Towards a Definition of “South-west Epigraphy”: Places, Peoples, Forms andMotifs of an Enigmatic Epigraphic Culture
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36707/palaeohispanica.v25i1.691Keywords:
Southwestern epigraphy, Paleoetnology, First Iron Age, Palaeohispanic epigraphic culturesAbstract
This article reviews key aspects for defining the South-west epigraphic culture, with the aim of assessing whether it can be attributed to a Palaeo-ethnic group of the Iberian Peninsula. It first examines the evidence that allows the phenomenon to be placed geographically and chronologically, before confronting these data with the accounts of GrecoRoman historians and geographers in search of possible corresponding ethnonyms. The main supports of this script are briefly outlined, alongside reflections on the intentions behind the extant inscriptions. Finally, a new nomenclature for this epigraphic culture is proposed, while questioning the supposed funerary function of most inscribed stelae.
References
Arruda 2006: A.M. Arruda, “O 1º milénio a.n.e. no Centro e no Sul de Portugal: leituras possíveis no início de um novo século”, OAP Serie 4 nº 23, 2006, 9-156.
Beirão 1986: C.M. De Mello Beirão, Une civilisation protohistorique du sud du Portugal (1er Âge du Fer), Paris 1986.
Celestino 2001: S. Celestino, Estelas de guerrero y estelas diademadas. La precolonización y formación del mundo tartésico, Bellaterra 2001.
Correa 1985: J.A. Correa, “El signario tartesio”, Veleia 2-3, 1985, 275-284
Correia 1993: V.H. Correia “As necropoles da Idade do Ferro do Sul de Portugal: arquitectura e rituais”, en S. Oliveira Jorge, I Congresso de Arqueologia Peninsular: (Porto, 12-18 de Outubro de 1993), Porto, 351-370.
Correia 1996: V.H. Correia, A epigrafia da idade do ferro do Sudoeste da Península Ibérica, Porto 1996.
de Hoz 1985: J. de Hoz, “El origen de la escritura del SO”, en: J. de Hoz (ed.), Actas del III Coloquio Sobre Lenguas y Culturas Paleohispánicas (Lisboa, 5-8 de Noviembre de 1980), Salamanca 1985, 424-464.
de Hoz 2010: J. de Hoz, Historia lingüística de la Península Ibérica en la antigüedad. (I) Preliminares y mundo meridional prerromano, Madrid 2010.
Díaz-Guardamino 2010: M. Díaz-Guardamino Uribe, Las estelas decoradas en la Prehistoria de la Península Ibérica, tesis doctoral Universidad Complutense, Madrid 2010.
Galán 1993: E. Galán Domingo, Estelas, paisaje y territorio en el bronce final del suroeste de la Península Ibérica, Madrid 1993.
Gomes 2004-2005: F. Gomes, “O mundo funerário da I Idade do Ferro no Sul do actual território português: notas para uma síntese”, Arqueologia & história, 2004-2005, 42-67.
Gomes 2021: F. Gomes, “Reflexiones sobre escritura, identidad(es) y memoria(s) en la I Edad del Hierro del sur de Portugal”, PalHisp 21, 2021, 95-125.
Gómez-Moreno 1962: M. Gómez-Moreno, La escritura bástulo-turdetana, Madrid 1962.
Jiménez Ávila 2021: J. Jiménez Ávila, “El contexto arqueológico de la escritura paleohispánica del Suroeste peninsular”, PalHisp 21, 2021, 149-188.
Maia 2016: M. Maia, “Turdetânia. Um estado centralizado ou um estado tribal”, Cadernos do Museu da Lucerna I, 2016, 241-256.
Maia y Correa 1985: M. Maia y J.A. Correa, “Inscripción en escritura tartesia hallada en Neves y su contexto arqueológico”, Habis 16, 243-274.
Mederos 2021: A. Mederos, “El santuario fenicio de la calle Méndez Núñez-plaza de las Monjas (Huelva, España) y el inicio de los asentamientos fenicios en la península Ibérica”, Saguntum 53, 2021, 35-57.
