiz (ancient Gadir), west of the Straits of Gibraltar.

Most Iron Age Phoenician towns are buried under modern cities and are largely inaccessible, thus Cerro del Villar provides a rare opportunity to obtain an extensive exposure of the urban layout and to investigate the causes and consequences of the exploration and colonization of the Iberian peninsula three millennia ago by people from the other end of the Mediterranean, 2,000 kilometers away. Long before the Greeks and Romans, these people — descendants of the Bronze Age Canaanites who lived on the coast of what is today Lebanon and northern Israel and were called “Phoenicians” by the Greeks — established a pan-Mediterranean network of trade and communication that affected the entire course of ancient history. They brought with them the urban culture of the Near East and the alphabetic writing system and religious beliefs, practices, and stories of the ancient Levant. In 2026, we will continue to widen and deepen our excavation area, reaching the earliest phase of the town from the eighth century BCE and understanding better the layout and functioning and development over time of an entire urban block or insula bounded by streets and plazas.

Details

Geographic Location

Málaga, Spain

Dates of the Dig

August 23 - September 19, 2026

Minimum Stay

2 weeks

Application Due

Friday, March 6, 2026

Academic Credit/Cost per Credit/Institution

Yes / $4,790 / 100 credit units are offered by the University of Chicago. Contact for more details.

Accommodations

Volunteers will be housed in a comfortable air-conditioned hotel 10 minutes from the excavation site with 2 or 3 persons per room (single rooms available for an additional fee) and with easy access via public transportation to downtown Malaga or to the beach of the Mediterranean Sea. We will be living in the beautiful resort area of the Costa del Sol on the coast of Andalucia, which has many tourist amenities and sites of interest.

Cost

Directors

Contact

David Schloen

[email protected]

To learn how you can get involved, visit their website and check them out on Instagram.