Isis
Isis is a goddess from the polytheistic pantheon of Egypt. She was first worshiped in ancient Egyptian religion, and her worship spread throughout the Roman Empire, Isis was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the patroness of nature and magic. She was the friend of slaves, sinners and the downtrodden, Isis is often depicted as the mother of Horus, the falcon-headed deity associated with king and kingship. Isis is known as protector of the dead and goddess of children, as the personification of the throne, she was an important representation of the pharaohs power. The pharaoh was depicted as her child, who sat on the throne she provided. Her cult was popular throughout Egypt, but her most important temples were at Behbeit El Hagar in the Nile delta, beginning in the reign with Nectanebo I, on the island of Philae in Upper Egypt. In the typical form of her myth, Isis was the first daughter of Geb, god of the Earth, and Nut, goddess of the Sky and she married her brother and she conceived Horus with him.
Isis was instrumental in the resurrection of Osiris when he was murdered by Set, using her magical skills, she restored his body to life after having gathered the body parts that had been strewn about the earth by Set. This myth became very important during the Greco-Roman period, for example, it was believed that the Nile River flooded every year because of the tears of sorrow which Isis wept for Osiris. Osiriss death and rebirth was relived each year through rituals, the worship of Isis eventually spread throughout the Greco-Roman world, continuing until the suppression of paganism in the Christian era. The popular motif of Isis suckling her son Horus, the Greek name version of Isis is close to her original, Egyptian name spelling. Isis name was written with the signs of a throne seat. The grammar and used signs of Isis name never changed during time in any way, the symbolic and metaphoric meaning of Isis name remains unclear. The throne seat sign in her name might point to a role as a goddess of kingship.
Thus, her name could mean she of the kings throne, but all other Egyptian deities have names that point to clear cosmological or nature elemental roles, thus the name of Isis shouldnt be connected to the king himself. The throne seat symbol might alternatively point to a meaning as throne-mother of the gods and this in turn would supply a very old existence of Isis, long before her first mentioning during the late Old Kingdom, but this hypothesis remains unproven. A third possible meaning might be hidden in the egg-symbol, that was used in Isis name. The egg-symbol always represented motherhood, implying a role of Isis
Suebi
The Suebi was a large group of related Germanic peoples who lived in Germania in the time of the Roman Empire. They were first mentioned by Julius Caesar in connection with his battles against Ariovistus in Gaul and they actually occupy more than half of Germania, and are divided into a number of distinct tribes under distinct names, though all generally are called Suebi. At one time, classical ethnography had applied the name Suevi to so many Germanic tribes that it appeared as if, in the first centuries AD, classical authors noted that the Suevic tribes, compared to other Germanic tribes, were very mobile and not reliant on agriculture. Various Suevic groups moved from the direction of the Baltic Sea, towards the end of the empire, the Alemanni, referred to as Suebi, first settled in the Agri Decumates and crossed the Rhine and occupied Alsace. An area in southwest Germany is still called Swabia, which derives from the Suebi. Other Suebi entered Gaul and some moved as far as Gallaecia, where they established the Kingdom of the Suebi, which lasted for 170 years until its integration into the Visigothic Kingdom.
Notably, the Semnones, known to classical authors as one of the largest Suebian groups, seem to have a name with this same meaning, alternatively, it may be borrowed from a Celtic word for vagabond. Caesar placed the Suebi east of the Ubii apparently near modern Hesse, in the position where writers mention the Chatti, some commentators believe that Caesars Suebi were the Chatti or possibly the Hermunduri, or Semnones. Later authors use the term Suebi more broadly, to cover a number of tribes in central Germany. Whether or not the Chatti were ever considered Suevi, both Tacitus and Strabo distinguish the two partly because the Chatti were more settled in one territory, whereas Suevi remained less settled. The definitions of the greater ethnic groupings within Germania were apparently not always consistent and clear, whereas Tacitus reported three main kinds of German peoples, Irminones and Ingaevones, Pliny specifically adds two more genera or kinds, the Bastarnae and the Vandili. The Vandals were tribes east of the Elbe, including the well-known Silingi and Burgundians, the modern term Elbe Germanic similarly covers a large grouping of Germanic peoples that at least overlaps with the classical terms Suevi and Irminones.
