Tarshish (Hebrew: תַּרְשִׁישׁ) occurs in the Hebrew Bible with several uncertain meanings, most frequently as a place (probably a large city or region) far across the sea from the Land of Israel and Phoenicia. Tarshish was said to have supplied vast quantities of important metals to Israel and Phoenicia. The same place-name occurs in the Akkadian inscriptions of Esarhaddon (the Assyrian king, d. 669 BC) and also on the Phoenician inscription on the Nora Stone, indicating that it was a real place; its precise location was never commonly known, and was eventually lost in antiquity. Legends grew up around it over time so that its identity has been the subject of scholarly research and commentary for more than two thousand years. Its importance stems in part from the fact that Hebrew biblical passages tend to understand Tarshish as a source of King Solomon's great wealth in metals - especially silver, but also gold, tin and iron (Ezekiel 27). The metals were reportedly obtained in partnership with King Hiram of Phoenician Tyre (Isaiah 23), and the fleets of Tarshish-ships. However, Solomon's Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians, thus archaeological evidence has been difficult to uncover.
Contents
- Hebrew Bible
- Identifications and interpretations
- Sardinia
- Either Sardinia or Spain
- Spain
- Phoenician coast
- Tyrsenians or Etruscans
- Britain
- Southeast Africa
- Southern India and Ceylon
- Philippines
- Tarshishim as fiery angels
- Other
- References
The existence of Tarshish in the western Mediterranean, along with any Phoenician presence in the western Mediterranean before circa 800 .B.C was questioned by some scholars in modern times, because there had been no recognized evidence; instead, the lack of evidence for wealth in Israel and Phoenicia during the reigns of Solomon and Hiram, respectively, prompted a few scholars to opine that the archaeological period in Mediterranean prehistory between 1200 and 800 BC was a 'Dark Age' (Muhly 1998).
The Septuagint, the Vulgate and the Targum of Jonathan render Tarshish as Carthage, but other biblical commentators as early as 1646 (Samuel Bochart) read it as Tartessos in ancient Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula), near Huelva and Sevilla today. The Jewish-Portuguese scholar, politician, statesman and financier Isaac Abravanel (A.D. 1437–1508) described Tarshish as “the city known in earlier times as Carthage and today called Tunis. One possible identification for many centuries preceding the French scholar Bochart (d. 1667), and following the Roman historian Flavius Josephus (d. 100 A.D.), had been with inland town of Tarsus in Cilicia (south-central Turkey).
American scholars William F. Albright (1891-1971) and Frank Moore Cross (1921-2012) suggested Tarshish was Sardinia because of the discovery of the Nora Stone, whose Phoenician inscription mentions Tarshish. Cross read the inscription to understand that it was referring to Tarshish as Sardinia. Recent research into hacksilber hoards has also suggested Sardinia.
Hebrew Bible
Tarshish also occurs 24 times in the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible with various meanings:
Identifications and interpretations
Tarshish is placed on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea by several biblical passages (Isaiah 23, Jeremiah 10:9, Ezekiel 27:12, Jonah 1:3, 4:2), and more precisely: west of Palestine (Genesis 10:4, 1 Chronicles 1:7); 2 Chronicles 9:21 erroneously situates it on the Red Sea. It is described as a source of various metals: "beaten silver is brought from Tarshish" (Jeremiah 10:9), and the Phoenicians of Tyre brought from there silver, iron, tin and lead (Ezekiel 27:12). The context in Isaiah 23:6 and 66:19 seems to indicate that it is an island, and from Palestine it could be reached by ship, as attempted by Jonah (Jonah 1:3) and performed by Solomon's fleet (2 Chronicles 9:21). Some modern scholars identify Tarshish with Tartessos, a port in southern Spain, described by classical authors as a source of metals for the Phoenicians, while Josephus' identification of Tarshish with the Cilician city of Tarsus is even more widely accepted. However, a clear identification of Tarshish is not possible, since a whole array of Mediterranean sites with similar names are connected to the mining of various metals.
