El personal del palacio tartésico de Cancho Roano (Badajoz, España)

Abstract

Analysis of the habitants of the regia or fortified palace of Cancho Roano (Badajoz, Spain), a dynastic rural residence fortified in the 6th century BC. It had public, ritual and administrative functions and it controlled the local handicrafts and agricultural production, as centre of a fundus of about 3000 ha, identified by its natural geographical limits. The analysis is based in a comparative archaeological study of the palatial architecture, the material culture and its parallels in rural fortified palaces in the Near East and the Mediterranean area in Antiquity. The building offers areas with different functions: the rooms of the dynast, magazines, hall of audience, a dynastic sanctuary and a hypothetical harem. The analysis confirms the economical, social and ideological activities of the Tartessian palatial system and opens new paths for the knowledge of the socio-cultural structure of the Pre-Roman cultures in Iberia.