In the time of Caesar, southern Germany was Celtic, in addition, near the Hercynian forest Caesar believed that the Celtic Tectosages had once lived. All of these peoples had for the most part moved by the time of Tacitus, Cassius Dio wrote that the Suebi, who dwelt across the Rhine, were called Celts, which could mean that some Celtic groups were absorbed by larger Germanic tribal confederations. Strabo, in Book IV of his Geography associates the Suebi with the Hercynian Forest and the south of Germania north of the Danube. He describes a chain of mountains north of the Danube that is like an extension of the Alps, possibly the Swabian Alps. In Book VII Strabo specifically mentions as Suevic peoples the Marcomanni, some of these tribes were inside the forest and some outside of it. Tacitus confirms the name Boiemum, saying it was a survival marking the old population of the place
Gold mining
Gold mining is the resource extraction of gold by mining. As of 2015, the worlds largest gold producer by far was China with 455 tonnes, the second-largest producer, mined 270 tonnes in the same year, followed by Russia with 250 tonnes. It is impossible to know the date that humans first began to mine gold. The graves of the necropolis were built between 4700 and 4200 BC, indicating that gold mining could be at least 7000 years old. A group of German and Georgian archaeologists claims the Sakdrisi site in southern Georgia, dating to the 3rd or 4th millennium BC, bronze age gold objects are plentiful, especially in Ireland and Spain, and there are several well known possible sources. Romans used hydraulic mining methods, such as hushing and ground sluicing on a scale to extract gold from extensive alluvial deposits. Mining was under the control of the state but the mines may have been leased to civilian contractors some time later, Gold was a prime motivation for the campaign in Dacia when the Romans invaded Transylvania in what is now modern Romania in the second century AD.
The legions were led by the emperor Trajan, and their exploits are shown on Trajans Column in Rome, under the Eastern Roman Empire Emperor Justinians rule, gold was mined in the Balkans, Armenia and Nubia. In the area of the Kolar Gold Fields in Bangarpet Taluk, Kolar District of Karnataka state, gold was first mined prior to the 2nd and 3rd century AD by digging small pits. The Champion reef at the Kolar gold fields was mined to a depth of 50 metres during the Gupta period in the fifth century AD, during the Chola period in the 9th and 10th century AD, the scale of the operation grew. The metal continued to be mined by the eleventh century kings of South India, the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1560, and by Tipu Sultan, the king of Mysore state and it is estimated that the total gold production in Karnataka to date is 1000 tons. The mining of the Slovak deposit primarily around Kremnica was the largest of the Medieval period in Europe, the discovery of gold in the Witwatersrand led to the Second Boer War and ultimately the founding of South Africa.
The Carlin Trend of Nevada, U. S. was discovered in 1961, as of 2015, the worlds largest gold producer by far was China with 455 tonnes/year. The second-largest producer, mined 270 tonnes in the same year, despite the decreasing gold content of ores, the production is increasing. This can be achieved with industrial installations, and new process, placer mining is the technique by which gold that has accumulated in a placer deposit is extracted. Placer deposits are composed of loose material that makes tunneling difficult. Gold panning is mostly a manual technique of separating gold from other materials, shallow pans are filled with sand and gravel that may contain gold. The pan is submerged in water and shaken, sorting the gold from the gravel, as gold is much denser than rock, it quickly settles to the bottom of the pan
Fire-setting
Fire-setting is a method of traditional mining used most commonly from prehistoric times up to the Middle Ages. Fires were set against a face to heat the stone. Some experiments have suggested that the water did not have an effect on the rock. This technique was best performed in opencast mines where the smoke, the technique was very dangerous in underground workings without adequate ventilation. The method became largely redundant with the growth in use of explosives, although fire-setting was frequently used before modern times, it has been used sporadically since then. In some regions of the world, notably Africa and Eurasia and it was used where rock was too hard to drill holes with steel borers for blasting or whenever it was economic because of cheapness of wood. The oldest traces of this method in Europe were found in southern France, numerous finds exist from Bronze Age, such as in the Alps, in the former mining district of Schwaz-Brixlegg in Tyrol, or in the Goleen area in Cork, to name a few.
