A database for the Aegyptiaca from the Iberian SW: Colonial Encounters and the ‘Mediterranization’ of the Atlantic Iberian Societies (8th to 5th centuries BC)

Abstract

A preliminary study on the aegyptiaca in the Iberian Peninsula. It aims to understand the usages of Egyptian and ‘egyptianised’ material by Phoenicians and natives in the territory. Since such a thematic lacks consistent knowledge, it is interesting to propose new perspectives, by combining the Southwest part of the Peninsula.Thus, this paper aims to deal with the relationship between Phoenician traders and settlers with Celtic-speaking native tribes, throughout the study of material culture. It focuses the regions of Phoenician presence in Spanish Andalusia and Estremadura, plus the Portuguese regions of Algarve, Alentejo and Estremadura. Those regions formed a whole territorial unity – geographical and political – during the transition to Iron Age. Commercial contacts between those following generations of Phoenicians and native peoples (from what is nowadays Portugal) increased the Phoenician influence over the territory – especially the littoral area from the Algarve region to the Tagus estuary.