As the bus pulled away and Robert gave a last wave, features hidden beneath his porkpie hat, the journey was finally begun. I was effectively homeless now, a wandering scholar for a year. Yet, as I shot though rural Swabia, the advantages of this slowly came to bear. From unfinished articles to unrequited love, the past year’s trials and travails were somehow also over, and in glorious style; I was on the road. All I would have this year could be found in an old 50’s German rucksack Manuel had restored and in a leather satchel given to me by Andrej and Melissa. Two cameras, one digital, covered in masking tape to make it look battered, the other analogue, genuinely battered, chafed already around my neck. I was already exhausted; taking leave of my friends had been an arduous business, and I was becoming more than desperate to finally leave while I still had stipend and liver enough left to complete the year.

In picking Spain as my first halt in my journey, I was anticipating Jonah, who never made it to southern Spain (his biblical Tarshish) on grounds of his premature digestion by a whale. What was so vital about him escaping to Tarshish back then in the Early Iron Age (1st millennium BC) was that it was essentially the westernmost point known to the inhabitants of the ancient Near East, a semi-fabled land of metallic riches mentioned approvingly in the Bible, and Assyrian and ancient Greek sources alike. Much like our Jonah, this was the furthest I could justifiably be from Assyria while still playing by the rules, and presumably the furthest an Assyrian probably ever would have travelled in a lifetime.

In visiting the ancient Tartessian culture of Spain (and thus Tarshish) my plan was to counterbalance my knowledge of the ancient cultures of the Middle East with a wealth of completely different and yet connected information, to challenge myself to rethink everything I thought I had accrued about the ancient world at desk and trench alike with this Mediterranean data. Yet, I was not completely lost, as even in this seemingly opposite, counterweight land a connection to my own work existed in the form of the Phoenicians, the seafaring civilisation par excellence of the initial centuries of the 1st Millennium BC, born of a cluster of cities in the modern Lebanon and Israel, who had travelled about the Mediterranean both trading and establishing colonies, most famously Carthage, but also a great deal of sites on the southern Spanish coastline. Having studied the related language of Aramaic at university, and dug at Mozia, a beautiful island colony of theirs off Sicily, the Phoenicians would prove a blow-softener considering my ignorance of Spanish archaeology, and, indeed, of Spain at all. Eduardo’s spare Spanish textbooks had been of little avail, my token viewing of an early Almodóvar film scarcely of more utility. I would have to take Spain as it came.

In Stuttgart Airport, I bumped into two Tübingen colleagues of mine, Gubaz and Sinem, coincidentally headed Spain-wards, to a site near Seville, and promised to try to visit them. I drank a sad beer in Brussels Airport surrounded by very bland EU advertising before changing flights, despondent again at the life I was leaving, asking myself what vestiges of me would remain at the end of this year on the road. As I listened to the safety briefing in Dutch on the plane, I somehow ended up in conversation with the girl next to me. As we finally parted on the Madrid metro, I could only wish I had met her on the last day of my journey and not the first. Doors closing. Mind the gap.

Robert’s wife Amaya’s sister Tzazu and her boyfriend Danny picked me up at Atocha. I had naively imagined that I could get by for a month in Spain with a smattering of Italian, Latin, and Portuguese. Danny proved immune to this heady linguistic cocktail, but the beautiful vista of a rooftop Madrid sunset accompanied by beer and pizza gave us all common ground enough before I promptly crashed out on the sofa-bed.

The next morning, after various wrong turns around the Barnabeu Stadium, I arrived at the DAI Madrid and was shown my room. Soon afterwards, I was introduced to the director, Dirce Marzoli. We had a fruitful discussion on the dynamics of the Phoenician colonisation of Spain and its chronology in which the sheer enormity of this undertaking for these intrepid seafarers began to dawn on me, and how well organised they must have been to have carried it all off so far from home. I had underestimated the Phoenicians. My head still considering Phlebas or the like, I was caught off-guard as she asked me as to my itinerary. Half an hour later, everything was turned on its head, I was off to Seville the next morning to see the excavations at Valencina de la Concepción, rendezvousing with her and a German team of anthropologists in Huelva the following day to witness a clutch of freshly discovered Phoenician funerary urns from La Joya being analysed.

