Tarshish
Encyclopedia
Tarshish תַּרְשִׁישׁ occurs in the Hebrew Bible
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...

 with several uncertain meanings:
  • One of the sons of Javan
    Javan
    Javan was the fourth son of Noah's son Japheth according to the "Table of Nations" in the Hebrew Bible...

     .
  • In the Bible Solomon set up a trade with Tarshish and received ivory
    Ivory
    Ivory is a term for dentine, which constitutes the bulk of the teeth and tusks of animals, when used as a material for art or manufacturing. Ivory has been important since ancient times for making a range of items, from ivory carvings to false teeth, fans, dominoes, joint tubes, piano keys and...

    , ape
    Ape
    Apes are Old World anthropoid mammals, more specifically a clade of tailless catarrhine primates, belonging to the biological superfamily Hominoidea. The apes are native to Africa and South-east Asia, although in relatively recent times humans have spread all over the world...

    s, and peacocks from Tarshish which are all native to the jungles in India. India's state bird for example is the peacock. The Bible also indicates that Jonah
    Jonah
    Jonah is the name given in the Hebrew Bible to a prophet of the northern kingdom of Israel in about the 8th century BC, the eponymous central character in the Book of Jonah, famous for being swallowed by a fish or a whale, depending on translation...

     also attempted to sail to Tarshish . His rebellion against the Hebrew God YHWH
    Yahweh
    Yahweh is the name of God in the Bible, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jews and Christians.The word Yahweh is a modern scholarly convention for the Hebrew , transcribed into Roman letters as YHWH and known as the Tetragrammaton, for which the original pronunciation is unknown...

     led to his being tossed overboard by sailors, swallowed by a large fish, and vomited out onto dry land by God's command. He then made his way to Nineveh
    Nineveh
    Nineveh was an ancient Assyrian city on the eastern bank of the Tigris River, and capital of the Neo Assyrian Empire. Its ruins are across the river from the modern-day major city of Mosul, in the Ninawa Governorate of Iraq....

    , now known as Mosul
    Mosul
    Mosul , is a city in northern Iraq and the capital of the Ninawa Governorate, some northwest of Baghdad. The original city stands on the west bank of the Tigris River, opposite the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh on the east bank, but the metropolitan area has now grown to encompass substantial...

    , in Iraq.
  • Flavius Josephus (Antiquitates Iudaicae
    Antiquities of the Jews
    Antiquities of the Jews is a twenty volume historiographical work composed by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus in the thirteenth year of the reign of Roman emperor Flavius Domitian which was around 93 or 94 AD. Antiquities of the Jews contains an account of history of the Jewish people,...

     i. 6, § 1) reads "Tarshush", identifying it as the city of Tarsus
    Tarsus (city)
    Tarsus is a historic city in south-central Turkey, 20 km inland from the Mediterranean Sea. It is part of the Adana-Mersin Metropolitan Area, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in Turkey with a population of 2.75 million...

     in southern Asia Minor which was referred to in Assyrian records from the reign of Esarhaddon
    Esarhaddon
    Esarhaddon , was a king of Assyria who reigned 681 – 669 BC. He was the youngest son of Sennacherib and the Aramean queen Naqi'a , Sennacherib's second wife....

     as Tarsisi. Prior to this time, the Assyrians referred to Tarsus as Tarzi. Modern research has shown that the metals the Old Testament associates with Tarshish existed in the Taurus Mountains
    Taurus Mountains
    Taurus Mountains are a mountain complex in southern Turkey, dividing the Mediterranean coastal region of southern Turkey from the central Anatolian Plateau. The system extends along a curve from Lake Eğirdir in the west to the upper reaches of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers in the east...

     north of Tarsus. In addition, Phoenician inscriptions have been found at Karatepe
    Karatepe
    Karatepe is a late Hittite fortress and open air museum in Osmaniye Province in southern Turkey lying at a distance of about 23 km from the district center of Kadirli. It is sited in the Taurus Mountains, on the right bank of the Ceyhan River...

     in Cilicia
    Cilicia
    In antiquity, Cilicia was the south coastal region of Asia Minor, south of the central Anatolian plateau. It existed as a political entity from Hittite times into the Byzantine empire...

