Iberians: characteristics and culture of these pre-Roman peoples

Before the Iberian Peninsula was conquered by the Romans, in this region there were mainly two cultures, which left an important architectural legacy in what is now Spain: the Celts and the iberians

The Iberians were a group of peoples who lived in what is now Andalusia and the Mediterranean coast, as well as parts of the center of the peninsula. This culture was the descendant of the Tartessian and the Almerian, with Phoenician and Greek influences and is considered the most culturally relevant before the arrival of Rome.

In this article Let's see who the Iberians were, how they were socially organized, what their cities were like and how they lived.

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Who were the Iberians?

The Iberians were a group of peoples who lived in the pre-Roman Iberian Peninsula.. Until relatively recently it was believed that the Iberians were, together with the Celts, the first inhabitants of what is now continental Spain, although it has been possible to demonstrate that in reality they were the descendants of previous cultures that developed in the south and east of the Iberian Peninsula, among them the Tartessian culture and the almeriense

We owe the name of the Iberians to the Greeks of Classical Antiquity. Hellenic merchants, writers and soldiers were the ones who, when exploring the peninsula, baptized the people located with this name. mostly on the Iberian Mediterranean coast, distinguishing them from those who lived further to the center, to the north and on the Atlantic coast, who were the celts.

The iberos they did not form a uniform culture, it is not even possible to speak of an Iberian people as something homogeneous or of an Iberian race. There are many peoples that made up the Iberian group in its maximum extension, while some were related to the others, but their idiosyncrasy prevents them from agglutinating them all in the same Iberian culture, since they had different ways of living and even spoke and wrote in different ways. various forms.

based on it Two large groups can be distinguished: the Andalusian Iberians and the Levantines.. Within the Andalusian group we have the Mastienos (Murcia), Bastetanos and Bástulos (Almería and Granada), the Oretanos, the Curetes, the Etmaneos and the Turdetanos (on the banks of the Guadalquivir). In the Levantine group we have the layetanos, cosetanos and ilercaones (Catalonia), the ilergetes and edetanos (central Ebro valley) and the contestanos (Valencian Community).

History of this group of pre-Roman ethnic groups

The first reference to the Iberians that is available is from the 4th century BC. C, specifically in the text "Ora maritima" (The maritime coasts) of the poet Rufo Festo Avieno, who takes a tour of all of pre-Roman Hispania and explains what that land was like up to a thousand years ago. Avienus refers to the Iberians as the people who inhabited the Mediterranean coasts of the peninsula, although it can be said that there is also evidence that they inhabited southern Spain and part of France. The poet considered them a more civilized people than their Celtic neighbors.

It is known that there was an ancient Iberian period, around the 7th century BC. C., and another considered the classical period, which would go from the 5th century B.C. c. to III a. c. the 5th and 4th centuries BC. c. They are the moment in which Iberian culture reaches its greatest splendor. The Carthaginian domain, during the 3rd century BC. c. puts an end to the period known as classic Iberian, beginning the second stage in which they would receive influences.

The end of the Iberian culture came with the Romanization of the Peninsula, which began with the victory of the Romans over the Carthaginians in the Second Punic War. More than as the disappearance of this culture, the Iberians came to an end with the dissolution of their society. They were losing their social independence and, also, their distinctive cultural traits, integrating over time into the extensive ethnic mosaic that was classical Rome.

The Romans were not the only foreign people with whom the Iberians made contact. In addition to the Greeks we have the brothers of the Carthaginians from the extensive regions that made up Phoenicia in Iberian times, such as Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Palestine. Due to their foreign contacts, there is no doubt that they must have received influences from non-peninsular cultures. with which there has always been the problem of determining exactly what is pure Iberian culture and what are influences.

Iberian society

As we have commented, the Iberians do not constitute a culturally homogeneous group and this is also reflected in their social structures. The Andalusian Iberians and the Levantines presented great differences in terms of the way in which they organized their society and, although in a much more subtle way, there were also differences within the two large groups.

Andalusian Iberians

The Andalusian Iberians (so called despite the fact that Andalusia did not yet exist), who are suspected of being older than the Levantines, they had a highly stratified society. At the top was the economically and politically powerful noble class, whose wealth and power has been evidenced in the more than luxurious remains of trousseau and burials that have been left for the later.