Mederos y Ruiz Cabrera 2001: A. Mederos y L.A. Ruiz Cabrera, «Los inicios de la escritura en la Península Ibérica», Complutum 12, 2001, 97-111.
MLH IV: J. Untermann, Monumenta linguarum hispanicarum. Band IV. Die Tartessischen Inschriften. Die Keltiberischen Inschriften. Wiesbaden 1997.
Muñoz Cuadrillero 2023: D. Muñoz Cuadrillero, Estudis sobre el corpus d’inscripcions del sud-oest de la península Ibèrica, tesis doctoral inédita, Universitat de Barcelona 2023.
Muñoz Cuadrillero 2024: D. Muñoz Cuadrillero, “Suports epigràfics i funció de l’escriptura a la cultura epigráfica del sud-oest de la península Ibèrica”, Faventia 46, 2024, 7-29.
Muñoz Cuadrillero e.p.: D. Muñoz Cuadrillero, “Autoctonisme i innovació en les esteles del sud-oest. Una visió des de l’epigrafia comparada”, Roma: Armarium, Scienze e Lettere.
Neto et al. 2016: N. Neto, P. Rabelo, R.A. Ribeiro, M. Rocha, y J.A. Zamora, “Uma inscriçao lapidar fenicia em Lisboa”, RPA 19, 2016, 123-128.
Niveau de Villedary 2019: A.M. Niveau de Villedary i Mariñas, “La etapa arcaica de la Ciudad fenícia de Gadir”, Lucentum XXXVIII, 2019, 111-138.
Paniego 2022: P. Paniego Díaz, “¿Quién es quién? Celtas, Lusitanos, Conios y otros pueblos del Suroeste durante la Edad del Hierro”, Latomus 81, 2022, 599-626.
Rodrigues et al. 2020: M. Rodrigues, J. Pimenta, E. Sousa, H. Mendes e A. M. Arruda, “A cerâmica cinzenta de Porto do Sabugueiro (Salvaterra de Magos, Portugal)”, Cira-Arqueologia 7, 2020, 34-59.
Rodríguez Ramos 1992: J. Rodríguez Ramos, Análisis de epigrafía sudlusitana. Tesi de llicenciatura, Barcelona 1992.
Rodríguez Ramos 2002a: J. Rodríguez Ramos, “Las inscripciones sudlusitano/tartesias; su función, lengua y contexto socioeconómico”, Complutum 13, 2002, 85-95.
Rodríguez Ramos 2002b: J. Rodríguez Ramos, “El origen de la escritura sudlusitano/tartesia y la formación de los alfabetos a partir de los alefatos”, Revista di Studi Fenici 30 (2), 2002, 187-220.
Sánchez Sánchez-Moreno et al. 2020: V. Sánchez Sánchez-Moreno, L. Galindo San José, y M. Juzgado Navarro, «El santuario fenicio de La Rebanadilla», en: J.L. CASTRO (ed.), Entre Utica y Gadir: navegación y colonización fenicia en el Mediterráneo Occidental a comienzos del I Milenio, Cádiz 2020, 189-200.
Schmoll 1961: U. Schmoll, Die sudlusitanischen Inschriften, Wiesbaden 1961.
Tejera Gaspar y Fernández Rodríguez 2012: A. Tejera Gaspar y J. Fernández Rodríguez, Los dioses de los tartesios, Bellaterra 2012.
Tejera Gaspar et alii 2006: A. Tejera Gaspar, J. Fernández Rodríguez y M. Rodríguez Pestana, “Las estelas tartésicas: ¿Losas sepulcrales, marcadores étnicos o representación de divinidades guerreras?”, SPAL 15, 2006, 149-165.
Velaza e.p.: J. Velaza “Hacia una epigrafía comparada”, XIX Simposi de la Secció Catalana d’Estudis Clàssics (Barcelona 20-22 de Octubre de 2022).
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 David Muñoz Cuadrillero
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Professional standards and ethical policies
a) Palaeohispanica’s editorial board
Details concerning the journal’s internal organization can be found at this website.
b) Authors’ responsibilities
As an implicit condition for publishing in Palaeohispanica, authors are expected to adhere to all the ethical and professional principles that are shared across all research fields and academic publications. By submitting a contribution for peer review, potential authors guarantee that their work is original, that it constitutes a significant contribution to its research field and has not been published elsewhere.
