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The Cyclopean Walls at Tarragona*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Julio Martinez Santa-Olalla
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Extract

If the description of the 6th century Massalian Periplus, preserved in the Ora Maritima of Rufus Festus Avienus,l does not refer to Tarragona, as almost all scholars agree with Professor Bosch Gimpera2 in believing, then one can only say that to no other city of the Spanish coast can that account of its walls be applied with greater appropriateness.

Seldom does it happen, as at Tarragona, that the ancient walls retain intact throughout the ages the embodiment of history amid the modern life of the city, and nowhere else with such charm and grandeur as that of Cesse with its true Iberian atmosphere. Usually the huge blocks of the primitive cyclopean wall are overlaid with reconstructions and refacings of the Roman, Visigothic and Medieval periods and of the modern Spanish fortifications.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 10 , Issue 37 , March 1936 , pp. 72 - 76
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1936

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Footnotes

*

Translated by the Editor, who thanks Mr A. W. Clapham, F.S.A., for first drawing his attention to the subject, and Mr W. J. Hemp, F.S.A., for one of the illustrations.

References

1 Callipolis ilia, quae per altam moenium proceritatem et celsam per fastigia subibat auras, quae laris vasti ambitu latere ex utroque piscium semper ferax stagnum impre–mebat.

2 Problemes d’historia antiga i ¿‘arqueología tarragonina. Tarragona, 1925. The site has been placed between Tarraco and Salauris by W. Christ, Avien und die ältesten Nachrichten über Iberien und die Westküste Europa's, (Abhandlungen der K. Bayer. Akademie der W. I. Cl., Band xi, Abt. 1, München, 1865), and A. Schulten (Fontes Hispaniae Antiquae, 1, Avieni Ora Maritima, Barcelona–Berlin, 1922) ; K. Müllenhoff identified it with Barcino (Deutsche Altertumskunde, Berlin, 1890).

3 I thus translate the Spanish ‘ recinto ’ which corresponds to the French ‘ enceinte ’ and the German ‘ Ringwalle ’. The word is used in the west of England to describe the stone walls, usually of large blocks (‘ Giant’s hedges ’). TRANSLATOR.

4 Pons Icart, L. Libro de las grandezas de Tarragona,Lérida, 1572 Google Scholar

5 Müller, K. Tiryns, 3; Google Scholar Die Architektur der Burg und des Palastes, Augsburg 1930.Google Scholar

6 Santa-Olalla, J. Martinez De Prehistoria mediterranea. Las islas Baleares y su cultura prerromana,(Actas y Memorias de la Sociedad Española de Antropologia, Etnografia y Prehistoria, 9 1930). Google Scholar

7 Gimpera, P. Bosch, Serra-Rafols, J.de C.,i Castillo, A.del Emporion Barcelona, 1934 Google Scholar

8 See note 1

9 Schulten, A. Die Etrusker in Spanien Klio, 1930. Google ScholarThe philological basis has been discussed by Battisti, C. ‘ Tarracina-Tarraco e alcuni toponimi del nuovo Lazio’ Studi Etruschi 6, 1933 Google Scholar

10 Rhys Carpenter, ‘The Greeks in Spain’, Bryn Mawr, 1925

11 Santa-Olalla, J. Martinez ‘Elementos para un estudio de la cultura de los talayots en Menorca’ Actas y Memorias de la Sociedad Española de Antropologia Etnografia y Prehistoria 15 1935.Google Scholar

12 Schachermeyr, F. Etruskische Frühgeschichte Berlin und Leipzig, 1929.CrossRefGoogle Scholar(reviewed in ANTIQUITY, 1930, iv, 528, by Dr Randall Maclver).

13 Santa-Olalla, J. Martinez review of Bonsor, G. ‘An archaeological sketchbook of the Roman necropolis at Carmona’ Actas y Memorias 1934,xiii, 247.Google Scholar

14 Ib. id., 1935, xiv (‘Fortificaciones ibéricas ’).

15 The ruins are situated on a hill beside the road from Cordoba to Priego, at the confluence of the rivers Salabo and San Juan.

16 Engel, A. Paris, P. ‘Une forteresse ibérique à Osuna’ Fouilles de 1903. Google Scholar Archives des Missions Scientifiques vol. xiir. 1934,xiii, Paris, 1906.Google Scholar