Tartessos (Spanish: Tarteso) is, as defined by archaeological discoveries,an historical civilization settled in the region of Southern Spain characterized by its mixture of local Paleohispanic and Phoenician traits. It had a proper writing system, identified as Tartessian, that includes some 97 inscriptions in a Tartessian language. In the historical records Tartessos (Greek: Ταρτησσός) or Tartessus appears as a antecessor semi-mythica harbor city and the surrounding culture on the south coast of the Iberian Peninsula (in modern Andalusia, Spain), at the mouth of the Guadalquivir River. It appears in sources from Greece and the Near East starting during the first millennium BC. Herodotus, for example, describes it as beyond the Pillars of Heracles (Strait of Gibraltar).Roman authors tend to echo the earlier Greek sources but from around the end of the millennium there are indications that the name Tartessos had fallen out of use and the city may have been lost to flooding, though several authors attempt to identify it with cities of other names in the area.The Greek historians describe Tartessos as the first Western civilization.