All submitted manuscripts ought to contain bibliographic references at the end of the paper as well as an indication of how the research that culminated in the article was funded.
Likewise, authors must agree to incorporate any relevant changes that peer reviewers suggest as well as to include any recommendations that the editorial committee includes in the manuscript’s proofs at the end of the editorial process.
The journal expects its authors, reviewers, editors and staff members to all conduct themselves professionally by treating others with respect and civility. Should any sort of untoward situation arise, such as (self) plagiarism, conflicts of interest or aggressive behaviour on the author’s part, the following actions will be taken:
- Plagiarism and the republication of articles
Plagiarism is defined as the reproduction of a text or other materials found in different publications without the original source being adequately cited. Accordingly, material can still be plagiarized even when it has been tweaked or paraphrased. Plagiarism constitutes a serious ethical violation; furthermore, there can be legal ramifications for violating an author’s rights in cases where the reproduced material has been previously published. Authors who want to cite published work must do so by including complete references to the original materials and by including any quotations within quotation marks. Graphs and images can only be reproduced with the express permission of the original author and must include a citation below said image or graphic according to the rules laid out on the journal’s website. If a peer reviewer or the editorial board detects any instance of plagiarism (whether of one’s own or another’s work), the manuscript will automatically be disqualified.
- Conflicts of interest
In most instances an individual who works at the same institution as an author or one of the co-authors is automatically barred from evaluating a potential contribution. The journal’s editors must always be aware of possible conflicts of interest and are required to recuse themselves from any decision-making process, whenever there is even the appearance of a possible conflict of interest.
c) The peer-review process
Palaeohispanica employs peers to evaluate externally all contributions, with this being understood as obtaining the opinion of an established expert over the merits of every potential contribution. In addition to completing the relevant form, reviewers are expected to suggest any pertinent bibliography that was not included in the original version of the manuscript.
Furthermore, the peer-review process is double blind, meaning that both authors’ anonymity as well as the reviewers’ impartiality and independence are guaranteed. Reader reviews will be treated with the utmost confidentiality. As is the case with all respectable research journals, the editors of Palaeohispanicawill not share with a third party the identity of a peer reviewer, the contents of his or her review or any correspondence resulting from the review process. Likewise, reviewers are required to adhere to the same strict standard of confidentiality: neither manuscripts nor the contents of any correspondence between an author and the editors can be shared with a third party without the written and express consent of the journal’s editors.
While strictly speaking authors are not held to the same standards (they can, for instance, solicit advice from co-authors and colleagues as they revise and amend a manuscript in accordance with the recommendations found in a reviewer’s report), the public airing of a reviewer’s report or of the correspondence with the editorial team constitutes untoward behavior. Any author who acts in such a way will automatically forfeit his or her right to the journal’s confidentiality.
- Aggressive behaviour
Should the editorial committee be made aware of any untoward behaviour on the author’s part towards external reviewers, other authors or the journal’s editors/staff, that author’s submission will immediately be withdrawn from the consideration process.
All participants in the publication process, including editors, authors, peer reviewers, and member’s of the journal’s staff are expected to meet basic standards of professional courtesy and to respect the fundamental rules and guidelines concerning the peer-review and publication processes. Under any circumstance, personal attacks and verbal assault (whether expressed orally or through writing) are completely unacceptable. Accordingly, the journal reserves the right to reject the contribution of any author who repeatedly violates these principles or refuses to cooperate with the editors and reviewers during the normal evaluation and publication processes.
d) Editorial ethics
The editorial team at Palaeohispanica will bring an end to any dishonest research practice by submitting every proposal to a careful review process that will begin before the selection of possible peer reviewers. Should anything questionable be detected, an author will be asked to provide relevant explanations and then be told to review his/her text so as to meet the journal’s quality standards. If an author does not make the requested changes, the manuscript will not be submitted for double-blind peer review and, accordingly, will not be published. The editorial board is always available to discuss and debate with authors any misunderstanding that could have given rise to such a situation.
e) Copyright and journal access
Journal content falls under the protection of licence Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA. Access the all journal content is open and free of charge.
f) Journal archive
Given that the Institución Fernando el Católico is an established and important publishing house, it is extremely unlikely that access to the journal’s contents could be compromised in anyway within the foreseeable future. The contents of Palaeohispanica will be stored in IFC’s servers even if the journal ceases to be published.
g) Ownership and management of the journal
The journal Palaeohispanica is edited and run by the institution «Fernando el Católico», an independent entity of the Excelentísima Diputación de Zaragoza.
