European Kingdoms

Ibossim (Phoenician Colony) (Iberia)

Ancient Greek & Phoenician Cities & Colonies Bronze Age Anatolian States Canaanite States & Groups Persian & Greek Satrapies Rome

In the mid-third millennium BC, city states began to appear in Syria as people benefited from interaction with Sumer and from improvements in irrigation. Within five hundred years, around 2000 BC, the same process was happening farther south and west, in the Levant, along the Mediterranean coast.

Semitic-speaking Canaanite tribes occupied much of the area, creating a patchwork of city states of their own. The Phoenicians of the first millennium BC were those Canaanites who still occupied the Mediterranean coastal strip following the Near East's climate-induced social collapse of the thirteenth and twelfth centuries BC.

They became hemmed in on their long Mediterranean coastal strip by various more recent arrivals, such as the Israelites, Philistines, Sea Peoples, and Aramaeans. Still relatively unscathed by the chaos, they quickly prospered in their fertile coastal home. Each city state was self-governed, or looked to one of its larger neighbours for support and alliances.

Even so the Phoenicians worked towards a similar goal, with very little internecine strife. They created a trading empire which stretched across the Mediterranean, founding as they went seasonal trading posts along the sea's northern and southern shores.

Many of these posts gradually developed into Phoenician Colonies (and see feature link for a complete list), but the conquest of the homeland in the seventh century BC by Assyria forced many of the colonies to develop into self-governing city states of their own.

The settlement and city of Ibossim or Iboshim (YBSHM) - likely named due to the abundance of aromatic plants on this island - was a later Phoenician colony in Iberia, part of today's Spain. It was founded in 654 BC. Known to the Romans as Ebusus, and in Catalan as Elvissa, to English ears it is more familiar as Ibiza.

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(Information by Trish Wilson, with additional information by Peter Kessler, from the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, William Smith, from the Life of Apollonius of Tyana, from Encyclopaedia of the Roman Empire, Matthew Bunson (1994), from The World of the Phoenicians, Sabatino Moscati (New York, 1968), from Geography, Strabo, from The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, Volume III: AD 527-641, John R Martindale, A H M Jones, & John Morris (Cambridge University Press, 1992), from The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium: Niketas, Walter Emil Kaegi (Alexander P Kazhdan, Ed, Oxford University Press, 1991), and from External Links: The Princeton Encyclopaedia of Classical Sites, Richard Stillwell and others (Perseus Digital Library), and Carthage (Ancient History Encyclopaedia), and Geography, Strabo (H C Hamilton & W Falconer, London, 1903, Perseus Online Edition).)

654 BC

In the case of Ibiza (Ibossim) and Formentera, the presence of a stable population is similar to that of the larger islands but, around this time, evidence can be seen of Phoenician settlements.

Bes, a god in the pantheon of ancient Egyptian deities, is thought to have originated in equatorial Africa and was later introduced to Egypt, but in iconography he is depicted as a dwarfish, bearded god with a feathered headdress, panther skins, and a tail between his legs, often with his tongue sticking out, and was introduced into Ibiza by Phoenicians

The settlers probably come from Gadir rather than from Phoenicia itself, forming communities around Sa Caleta and Vila (Iboshim) on Ibiza, and making this the earliest Phoenician Colony city to be founded on the Balearic Islands archipelago.

600s BC

During this century the influence of Phoenician culture and advancement can certainly be seen in Tartessian culture. Two centuries of copying Phoenician pottery styles now results in the use of the pottery wheel becoming standardised in most Tartessian villages and cities, replacing the Tartessian tradition of creating ceramics by hand.

Trade is primarily through the nearby port city of Gadir, but Phoenician Colonies at Malaka, Sexs, Abdera, and Carthago Nova (the latter especially) also form part of this highly profitable trading network. Gadir is also the most likely trading partner with Ibossim and the Balearic Islands.

The effective weapon of the Balearic warrior was the sling, with each man carrying three, wound around the head according to Strabo or, according to Diodorus, one around the head, one around the body, and one in the hand

539 BC

All of Phoenicia is submerged within the Persian empire. As a result, many Phoenicians emigrate to the Phoenician Colonies, especially Carthage, which quickly rises to become a major power.

Smaller colonies such as Ibossim are likely already trading heavily with their colonial peers around the Mediterranean, and very likely also with the culturally advanced Tartessians of south-western Iberia who require distribution centres to export their metalwork.

c.500 BC

Ibossim becomes dominated by the increasingly powerful city of Carthage, and certainly by 480 BC (see feature link). In part, the acceptance of Carthaginian dominance may be a necessity for survival, following the Persian dominance of Phoenicia, and the early appearance of rival Greek colonies in the Mediterranean.

The Iberian peninsula prior to the Carthaginian invasion and partial conquest was a melange of different tribal influences (click or tap on map to view full sized)

With the decline of Carthage following two wars again Rome, the latter begins dominating the Mediterranean. The fall of that city in 146 BC consigns Ibossim to Roman controls in the form of Ebasus, likely a Romanisation of the Phoenician name. Today it is better known as Ibiza.