There were free men and people who worked for the nobles. There was the dominant upper caste and the rest, who were linked to that class through a client system. Within this system was the upper middle class, made up of artisans and craftsmen from the city, and a lower middle class, made up of miners, farmers and ranchers. At the base of the social pyramid were non-free men, that is, foreign slaves and mercenaries, usually of Celtic origin.

Before the Andalusian Iberians existed the Tartessian culture, considered its direct predecessor. Tartessos dissolved as a united state around the 6th century BC. C., giving rise to various local hereditary monarchies. Over time, the development of Iberian cities and the various internal power dynamics made their kings would end up ruling over various cities, which were governed by magistrates appointed by them themselves. The defense of the cities was entrusted to the mercenaries.

Levantine Iberians

In Levantine Iberian society it seems that there were fewer differences between social classes. In some cities the government was administered by a council of elders that acted as a senate, although it is seen that, in moments of political and military tension, caudillos prevailed and all the citizens got involved in the defense of the city. With the passage of time, the Levantine social model began to resemble the Andalusian one.

The warriors were an important social extract and were among the few, together with the nobles, who received burial. Aristocrats and soldiers received great tributes when they were buried, providing them with all kinds of trousseau and outstanding clothing. One of the great proofs that the Levantine Iberians luxuriously buried the powerful classes is found in the case of the Lady of Elche, sculpture of an Iberian woman well dressed with all kinds of ornaments that indicated her high social status.

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Iberian settlements: how did they live?

In the beginning, the Iberian peoples lived in tribal communities. The Iberian tribe was a social structure made up of people related to kinship ties, having a common ancestor that could well be real or supposed. That is to say, although in many cases they were all family, others could believe in the existence of a man long before they who were attributed to have been the founder of a lineage or a caste that could well be pure legend and mythology.

But with the passage of time these towns began to organize themselves around cities, a social structure and geography that meant the introduction of new types of ties, very different from those applied in the tribes previous. Arrived at this stage, the tribal structure evolves into a purely urban society, with the city being the basic nucleus of the most developed Iberian society.

Not all Iberian cities were the same nor were they built in the same way. Those that were located on the shores of the Mediterranean or were close to many roads, which used to coincide with areas prosperous and suitable for trade, they were very open cities and, having great profits, had sumptuous buildings. This is the case of Andalusian cities, with imposing megalithic constructions that were great commercial centers, with mining and great fishing activity, being one of the richest areas of Europe classical.

These cities had a high demographic density and it seems that they had places in which to exchange goods. They had public squares whose function was identical to that of the forums of Roman cities, something quite striking that allows us to know that among the Iberians, at least those who lived in cities, there was a public conscience materialized in the form of a market. Families would have their precious objects and goods in their homes, but they could also sell and buy manufactures.

But in addition to housing and spaces to trade, the cities had defense structures, generally in the form of hills and plateaus. These types of structures were more common in the Levantine region and must have been built in response to the general climate of uncertainty, restlessness and insecurity due to being closer geographically to the rest of the continent.

Economy

The Andalusian Iberians and the Levantines also distinguished themselves in the way they exploited resources. There were economic differences between these two large groups, attributed mainly to differences in their social structure. In the Andalusian area, wealth was owned to a large extent by the ruling class, while in the Levantine area there was a more equitable distribution., although we should not think that it was a fully egalitarian society.

The Iberians worked the land. Their agricultural activity was mainly the extensive cultivation of olive trees and vineyards., which are believed to have been introduced through their contacts with the Phoenicians. They also cultivated cereals, although there were differences depending on the area, with more of this type of cultivation near the rivers, especially in the Ebro, Segura and Guadalquivir. Among the fruits they also grew were pomegranates, cherries, and apples.

As for livestock, the Iberians exploited all kinds of animals, including horses, sheep, bulls, oxen and donkeys. They also hunted, although it was a more common practice when the momentary needs of the population had to be met.

In addition to agriculture and livestock, the third most important economic activity was mining and metallurgy.. Their lands were very rich in minerals, including gold and silver, as well as copper, iron and lead. These peoples learned to work metals through the Celts and the Phoenicians and with them they made weapons and tools to work the land.