    . Bunsen
    Christian Charles Josias Bunsen
    Christian Charles Josias, Baron von Bunsen was a German diplomat and scholar.-Early life and education:Bunsen was born at Korbach, an old town in the little German principality of Waldeck....

     and Sayce
    Archibald Sayce
    The Rev. Archibald Henry Sayce , was a pioneer British Assyriologist and linguist, who held a chair as Professor of Assyriology at the University of Oxford from 1891 to 1919.- Life :...

      follow Josephus.
  • However, the name is sometimes also used in more general meanings. The Bible uses the term ships of Tarshish to denote large ships intended for large voyages whatever their destination; some Bible translations, including the NIV, go as far as to translate the phrase ship(s) of Tarshish as "trading ship(s)," and Jonah
    Jonah
    Jonah is the name given in the Hebrew Bible to a prophet of the northern kingdom of Israel in about the 8th century BC, the eponymous central character in the Book of Jonah, famous for being swallowed by a fish or a whale, depending on translation...

    's fleeing to Tarshish may need to be taken as "a place very far away" rather than a precise geographical term. It may however refer to Tarsus
    Tarsus, Mersin
    Tarsus is a historic city in south-central Turkey, 20 km inland from the Mediterranean Sea. It is part of the Adana-Mersin Metropolitan Area, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in Turkey with a population of 2.75 million...

     in Cilicia where Saul, later Paul hailed from. The term tarshish may also be derived from the Greek tarsos which is the name for an oar used in ancient ships. On the Mediterranean Sea
    Mediterranean Sea
    The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...

    , ships that used only sails were often left stranded without wind while ships with oars could continue their voyage. Therefore, trading ships most likely would have used oarsmen rather than sails.
  • Bochart
    Samuel Bochart
    Samuel Bochart was a French Protestant biblical scholar, a student of Thomas Erpenius and the teacher of Pierre Daniel Huet...

     first suggested eastern localities for the ports of Ophir
    Ophir
    Ophir is a port or region mentioned in the Bible, famous for its wealth. King Solomon is supposed to have received a cargo of gold, silver, sandalwood, precious stones, ivory, apes and peacocks from Ophir, every three years.- Citations :...

     and Tarshish during King Solomon's reign, specifically the Tamilakkam continent (present day South India and Northern Ceylon) where the Dravidians were well known for their gold, pearls, ivory and peacock trade. He fixed on "Tarshish" being the site of Kudiramalai
    Kudiramalai
    Kudiramalai is a headland cape, point and ancient port town on the west coast of Sri Lanka. It was once a flourishing emporium of international trade and the capital of an ancient Kingdom based in Jaffna peninsula of the Naka, before the capital was moved to Nallur in the medieval period...

    , a possible corruption of Thiruketheeswaram
    Ketheeswaram temple
    Ketheeswaram temple is an ancient Hindu temple in Mannar, Northern Province Sri Lanka. Overlooking the ancient period Tamil port towns of Manthai and Kudiramalai, the temple has lay in ruins, been restored, renovated and enlarged by various royals and devotees throughout its history...

    .
  • Bochart
    Samuel Bochart
    Samuel Bochart was a French Protestant biblical scholar, a student of Thomas Erpenius and the teacher of Pierre Daniel Huet...

     (in his Phaleg) and later authors like Hertz
    Joseph H. Hertz
    ----Rabbi Joseph Herman Hertz, CH was a Jewish Hungarian-born Rabbi and Bible scholar. He is most notable for holding the position of Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom from 1913 until his death in 1946, in a period encompassing both world wars and The Holocaust.- Early life :Hertz was born in the...

     (1936) identify Tarshish as the city of Tartessos
    Tartessos
    Tartessos or Tartessus was a harbor city and surrounding culture on the south coast of the Iberian peninsula , at the mouth of the Guadalquivir River. It appears in sources from Greece and the Near East starting in the middle of the first millennium BC, for example Herodotus, who describes it as...

     in Southern Spain
    Spain
    Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

    . In the Oracle against Tyre, the prophet
    Prophet
    In religion, a prophet, from the Greek word προφήτης profitis meaning "foreteller", is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people...

      Ezekiel
    Ezekiel
    Ezekiel , "God will strengthen" , is the central protagonist of the Book of Ezekiel in the Hebrew Bible. In Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Ezekiel is acknowledged as a Hebrew prophet...

      mentions that silver, iron, lead and tin came to Tyre from Tarshish (Trsys). They were stored in Tyre and resold, probably to Mesopotamia. The editors of the New Oxford Annotated Bible suggest that Tarshish is either Tartessos or Sardinia
    Sardinia
    Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . It is an autonomous region of Italy, and the nearest land masses are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the Spanish Balearic Islands.The name Sardinia is from the pre-Roman noun *sard[],...

