Las inscripciones sudlusitano-tartesias su función, lengua y contexto socio-económico

Abstract

Sudlusitanian-tartessian inscriptions: Function, language and socio-economic context. The data available from the Sudlusitanian inscriptions is evaluated. After checking their problematic archaeological contexts it’s suggested a likely datation in the VI-V centuries B.C. Through the analysis of the texts’ structure it’s supported the funerary interpretation of the steles. Their language is definitely neither Celtic nor Anatolian, and probably also not Indo-European. The spatial analysis allows to conclude that in South Portugal the steles are aligned according to a trading route that goes to the Aljustrel mining zone and to the Sado basin, but not controlling the mining resources. This trading route carried the goods to the few local stele concentrations of the Algarve and to the phoenician colony of Rocha Branca.