Names and email addresses submitted to this journal will only be used for tasks related to the journal and will not be shared with any third party or used for any other purpose.
In accordance with the Regulation UE 2016/679, information gathered by the Institución Fernando el Católico de la Excma. Diputación de Zaragoza (IFC) will be used for carrying out the functions of an academic publication, the handling of claims, appeals, complaints, suggestions, surveys as well as any other activity involved in the management of the journal.
Cubic Factory is in charge of handling said data. They can be contacted at cubic@cubicfactory.com.
Data can be given to public agencies with the relevant competencies and in case of legal obligations.
Those who are interested can exercise their rights of access, correction, suppression, limitation of the use, opposition and portability by contacting ifc@dpz.es.
Users can also go to the Agencia Española de Protección de Datos to make any complaints that they feel is necessary.
User information will be kept during the period in which it is needed to complete the task for which said information was provided in the first place or for the period necessary to comply with any legal obligations. Once a given objective has been completed, personal data that is not part of fulfillment of public service will be blocked until the applicable period has ended.
Ethical and confidentiality policy of Palaeohispanica can be consulted here.
Privacy policy
Names and email addresses submitted to this journal will only be used for tasks related to the journal and will not be shared with any third party or used for any other purpose.
In accordance with the Regulation UE 2016/679, information gathered by the Institución Fernando el Católico de la Excma. Diputación de Zaragoza (IFC) will be used for carrying out the functions of an academic publication, the handling of claims, appeals, complaints, suggestions, surveys as well as any other activity involved in the management of the journal.
Cubic Factory is in charge of handling said data. They can be contacted at cubic@cubicfactory.com.
Data can be given to public agencies with the relevant competencies and in case of legal obligations.
Those who are interested can exercise their rights of access, correction, suppression, limitation of the use, opposition and portabilityby contacting ifc@dpz.es.
Users can also go to the Agencia Española de Protección de Datos to make any complaints that they feel is necessary.
User information will be kept during the period in which it is needed to complete the task for which said information was provided in the first place or for the period necessary to comply with any legal obligations. Once a given objective has been completed, personal data that is not part of fulfillment of public service will be blocked until the applicable period has ended.
The IFC’s privacy and data protection policy can be consulted at https://tiendaifc.dpz.es/Sites/dpz/paginasPersonalizadas/Modelo2/inicio.aspx. It can also be found in the journal’s the top navigation menu: http://ifc.dpz.es/ojs/index.php/palaeohispanica/dpd
Names and email addresses submitted to this journal will only be used for tasks related to the journal and will not be shared with any third party or used for any other purpose.
In accordance with the Regulation UE 2016/679, information gathered by the Institución Fernando el Católico de la Excma. Diputación de Zaragoza (IFC) will be used for carrying out the functions of an academic publication, the handling of claims, appeals, complaints, suggestions, surveys as well as any other activity involved in the management of the journal.
Cubic Factory is in charge of handling said data. They can be contacted at cubic@cubicfactory.com.
Data can be given to public agencies with the relevant competencies and in case of legal obligations.
Those who are interested can exercise their rights of access, correction, suppression, limitation of the use, opposition and portability by contacting ifc@dpz.es.
Users can also go to the Agencia Española de Protección de Datos to make any complaints that they feel is necessary.
User information will be kept during the period in which it is needed to complete the task for which said information was provided in the first place or for the period necessary to comply with any legal obligations. Once a given objective has been completed, personal data that is not part of fulfillment of public service will be blocked until the applicable period has ended.
Ethical and confidentiality policy of Palaeohispanica can be consulted here.
