Tarshish

Tartessos

Sardinia

Cádiz

Phoenicia

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Suggested locations of Tarshish

Tarshish (Phoenician: 𐤕𐤓𐤔𐤔‎ TRŠŠ; Hebrew: תַּרְשִׁישׁ Taršīš; Greek: Θαρσεῖς, Tharseis) occurs in the Hebrew Bible with several uncertain meanings, most frequently as a place (probably a large city or region) far across the sea from Phoenicia (modern Lebanon) and the Land of Israel. Tarshish was said to have exported vast quantities of important metals to Phoenicia and Israel. The same place name occurs in the Akkadian inscriptions of Assyrian king Esarhaddon (died 669 BC) and also on the Phoenician inscription of the Nora Stone (around 800 BC) in Sardinia; its precise location was never commonly known, and was eventually lost in antiquity. Legends grew up around it over time so that its identity has been the subject of scholarly research and commentary for more than two thousand years.

Its importance stems in part from the fact that Hebrew biblical passages tend to understand Tarshish as a source of King Solomon's great wealth in metals – especially silver, but also gold, tin, and iron (Ezekiel 27). The metals were reportedly obtained in partnership with King Hiram of Tyre in Phoenicia (Isaiah 23), and fleets of ships from Tarshish.

Tarshish is also the name of a modern village in the Mount Lebanon District of Lebanon, and Tharsis is a modern village in southern Spain.

According to the Jewish Encyclopedia Da'at [he], the biblical phrase "ships of Tarshish" refers not to ships from a particular location, but to a class of ships: large vessels for long-distance trade.^[1]