As for antique written sources, fire-setting is first described by Diodorus Siculus in his Bibliotheca historica written about 60 BC and it is mentioned in greater detail by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia, published in the first century AD. In Book XXXIII, he describes mining methods for gold, and he mentions the use of vinegar to quench the hot rock, but water would have been just as effective, as vinegar was expensive at the time for regular use in a mine. The effectiveness of strong acid solutions on heated limestone has been demonstrated in laboratory experiments. Pliny says that the method was used both in opencast and deep mining and they were certainly much larger in section than was normal for access galleries, and the draught of air through them would have been considerable. Fire-setting was used extensively during opencast mining, and is described by Pliny in connection with the use of another mining technique known as hushing. Aqueducts were built to supply copious amounts of water to the minehead, the water was unleashed to scour the hillside below, both soil in the case of prospecting for metal veins, and rock debris after a vein had been found.
Pliny describes undermining methods that were used to facilitate the removal of hard rocks, the method continued in use in the medieval period, and is described by Georg Agricola in his treatise on mining and mineral extraction, De Re Metallica. He warns about the problem of the foetid vapours and the need to evacuate the workings while the fires are lit, and presumably for some time afterwards until the gases and smoke had cleared. Agricola mentions the use of large water-powered bellows to create a draught, in times, a fire at the base of a shaft was used to create an updraught, but just like fire-setting, it was a hazardous and dangerous procedure, especially in collieries. As the number and complexity of the workings increased, care was needed to channel the air draught to all parts of the tunnels. It was usually achieved by installing doors at key points, most of the deaths in coal mine disasters were caused by inhalation of the toxic gases produced by firedamp explosions
Hispania
Hispania was the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula. Under the Republic, Hispania was divided into two provinces, Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior, during the Principate, Hispania Ulterior was divided into two new provinces and Lusitania, while Hispania Citerior was renamed Tarraconensis. Subsequently, the part of Tarraconensis was split off, first as Hispania Nova. The name, was used in the period of Visigothic rule. The modern placenames Spain and Hispaniola are both derived from Hispania, one theory holds it to be of Punic derivation, from the Phoenician language of colonizing Carthage. Specifically, it may derive from a Punic cognate of Hebrew אי-שפניא meaning Island of the Hyrax or island of the hare or island of the rabbit. Others derive the word from Phoenician span, in the sense of hidden, and make it indicate a hidden, that is, Isidore of Sevilla considered Hispania derived from Hispalis. Occasionally Hispania was called Hesperia Ultima, the last western land in Greek, by Roman writers, another theory holds that the name derives from Ezpanna, the Basque word for border or edge, thus meaning the farthest area or place.
The use of Latin Hispania, Castilian España, Catalan Espanya and French Espaigne, a document dated 1292 mentions the names of foreigners from Medieval Spain as Gracien dEspaigne. You are, Oh Spain and always happy mother of princes and peoples and you, by right, are now the queen of all provinces, from whom the lights are given not only the sunset, but the East. Navarre followed soon after in 1512, and Portugal in 1580, during this time, the concept of Spain was still unchanged. The King of Portugal would protest energetically when during a public act King Fernando talked about the Crown of Spain and it was after the independence of Portugal in 1640 when the concept of Spain started to shift and be applied to all the Peninsula except Portugal. Even so, Portugal would still complain when the terms Crown of Spain or Monarchy of Spain were still used in the 18th century with the Treaty of Utrecht. The Iberian peninsula has long inhabited, first by early hominids such as Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis.