Before that, however, was a meeting with Thomas Schattner, second director of the Madrid DAI and an expert on the archaeology of ancient mining in Spain. Considering the legendary mineral wealth of Tarshish, this was bound to be an education, and that it was as he began to give me a sense through archaeological data of the jaw-droppingly huge impact of the silver mines of Spain upon every Mediterranean empire worth its salt. Astonishingly, the local cultures had not even exploited this metal until the Phoenicians had arrived. The tectonic transformations to the economy of the ancient Near East this must have brought seemed immense. I pictured myself in Iron Age Phoenicia, my uncle Ammi-Melqart having returned from his business trip having quite literally made money from scratch, and the stir this must have made. That evening, I frantically visited the Tartessian section of Madrid’s National Archaeological Museum just before closing time, trying to get my head around this culture before I would have to hit the road again. At the ticket desk, I proffered for the first time the elaborate DAI documents which serve as the travelling scholar’s passe-partout, ushering the stipend-holder into museums and generally lending him or her unwarranted gravitas; a grumble and I was in.

Seville was a close shave. The train journey had been delightful, and by now I had become somewhat confident in my ability to navigate Spanish metropoles, and so I resolved to walk from the station to the archaeological museum and back in a two-hour window prior to heading to Valencina by cercanía. Uncaring of sun or burden alike, I eschewed transport and marched off in the general direction of the Plaza de España. Pleased at my pace, I resolved to take a dogleg and visit the cathedral in a sudden burst of religiosity. Half an hour of slogging later, I abandoned this idea and made a desperate beeline for the archaeological museum, stopping only to snap a couple of pictures of the Plaza, which I suddenly realised was in Lawrence of Arabia. Arriving drenched in sweat, I dumped my kit by the lockers in front of two bemused museum officials whom seconds before I had frantically thrust my DAI papers until I finally understood that admission was free. Hefting my digital camera, I stormed about the pre- and proto-historical exhibits for fifteen minutes hoping to get a sense of the archaeology of the region before rushing back to the train station. Somewhere along the way, I had the fortune to hop onto a miraculous bus going to the station, but to my horror the driver shook his head. This bus didn’t go to the train station. I pointed at the route plan on the display. An inscrutable Iberian stare followed by a chortled epiphany: The bus did go to the train station! I was saved. By the time I made it to the platform, I had practically sweated my own bodyweight.

Caught in reverie in the face of the glorious Andalusian countryside and missing thereby village train station on my first approach, I was picked up by Charley, an evidently very patient PhD student working on Tartessian metalwork. We drove to a village restaurant where the team were having lunch, and I was introduced to the excavation director Thomas Schuhmacher who wore the tired smile of the archaeologist after a day’s digging. Spying my colleagues at the table with their back to me, I couldn’t resist startling Gubaz and Sinem by creeping up behind them and exclaiming “Geldim! Dedimki yani!” (my exuberant, shoddy version of “I told you I’d come!” in Turkish). They took this jape surprisingly well, all considered.

Following a hot bath spent reading articles, I pottered about the Roman city of Italica, birthplace of Hadrian, Trajan, and Theodosius, a stone’s throw from Scipio’s victory at Ulipa, and (coincidentally) opposite the hotel. Stood in the ruins of the huge amphitheatre (capacity 25,000), I was momentarily transfixed by the Wellsian figure of a very fat man ponderously exiting the arena, a strange and accidental moment of drama within this imperial space.