Sardinia
Thompson and Skaggs argue that the Akkadian inscriptions of Esarhaddon (AsBbE) indicate that Tarshish was an island (not a coastland) far to the west of the Levant. In 2003, Christine Marie Thompson identified the Cisjordan Corpus, a concentration of hacksilber hoards in Israel and the Palestinian Territories (Cisjordan). This Corpus dates between 1200 and 586 BC, and the hoards in it are all silver-dominant. The largest hoard was found at Eshtemo'a, present-day as-Samu, and contained 26 kg of silver. Within it, and specifically in the geographical region that was part of Phoenicia, is a concentration of hoards dated between 1200 and 800 BC. There is no other known such concentration of silver hoards in contemporary Mediterranean, and its date-range overlaps with the reigns of King Solomon (990 - 931 BC) and Hiram of Tyre (980 - 947 BC). Hacksilber objects in these Phoenician hoards have lead isotope ratios that match ores in the silver-producing regions of Sardinia and Spain, only one of which is a large island rich in silver. Contrary to translations that have been rendering Assyrian tar-si-si as 'Tarsus' up to the present time, Thompson argues that the Assyrian tablets inscribed in Akkadian indicate tar-si-si (Tarshish) was a large island in the western Mediterranean, and that the poetic construction of Psalm 72.10 also shows that it was a large island to the very distant west of Phoenicia. The island of Sardinia was always known as a hub of the metals trade in antiquity. The same evidence from hacksilber is said to fit with what the ancient Greek and Roman authors recorded about the Phoenicians exploiting many sources of silver in the western Mediterranean to feed developing economies back in Israel and Phoenicia soon after the fall of Troy and other palace centers in the eastern Mediterranean around 1200 BC. Classical sources starting with Homer (8th century BC), and the Greek historians Herodotus (484-425 BC) and Diodorus Siculus (d. 30 BC) said the Phoenicians were exploiting the metals of the west for these purposes before they set up the permanent colonies in the metal-rich regions of the Mediterranean and Atlantic.
Either Sardinia or Spain
The editors of the New Oxford Annotated Bible, first published in 1962, suggest that Tarshish is either Tartessos or Sardinia.
Spain
Rufus Festus Avienus the Latin writer of the 4th century AD, identified Tarshish as Cadiz.
Bochart, the 17th-century French Protestant pastor, suggested in his Phaleg (1646) that Tarshish was the city of Tartessos in southern Spain. He was followed by others, including Hertz (1936). In the Oracle against Tyre, the prophet Ezekiel (27:12) mentions that silver, iron, lead and tin came to Tyre from Tarshish (Trsys). They were stored in Tyre and resold, probably to Mesopotamia.
In Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick, Father Mapple gives a sermon on the story of Jonah. Father Mapple identifies the Tarshish to which Jonah flees with the port of Cádiz in Spain, "as far by water, from Joppa, as Jonah could possibly have sailed in those ancient days, when the Atlantic was an almost unknown sea" (Chapter 9, "The Sermon").
Phoenician coast
Sir Peter le Page Renouf (1822–1897) thought that "Tarshish" meant a coast, and, as the word occurs frequently in connection with Tyre, the Phoenician coast is to be understood. In Isaiah 23, however, the inhabitants of the Phoenician coast are exhorted to 'cross over' to Tarshish; it also identifies Tyre as a daughter of Tarshish (see 'Hebrew Bible' above).
Tyrsenians or Etruscans
Cheyne (1841–1915) thought that "Tarshish" of Gen 10:4 and "Tiras" of Gen 10:2, are really two names of one nation derived from two different sources, and might indicate the Tyrsenians or Etruscans.
Britain
Some 19th-century commentators believed that Tarshish was Britain.
Southeast Africa
Augustus Henry Keane (1833–1912) believed that Tarshish was Sofala, and that the Biblical land of Havilah was centered on the nearby Great Zimbabwe.
Southern India and Ceylon
Bochart, apart from Spain (see there), also suggested eastern localities for the ports of Ophir and Tarshish during King Solomon's reign, specifically the Tamilakkam continent (present day South India and Northern Ceylon) where the Dravidians were well known for their gold, pearls, ivory and peacock trade. He fixed on "Tarshish" being the site of Kudiramalai, a possible corruption of Thiruketheeswaram.
Irish politician and traveller James Emerson Tennent suggested that Galle, a southern city in Sri Lanka, was the ancient seaport of Tarshish from which King Solomon is said to have drawn ivory, peacocks and other valuables.
Philippines
Seventeenth-century Spanish missionary Fr. Francisco Colín S.J. claimed that the Filipino people were descendants of Tarshish.
"Tarshishim" as "fiery angels"
Jewish liturgy mentions "Tarshishim," which is commonly translated into English as "fiery angels."
Other
Around 1665, the followers of Shabbatai Zvi in İzmir interpreted the ships of Tarshish as Dutch ships that would transport them to the Holy Land.