In the Paleolithic period, the Neanderthals entered Iberia and eventually took refuge from the migrations of modern humans. In the 40th millennium BC, during the Upper Paleolithic and the last ice age and these were nomadic hunter-gatherers originating on the steppes of Central Asia. When the last Ice Age reached its maximum extent, during the 30th millennium BC, in the millennia that followed, the Neanderthals became extinct and local modern human cultures thrived, producing pre-historic art such as that found in LArbreda Cave and in the Côa Valley. In the Mesolithic period, beginning in the 10th millennium BC and this was an interstadial deglaciation that lessened the harsh conditions of the Ice Age
Cybele
Cybele is an Anatolian mother goddess, she may have a possible precursor in the earliest neolithic at Çatalhöyük, where statues of obese women, sometimes sitting, have been found in excavations. She is Phrygias only known goddess, and was probably its state deity and her Phrygian cult was adopted and adapted by Greek colonists of Asia Minor and spread to mainland Greece and its more distant western colonies around the 6th century BC. In Greece, Cybele met with a mixed reception and she was partially assimilated to aspects of the Earth-goddess Gaia, her Minoan equivalent Rhea, and the Harvest-Mother goddess Demeter. Uniquely in Greek religion, she had a eunuch mendicant priesthood, many of her Greek cults included rites to a divine Phrygian castrate shepherd-consort Attis, who was probably a Greek invention. In Greece, Cybele is associated with mountains and city walls, fertile nature, in Rome, Cybele was known as Magna Mater. The Roman State adopted and developed a form of her cult after the Sibylline oracle recommended her conscription as a key religious component in Romes second war against Carthage.
Roman mythographers reinvented her as a Trojan goddess, and thus an ancestral goddess of the Roman people by way of the Trojan prince Aeneas, with Romes eventual hegemony over the Mediterranean world, Romanised forms of Cybeles cults spread throughout the Roman Empire. The meaning and morality of her cults and priesthoods were topics of debate and dispute in Greek and Roman literature, no contemporary text or myth survives to attest the original character and nature of Cybeles Phrygian cult. Cybele may have evolved from an Anatolian Mother Goddess of a type found at Çatalhöyük, in Phrygian art of the 8th century BC, the cult attributes of the Phrygian mother-goddess include attendant lions, a bird of prey, and a small vase for her libations or other offerings. She is ancient Phrygias only known goddess, and was probably the highest deity of the Phrygian State, in the 2nd century AD, the geographer Pausanias attests to a Magnesian cult to the Mother of the Gods, whose image was carved into a rock-spur of Mount Sipylus.
This was believed to be the oldest image of the goddess and this was the aniconic stone that was removed to Rome in 204 BC. In this view, the desire to harness her power led to her installation as a goddess of the city by Anatolian elites. To show her role as protector of cities, or city states, she was shown wearing a Mural Crown. At the same time, her power transcended any purely political usage, over time, her Phrygian cults and iconography were transformed, and eventually subsumed, by the influences and interpretations of her foreign devotees, at first Greek and Roman. The Greeks called her Mātēr or Mētēr, or from the early 5th century Kubelē, in Pindar, walter Burkert places her among the foreign gods of Greek religion, a complex figure combining the Minoan-Mycenaean tradition with the Phrygian cult imported directly from Asia Minor. In Greece, as in Phrygia, she was a Mistress of animals, with her mastery of the world expressed by the lions that flank her. She was readily assimilated to the Minoan-Greek earth-mother Rhea, Mother of the gods, whose raucous, as an exemplar of devoted motherhood, she was partly assimilated to the grain-goddess Demeter, whose torchlight procession recalled her search for her lost daughter, Persephone.
