Turduli

Main language areas in Iberia c. 300 BC

The Turduli (Greek: Tourduloi) were an ancient Pre-Roman people of the Iberian Peninsula, which lived in the south and centre of modern Portugal, in the east of the provinces of Beira Litoral, coastal Estremadura and Alentejo along the Guadiana valley, and in Extremadura and Andalusia in Spain.

Origins

Often mentioned in the ancient sources as related to the powerful Turdetani people of Baetica (modern Andalusia), their exact ethnic affiliation remains obscure. However, recent linguistic studies of the few funerary inscriptions they left behind seem to demonstrate that the early Turduli spoke an Indo-european language of the Anatolian branch very similar to Mysian, though they later also included people of Celtic, Illyrian, and even Ligurian origin.

Culture

In Baeturia, they held the pre-Roman towns of Budua (Badajoz), Dipo (Guadajira), Mirobriga (Capilla), and Sisapo (Almadén).

History

According to the 4th century BC Greek geographer and explorer Pytheas, coted by Strabo in the 1st century AD, their ancestral homeland was located north of Turdetania (the region where was located the semy-legendary Kingdom of Tartessos, in the Baetis River valley, the present-day Guadalquivir), in the modern Spanish eastern Extremadura region, where their ancient capital Regina Tourdulorum (Reina – Badajoz) once stood.

Expansion

The collapse of Tartessos in around 530 BC and the Celtici migrations in the 6th-5th Centuries BC set them in motion, with the majority settling the middle Anas (Guadiana) basin, a region known as Beturia or Baeturia Turdulorum roughly corresponding to parts of eastern Alentejo, and the western half of the modern Badajoz and southeastern Huelva provinces, hence their name Baetici Turduli. Others went west, colonizing the central coastal Portuguese region of Estremadura and became known as Turduli Oppidani. Some went south, where they settled the present Setubal peninsula along the Tagus river mouth and the lower Sardum (Sado; Kallipos in the Greek sources) river valley as the Bardili. The remnants, designated Turduli Veteres in the ancient sources, migrated northwards in conjunction with the Celtici and ended settling the Beira Litoral, a coastal region situated along the lower Douro and Vacca (Vouga) river basins.

See also

• Bardili (Turduli)
• Tartessos
• Turdetani
• Turduli Oppidani
• Turduli Veteres
• Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula

References

• Ángel Montenegro et alii, Historia de España 2 - colonizaciones y formación de los pueblos prerromanos (1200-218 a.C), Editorial Gredos, Madrid (1989) ISBN 84-249-1386-8
• Alberto Lorrio J. Alvarado, Los Celtíberos, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Murcia (1997) ISBN 84-7908-335-2
• Francisco Burillo Mozota, Los Celtíberos, etnias y estados, Crítica, Barcelona (1998, revised edition 2007) ISBN 84-7423-891-9
• João Ferreira do Amaral & Augusto Ferreira do Amaral, Povos Antigos em Portugal – paleontologia do território hoje Português, Quetzal Editores, Lisboa (1997) ISBN 972-564-224-4
• Jorge de Alarcão, O Domínio Romano em Portugal, Publicações Europa-América, Lisboa (1988) ISBN 972-1-02627-1
• Jorge de Alarcão et alii, De Ulisses a Viriato – O primeiro milénio a.C., Museu Nacional de Arqueologia, Instituto Português de Museus, Lisboa (1996) ISBN 972-8137-39-7
• Luis Berrocal-Rangel, Los pueblos célticos del soroeste de la Península Ibérica, Editorial Complutense, Madrid (1992) ISBN 84-7491-447-7

External links

• Detailed map of the Pre-Roman Peoples of Iberia (around 200 BC)