    .
  • Tarshish is also called Tarish.
  • The Septuagint and the Vulgate
    Vulgate
    The Vulgate is a late 4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. It was largely the work of St. Jerome, who was commissioned by Pope Damasus I in 382 to make a revision of the old Latin translations...

     in several passages translate it with Carthage
    Carthage
    Carthage , implying it was a 'new Tyre') is a major urban centre that has existed for nearly 3,000 years on the Gulf of Tunis, developing from a Phoenician colony of the 1st millennium BC...

    , apparently following a Jewish tradition found in the Targum of Jonathan
    Targum Jonathan
    Targum Jonathan - otherwise referred to as Targum Yonasan/Yonatan is the official eastern targum to the Nevi'im. Its early origins, however, are western i.e. from the Land of Israel, and the Talmudic tradition attributes its authorship to Jonathan ben Uzziel...

     ("Afriki", i.e., Carthage).
  • Le Page Renouf
    Peter le Page Renouf
    Sir Peter le Page Renouf , Egyptologist, was born in Guernsey.He was educated at Elizabeth College there, and proceeded to Oxford, which, upon his becoming a Roman Catholic, under the influence of John Henry Newman, he quit without taking a degree as he was unable to subscribe to the Thirty Nine...

     thought that "Tarshish" means a coast, and, as the word occurs frequently in connection with Tyre, the Phoenician coast is to be understood.
  • Cheyne
    Thomas Kelly Cheyne
    Thomas Kelly Cheyne was an English divine and Biblical critic. He was born in London and educated at Merchant Taylors' School, London, and Oxford University....

      thinks that "Tarshish" of and "Tiras
    Tiras
    Tiras was, according to and Chronicles 1, the last-named son of Japheth who is otherwise unmentioned in the Hebrew Bible. According to the Book of Jubilees, the inheritance of Tiras consisted of four large islands in the ocean....

    " of , are really two names of one nation derived from two different sources, and might indicate the Tyrsenians or Etruscans. Thus the name may denote Italy or the European coasts west of Greece.
  • In the Torah
    Torah
    Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...

    , it is also the name of a gem-stone associated with the Tribe of Asher
    Asher
    Asher , in the Book of Genesis, is the second son of Jacob and Zilpah, and the founder of the Tribe of Asher.-Name:The text of the Torah argues that the name of Asher means happy/blessing, implying a derivation from the Hebrew term osher ; the Torah actually presents this in two variations—beoshri...

     that has been identified by the Septuagint and by Josephus as the "gold stone" χρυσόλιθος (whose identification remains in dispute, possibly topaz
    Topaz
    Topaz is a silicate mineral of aluminium and fluorine with the chemical formula Al2SiO42. Topaz crystallizes in the orthorhombic system and its crystals are mostly prismatic terminated by pyramidal and other faces.-Color and varieties:...

    , probably not modern chrysolite), and later as aquamarine. It is the first stone on the fourth row of the Hoshen
    Hoshen
    The priestly breastplate was a sacred breastplate worn by the High Priest for the Israelites, according to the Book of Exodus...

     .
  • One of King Ahasuerus
    Ahasuerus
    Ahasuerus is a name used several times in the Hebrew Bible, as well as related legends and Apocrypha. This name is applied in the Hebrew Scriptures to three rulers...

    ' seven advisers who were princes of Persia and Media
    Medes
    The MedesThe Medes...

     .

In later history

Tarshish is the name of a village in Lebanon. The village is located in the Baabda Kadaa at an elevation of 1400m and is 50 km away from Beirut.

Around 1665, the followers of Shabbatai Zvi in İzmir
Izmir
Izmir is a large metropolis in the western extremity of Anatolia. The metropolitan area in the entire Izmir Province had a population of 3.35 million as of 2010, making the city third most populous in Turkey...

 interpreted the ships of Tarshish as Dutch ships that would transport them to the Holy Land
Holy Land
The Holy Land is a term which in Judaism refers to the Kingdom of Israel as defined in the Tanakh. For Jews, the Land's identifiction of being Holy is defined in Judaism by its differentiation from other lands by virtue of the practice of Judaism often possible only in the Land of Israel...

.

English historian James Emerson Tennent also theorized Galle
Galle
Galle is a city situated on the southwestern tip of Sri Lanka, 119 km from Colombo. Galle is the capital city of Southern Province of Sri Lanka and it lies in Galle District....

, a southern city in Sri Lanka, was the ancient seaport of Tarshish from which King Solomon is said to have drawn ivory, peacocks and other valuables.