As with other deities viewed as foreign introductions, the spread of Cybeles cult was attended by conflict and her cults most often were funded privately, rather than by the polis, and her vivid and forceful character and association with the wild set her apart from the Olympian gods
Tanit
Tanit was a Berber Punic and Phoenician goddess, the chief deity of Carthage alongside her consort Baal Hammon. She was adopted by the Punic Berber people, Tanit is called Tinnit, Tannou or Tangou. The name appears to have originated in Carthage, though it not appear in local theophorous names. She was equivalent to the moon-goddess Astarte, and worshipped in Roman Carthage in her Romanized form as Dea Caelestis, in modern-day Tunisian Arabic, it is customary to invoke Omek Tannou or Oumouk Tangou, in years of drought to bring rain. Similarly and many other forms of Arabic refer to Baali farming to refer to non-irrigated agriculture. Tanit was worshiped in Punic contexts in the Western Mediterranean, from Malta to Gades into Hellenistic times, from the fifth century BCE onwards, Tanits worship is associated with that of Baal Hammon. She is given the epithet pene baal and the title rabat and her shrine excavated at Sarepta in southern Phoenicia revealed an inscription that identified her for the first time in her homeland and related her securely to the Phoenician goddess Astarte.
One site where Tanit is uncovered is at Kerkouane, in the Cap Bon peninsula in Tunisia, the origins of Tanit are to be found in the pantheon of Ugarit, especially in the Ugaritic goddess Anat, a consumer of blood and flesh. There is significant, albeit disputed, both archaeological and within ancient written sources, pointing towards child sacrifice forming part of the worship of Tanit, some archaeologists theorised that infant sacrifices have occurred. Lawrence E. Stager, who directed the excavations of the Carthage Tophet in the 1970s, paolo Xella of the National Research Council in Rome summarized the textual and archaeological evidence for Carthaginian infant sacrifice. Tophet is a derived from the Bible, used to refer to a site near Jerusalem at which Canaanites and Israelites who strayed from Judaism by practicing Canaanite idolatry would sacrifice children. It is now used as a term for all such sites with cremated human. The Hebrew Bible does not specify that the Israelite victims were buried, only burned and we have no idea how the Phoenicians themselves referred to the places of burning or burial, or to the practice itself.
Several apparent Tophets have been identified, chiefly a large one in Carthage, dubbed the Tophet of Salammbó, soil in the Tophet of Salammbó was found to be full of olive wood charcoal, probably from the sacrificial pyres. It was the location of the temple of the goddess Tanit, animal remains, mostly sheep and goats, found inside some of the Tophet urns, strongly suggest that this was not a burial ground for children who died prematurely. The animals were sacrificed to the gods, presumably in place of children and it is conjectured that the children unlucky enough not to have substitutes were sacrificed and buried in the Tophet. The area covered by the Tophet in Carthage was probably over an acre, about 20,000 urns were deposited between 400 BCE and 200 BCE, with the practice continuing until the early years of the Christian period. The urns contained the bones of newborns and in some cases the bones of fetuses
Roman engineering
Romans are famous for their advanced engineering accomplishments, although some of their own inventions were improvements on older ideas and inventions. Technology for bringing running water into cities was developed in the east, the architecture used in Rome was strongly influenced by Greek and Etruscan sources. Roads were common at time, but the Romans improved their design. Moreover, their contributions were described in detail by authors such as Vitruvius and Pliny the Elder, so there is a printed record of their many inventions. 1,000 cubic metres of water were brought into Rome by 14 different aqueducts each day, per capita water usage in ancient Rome matched that of modern-day cities like New York City or modern Rome. Most water was for use, such as baths and sewers. De aquaeductu is the two volume treatise on 1st century aqueducts of Rome, written by Frontinus. The aqueducts could stretch from 10–100 km long, and typically descended from an elevation of 300 m above sea level at the source, Roman engineers used inverted siphons to move water across a valley if they judged it impractical to build a raised aqueduct.