In the evening, I was in a cultural centre after some cigarettes with archaeologists, listening to two hours of outreach lectures on the excavation in Spanish for the local community. Encouragingly enough, I seemed to be the only person present they hadn’t fully reached. The question round was fascinating despite my linguistic incomprehension. It is difficult to understand as to whether the Spanish are very formal or informal or both simultaneously; the gravitas is always somewhat undercut, the sensation at times like watching a gaggle of Hispanic late-career Vittorio Gassmans fighting to read a section of Dante first. All gladly concluded, a beer reception ensued, during which I took a stroll through the modest local museum’s exhibits. I was struck for the first time by the strange prehistoric “eye idols” for which this area is famous. These bore an uncanny resemblance to the famous Late Uruk “eye idols” known from Mesopotamia, and I couldn’t help but scratch my head for a moment at this, although the notion of cultural contact seemed more than far-fetched. Finally I shrugged; this must be one of those cases in which strikingly parallel cultural phenomena nonetheless occur in isolation. My musings soon past, the reception yielded to a somewhat riotous dinner in a village restaurant. In long discussion with Schuhmacher, I was astonished to discover the extent of the ivory trade in the west at the end of the Bronze Age. The Phoenician world had hardly appeared out of nowhere, and the seafaring knowledge of the past age must have passed on to them despite any Dark Age I might throw up as a historian. Once again, I had been far too textual and Mesopotamian for my own good, overestimating discontinuity. I would have to investigate this all further.

At the table, I could only miss the camaraderie and intrigues of excavation, the strange envy I felt for these buzzing cliques, and, most wonderfully, the cool instants of a knowing glance through conversation’s tumult. The last came to me anew as if recollection, the catch of an eye, a smile, all but drowned in conviviality, hesitancy unspoken, timeworn, cigarettes best puffed in the night for want of words, warming spirits, a glance back-cast, home.

More than groggy, I received a whistle-stop tour of the site early the following morning from Schuhmacher and Charley, both quite untouched by revelry’s sting. Here, I finally appreciated the massive site of Valencina de la Concepción. Bounded by a series of immense ditches and encompassing some 235 ha in size, it had easily been the largest settlement of its kind in western Europe during its heyday in the Middle Bronze Age, a so called “mega-city” in the manner of Uruk in Mesopotamia or Chapman’s new discoveries in the Balkans, but the reasons for this huge agglomeration remain presently obscure. The buildings excavated this year which I paced about in one archaeologist or another’s tow certainly demonstrated craft and industry in earnest, and not some sort of spontaneous Bronze Age Woodstock gathering. I enjoyed immensely the sensation of thinking in three dimensions again in the face of stratigraphy, had to stop myself from lunging for a trowel, but found myself at a loss for any decent explanation for this precipitate pseudo-urbanism. As I departed for the train station, I could only think of how warm the atmosphere at the excavation had been, and how well executed the digging. A site of the spectacular nature of Valencina demanded scarce less.

I arrived by midday in Huelva and after losing my way to the hotel directly opposite the train station, I was on my way to the laboratories of the University of Huelva where the urns were being analysed. In the car with me were Enrique Martín, director of the Museum of Huelva, and Diego, head of the firm which had made the find. They gave me an automotive tour of the city largely in Spanish, and to my astonishment I heard myself replying in ever closer approximations of their language which they, in turn, seemed entirely willing to entertain. We pulled up briefly by a giant contemplative statue of Christopher Columbus, another traveller quickly compelled to learn Spanish, set at the confluence of the Odiel with the Riotinto with the more distant Med, quite a sight.

Soon afterwards, in the university laboratory, a huddle of admiring archaeologists surrounded the pots while the German team, Bärbel, Johannes, and Maria, worked on them. The largest pot had produced a small, young family with some striking jewellery the previous day. As I watched the finds’ careful articulation, the business of cremation, a practice alien to the Assyrians until the closing stages of their empire, struck me. Like the Assyrian, I would hate to go up in smoke, but the Phoenicians and Tartessians had found it only natural. This must be tied to a body/soul dichotomy quite alien to Mesopotamian thinking. With little prompting, Dirce Marzoli told me about fascinating examples of cremations in which the recognisably human remains of bone were carefully sorted into one urn, and the rarefied dust left over into another, which seemed further to indicate similar notions. The bodies were burnt with olive wood, a tree not only with sacred connotations to the Phoenicians, but also of immense expense considering all the future olives lost thereby. Added to this, the Tartessians would add all manner of idiosyncratic grave goods, even weapons, to their own cremations anyway. All in all, I began to grasp the potential classiness of a good Iron Age cremation.