Finally, we have trade. The Iberians established multiple commercial routes with the peoples of the time and, to make the exchanges were fairer and more agile, they adopted the currency, originally of the Greek type but they also came to mint a own. Thanks to this, they were able to establish stable prices for the products to be exchanged, avoiding misunderstandings and abuses in transactions.

Iberian script and language

One of the aspects for which the Iberians are well known is that they had their own highly developed writing system. It was a system halfway between alphabetic and syllabic (semisyllabic) writing.. There were two variants, according to the cultural differences between the Levantine Iberians and the Andalusians. Thanks to the existence of bilingual Iberian-Latin coins, it has been possible to identify the signs of the Levantine Iberian alphabet. They also used the Greek alphabet.

The language, or rather, the Iberian languages ​​are a matter of great academic debate. Experts have been able to find out how they were pronounced and how they were written thanks to the work of archaeologist Manuel Gómez-Moreno, but they have not been able to decipher. There are many remains of Iberian inscriptions throughout the south and east of Spain, but what they mean is not very well known.

Iberian is classified as a paleohispanic language, which itself is not a language family but an umbrella term for languages spoken in Iberia before the arrival of the Romans, without necessarily all of them being related each other.

The hypothesis has been considered that Iberian could be related to Basque, and that the old Aquitanian could have been the more or less direct descendant of this language, since it is believed that their phonetics were very similar and that they shared certain words.

This hypothesis is not shared by most linguists. In fact, it is considered that although it could be true that the Iberian and the old Aquitanian had a similar phonetics, that It would simply indicate that one influenced the other, not that they are part of the same group of languages ​​or that one is a dialect of the other. other. They could have altered their phonetics, vocabulary, and grammar by simple interaction, a phenomenon known in linguistics as the Sprachbund.

Iberian religion and cults

In the Iberian culture there are rituals similar to those of the Mother Earth cycle, typical of cultures that still depend a lot on agricultural activities, livestock and grazing. This divinity is compared by the Greek geographer and historian Strabo as a cult to the goddess Diana, who if Well, it was not exactly to that deity that they paid homage, but they did believe in a divinity with the same powers.

The bull was an animal to which the Iberians worshiped a lot. and that they related to the earth goddess as with divinities of the sky. This animal was taken as a very versatile symbol, used for many types of rituals, in addition to other sacred animals such as lynxes, vultures, and wolves. The fact that the bull was so important to the Iberians has raised the hypothesis that they could have been related to the talayotics of the Balearic Islands, since this culture also worshiped the bull.

Sacred rituals were held in temples built some distance from towns and cities. The cults used to be held coinciding with agricultural cycles and, especially, with the summer solstice. As for the funeral rituals, they used to cremate their dead, depositing their ashes in urns that they placed in a tomb. The Iberians believed in the afterlife, judging by how luxurious the tombs of the aristocrats were and how they were decorated.

Sculpture

Many archaeologists consider that the art of the Iberians was the richest and most elaborate of those that existed in Iberia before the arrival of the Romans. Most of the sculptures that have been found from these towns come from sanctuaries and burial places. The sculptures used to represent warriors, fantastic and sacred animals, such as the Bicha de Balazote, in addition to representing nobles in the place where they were buried, such as the Lady of Elche and the Lady of Baza.

With the passage of time his sculptural style became more sophisticated, with Greek influences and it is believed that they may have also received Cypriot, Hittite, Etruscan and Ionic influences. But despite the great elaboration of its sculptures, Iberian painting and ceramics are not so important, although some remains of these two types of arts have been found.

Bibliographic references:

• Bermejo T. (2007). Jesus: Brief history of the Iberians. Ediciones Nowtilus S.L. ISBN 84-9763-353-9.
• Presedo, F., (1980). The Iberian peoples, History of Ancient Spain. YO. Protohistory, Madrid.
• Ruiz, A. & Molinos, M. (1993). The iberos. archaeological analysis of a historical process. Barcelona, ​​Critical Editorial. ISBN 84-7423-566-9.
• Sanmarti, J. & Santacana, J. (2005). Els ibers del nord, Barcelona.