The Roman legions were largely responsible for building the aqueducts, maintenance was often done by slaves. The Romans were among the first civilizations to harness the power of water and they built some of the first watermills outside of Greece for grinding flour and spread the technology for constructing watermills throughout the Mediterranean region. It is known that they were capable of building and operating mining equipment such as crushing mills. Large diameter vertical wheels of Roman vintage, for raising water, have been excavated from the Rio Tinto mines in Southwestern Spain, Roman bridges were among the first large and lasting bridges ever built. They were built with stone, employing the arch as basic structure, built in 142 BC, the Pons Aemilius, named Ponte Rotto is the oldest Roman stone bridge in Rome, Italy. They were normally at least 18 meters above the body of water, an example of temporary military bridge construction are the two Caesars Rhine bridges. The Romans built many dams for water collection, such as the Subiaco dams, one of the Subiaco dams was reputedly the highest ever found or inferred.
They built 72 dams in Spain, such as those at Mérida, at one site, Montefurado in Galicia, they appear to have built a dam across the river Sil to expose alluvial gold deposits in the bed of the river. The site is near the spectacular Roman gold mine of Las Medulas, tanks for holding water are common along aqueduct systems, and numerous examples are known from just one site, the gold mines at Dolaucothi in west Wales. Masonry dams were common in North Africa for providing a water supply from the wadis behind many settlements
Silver
Silver is a metallic element with symbol Ag and atomic number 47. The symbol Ag stems from Latin argentum, derived from the Greek ὰργὀς, a soft, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. The metal is found in the Earths crust in the pure, free form, as an alloy with gold and other metals. Most silver is produced as a byproduct of copper, lead, Silver is more abundant than gold, but it is much less abundant as a native metal. Its purity is measured on a per mille basis, a 94%-pure alloy is described as 0.940 fine. As one of the seven metals of antiquity, silver has had a role in most human cultures. Silver has long valued as a precious metal. Silver metal is used in many premodern monetary systems in bullion coins, Silver is used in numerous applications other than currency, such as solar panels, water filtration, ornaments, high-value tableware and utensils, and as an investment medium. Silver is used industrially in electrical contacts and conductors, in specialized mirrors, window coatings, Silver compounds are used in photographic film and X-rays.
Dilute silver nitrate solutions and other compounds are used as disinfectants and microbiocides, added to bandages and wound-dressings, catheters. Silver is similar in its physical and chemical properties to its two neighbours in group 11 of the periodic table and gold. This distinctive electron configuration, with an electron in the highest occupied s subshell over a filled d subshell. Silver is a soft and malleable transition metal. Silver crystallizes in a cubic lattice with bulk coordination number 12. Unlike metals with incomplete d-shells, metallic bonds in silver are lacking a covalent character and are relatively weak and this observation explains the low hardness and high ductility of single crystals of silver. Silver has a brilliant white metallic luster that can take a polish. Protected silver has greater optical reflectivity than aluminium at all wavelengths longer than ~450 nm, at wavelengths shorter than 450 nm, silvers reflectivity is inferior to that of aluminium and drops to zero near 310 nm.
The electrical conductivity of silver is the greatest of all metals, greater even than copper, during World War II in the US,13540 tons of silver were used in electromagnets for enriching uranium, mainly because of the wartime shortage of copper
Extremadura
Extremadura is an autonomous community of western Spain whose capital city is Mérida. Its component provinces are Cáceres and Badajoz and it is bordered by Portugal to the west. To the north it borders Castile and León, to the south, it borders Andalusia and it is an important area for wildlife, particularly with the major reserve at Monfragüe, which was designated a National Park in 2007, and the International Tagus River Natural Park. The government of Extremadura is called Gobierno de Extremadura, Extremadura is contained between 37° 57′ and 40° 85′ N latitude, and 4° 39′ and 7° 33′ W longitude. The area of Extremadura is 41,633 km2, making it the fifth largest of the Spanish autonomous communities and it is located in the Southern Plateau. In the north is the Sistema Central with the highest point in Extremadura,2,401 m high Calvitero, the main subranges of the Sistema Central in Extremadura are the Sierra de Gata and Sierra de Béjar. In the centre is the Sierra de las Villuercas which reaches an altitude of 1,603 m on the Pico de las Villuercas, other notable ranges are Sierra de Montánchez and the Sierra de San Pedro, which form part of the greater Montes de Toledo system.