Some believe the Tarshish power to be Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 and possibly related to an Eastern Tarshish, namely India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. Some, looking for the 2nd coming of Jesus and the Kingdom of God
Kingdom of God
The Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven is a foundational concept in the Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.The term "Kingdom of God" is found in all four canonical gospels and in the Pauline epistles...

 based round the land of Israel, believe that the prophecies regarding the Tarshish power have their latter day fulfilment in modern times.

Tarshish was also the name of a short-lived political party founded by would-be assassin of Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion, Moshe Dwek
Moshe Dwek
Moshe Dwek is a Yemenite-Israeli most notable for throwing a hand grenade in the Knesset while it was in session on 29 October 1957 and for a failed run for the Knesset in 1988....

.

The Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 form of the name, Tharsis
Tharsis
The Tharsis region on Mars is a vast volcanic plateau centered near the equator in Mars’ western hemisphere. The region is home to the largest volcanoes in the Solar System, including the three enormous shield volcanoes Arsia Mons, Pavonis Mons, and Ascraeus Mons, which are collectively known as...

, was given by Giovanni Schiaparelli
Giovanni Schiaparelli
Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli was an Italian astronomer and science historian. He studied at the University of Turin and Berlin Observatory. In 1859-1860 he worked in Pulkovo Observatory and then worked for over forty years at Brera Observatory...

 to a region on Mars
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...

.

Another theory is by Fr. Francisco Collin SJ. He claims that the Filipino people were descendants of Tarshish.

In Herman Melville
Herman Melville
Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....

's novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, was written by American author Herman Melville and first published in 1851. It is considered by some to be a Great American Novel and a treasure of world literature. The story tells the adventures of wandering sailor Ishmael, and his voyage on the whaleship Pequod,...

, Father Mapple gives a sermon on the story of Jonah
Jonah
Jonah is the name given in the Hebrew Bible to a prophet of the northern kingdom of Israel in about the 8th century BC, the eponymous central character in the Book of Jonah, famous for being swallowed by a fish or a whale, depending on translation...

. Father Mapple identifies the Tarshish to which Jonah flees with the port
Port
A port is a location on a coast or shore containing one or more harbors where ships can dock and transfer people or cargo to or from land....

 of Cádiz
Cádiz
Cadiz is a city and port in southwestern Spain. It is the capital of the homonymous province, one of eight which make up the autonomous community of Andalusia....

 in Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

, "as far by water, from Joppa, as Jonah could possibly have sailed in those ancient days, when the Atlantic was an almost unknown sea" (Chapter 9, "The Sermon").

Jewish liturgy mentions "Tarshishim," commonly translated into English as "fiery angels."

Tarshish is a family name found among Jews of Ashkenazic descent. A variation on the name, Tarshishi, is found among Arabs of Lebanese descent, and likely indicates a family connection to the Lebanese village Tarshish

Further reading

  • Christine M. Thompson (2007) Silver in the Age of Iron and the Orientalizing Economies of Archaic Greece. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.
  • J. D. Muhly, copper, tin, silver and iron: the search for metallic ores as an incentive for foreign expansion. In: Gitin et al. (eds.), Mediterranean Peoples in Transition: 13th
    13th century BC
    The 13th century BC was the period from 1300 to 1201 BC.-Events:*1300 BC: Cemetery H culture comes to an end.*1292 BC: End of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt, start of the Nineteenth Dynasty....

     to early 10th centuries BC
    10th century BC
    The 10th century BC started the first day of 1000 BC and ended the last day of 901 BC.- Overview :This period followed the Bronze Age collapse in the Near East, and the century saw the Early Iron Age take hold there. The Greek Dark Ages which had come about in 1200 BC continued. The Neo-Assyrian...

    . In Honor of Professor Trude Dothan
    Trude Dothan
    Professor Trude Dothan is one of Israel's leading archaeologists, specializing in the Late Bronze and Iron Ages in the region, in particular in Philistine culture.-Early life:...

    . Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 314-329.
  • Hertz J.H.
    Joseph H. Hertz
    ----Rabbi Joseph Herman Hertz, CH was a Jewish Hungarian-born Rabbi and Bible scholar. He is most notable for holding the position of Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom from 1913 until his death in 1946, in a period encompassing both world wars and The Holocaust.- Early life :Hertz was born in the...

     (1936) The Pentateuch and Haftoras. Deuteronomy. Oxford University Press, London.
  • Dominique Jongbloed (2009) Civilisations antédiluviennes . ed Cap Aventures
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