The work completed unexpectedly early, myself having long disappeared to the Museum of Huelva to hunt after yet more Tartessos and goggle at eye idols, evening was spent enjoying celebratory tapas to the echo of a nearby flamenco concert. Particularly enjoyable was what I recall being called adobo, fish marinated in wine and then fried in batter so that it holds in its moisture, and a wonderous miniature clam dish Charley had recommended to me of which I had immediately forgotten the name and subsequently confused with the word for chickpeas until kindly corrected by Frau Marzoli.

We all returned to Madrid the following day. At a loss for anything to do with the remainder of our Saturday, Maria and I pottered happy-go-lucky about the centre, occasionally stopping for beer and tapas. I had resolved to wash all of my clothes and had thus donned my greatest luxury on this journey, a miracle of an 80’s Hugo Boss suit magically procured by Lacky back in Tübingen. Despite the burden this brazen impracticableness of attire presented to my overladen back, I could hardly face traversing the splendours of Mediterranean without some occasional dash. Perhaps vanities are best kept conscious. On that note, some manner of Catholic procession appeared to be in progress nearby, and curiosity soon got the better of us. We made our way to what seemed to be a respectful distance from the parade and waited with others street-side onlookers. The last rays of the sun caught a golden lump slowly lumbering towards us behind dozens of sliver crosses. The smell of incense hung in the air and flamenco alternated with the rumbles and honks of a marching band. The lump became huge portable reliquary with an image of Christ on top being carried in stages on the backs of 50-odd men and women. We waited patiently for this juggernaut to make it the strenuous 20 metres to where we were stood, but as the bell rang and it was hefted again after a flamenco break, a vase tumbled from its uppermost story. Everything ground to a halt, and we were treated to 10 minutes of nervous stewards rushing about seeking a stepladder. The flowers finally replaced to massive cheers, the huge devotional object finally passed us by. I was struck by the faces of those bearing it with long beams on their shoulders, free arms interlocked. They wore the honest contrition of those bearing a heavy load, and the sheer humanity of these expressions left me deeply touched. The modern world has forgotten the strange dignity of people carrying heavy physical burdens, and the mystical sway of simple motions of labour in unison. I imagined Tartessians going to work in mines, the inhabitants of Valencina digging their immense ditches, the reverent covering of an urn with a plate by grieving friends, the olive tree ashes.

Later, during a theological debate over cerveza with Maria, a stray motion of my hand while I said “let’s assume for the sake of argument that God doesn’t exist” catapulted an oily fork onto my pristine suit trousers, a dire omen if any. The following morning, Sunday, saw communion at San Jerónimo, very much my sort of saint, still in my tapas-besmirched trousers as everything else was drying on the DAI’s balcony.

In a post-sacramental late afternoon slump, I pulled myself together after tapas and resolved to do something cultural with my last evening of Madrid for a week; contrite, I wandered over to the Thyssen to look at some paintings. My passe-partout was of only modest avail, a fair enough cop considering that, for better or worse, the Phoenicians have little if anything to do with Lucien Freud, let alone David Hockney. The lady behind the counter glanced at her watch. It would soon be closing time.

“Are you really sure you want to visit now? The museum’s free tomorrow all day.”

“Oh no, I’ll visit now if that’s alright,” I replied with an unaccustomed breeziness, “tomorrow I’m in Morocco.”

It was a good line, but I realised in that instant the amount of tasks I had still set myself that night: terse postcards to write, an angelic goddaughter to call on her birthday, stained trousers to consign to a drycleaners somewhere within the warren of the Harrods on steroids that is El Corte Inglés, other clothes to iron, rooms and trains to book, devices to charge, pdfs to download, metro timetables to investigate, texts to translate or proofread, notes to revise, something finally to drink, and this post to write.