To the south rises the Sierra Morena which separates Extremadura from Andalusia with Sierra de Tentudía where the highest altitude of mountains in Extremadura is Pico Tentudía at 1,104 m. There are four different hydrographic basins, The basin of the Tagus, with two tributaries, on the right, the Tiétar and the Alagón, and on the left, the Almonte, Salor. The tributaries on the right edge carry a quantity of water, which feed the gorges of the Sistema Central where the rainfall is abundant. The basin of the Guadiana, which has tributaries, to the right and Ruecas to the left, Zújar River which is its plentiful tributary. The basin of the Guadalquivir with only 1,411 km2 in Extremadura, the basin of the Douro with only 35 km2 in Extremadura. The climate of Extremadura is Mediterranean, except to the north, where it is continental, and to the west, the yearly temperature fluctuates between an average minimum of 4 °C and an average maximum of 33 °C. In the north of Extremadura, the temperatures are lower than those in the south, with temperatures gradually rising south towards the Sierra Morena.
During the summer, the temperature in July is greater than 26 °C. The winters are mild with the lowest temperatures being registered in the mountainous regions, the average snowfall is 40 cm, mainly occurring in January and February. As of January 1,2012, the population of Extremadura is 1,109,367 inhabitants, the population density is very low—25/km2 —compared to Spain as a whole. The most populous province is that of Badajoz, with a population of 691,715, with an area of 21,766 km2, it is the largest province in Spain
Tarraco
Tarraco is the ancient name of the current city of Tarragona. In 2000, the ensemble of Tarraco was declared a World heritage site by UNESCO. The municipality was inhabited in pre-Roman times by Iberians who had contacts with the Greeks. The Iberian colonies were located in the Ebro Valley. Evidence of Iberian colonies in the municipality of Tarragona has been dated to the 5th century BC, references in the literature to the presence of Iberians in Tarraco are ambiguous. Livy mentions an oppidum parvum called Cissis and Polybius talks about a polis called Kissa, Tarraco is mentioned for first time shortly after the arrival of Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus at Empúries in 218 BC at the start of the Second Punic War which began the Roman conquest of Hispania. Livy writes that the Romans conquered a field of Punic supplies for Hannibals troops near Cissis, a short time later, the Romans were attacked not far from Tarraco. But it remains unclear whether Cissis and Tarraco were the same city, a coin found in Empúries bears the inscription Tarakon-salir.
The coin, engraved in keeping with other Empúries models at a location, is generally dated to 250 BC. The name Kesse appears on coins of Iberian origin from the 1st, Kesse may be equated with Cissis, the place of origin of the Cissisians mentioned by Pliny. The Roman city wall was constructed on top of the more ancient wall characteristic of the Iberian stonemason. After the death of the Scipio brothers, Tarraco was 25-year-old Scipio Africanuss winter base between 211 and 210, and where he met the tribes of Hispania in conventus, the population was largely loyal to the Romans during the war. Livy called them allies and friends of the Roman people and the fishermen of Tarraco served with their boats during the siege of Carthago Nova, the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula by the Romans took over 200 years. During the following two centuries Tarraco remained a supply and winter camp during the wars against the Celtiberians. There was therefore a military presence during this period, possibly in the highest area of what is currently the citys historic quarter.
In 197 BC, all of the areas, even narrow strips along the coast of Spain, were divided between the new provinces of Hispania Ulterior and Hispania Citerior. The capital of Hispania Citerior was principally Carthago Nova but Strabo says that the governors resided in Tarraco. The legal status of Tarraco is not entirely clear and it was probably organized as conventus civium Romanorum during the Republic, with two magistri at its head
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