About Morro de Mezquitilla
Morro de Mezquitilla is the oldest Phoenician settlement so far discovered on Spain’s Mediterranean coast, with excavations dating the first stage of occupation to the ninth century BC.
The site is located above the mouth of the Algarrobo river on a flat-topped hill about 30m above sea level, mirrored on the opposite bank by the hill of the Trayamar Necropolis, where the monumental chamber tombs bear witness to the prosperity of this Phoenician community some 3,000 years ago.
Morro de Mezquitilla was originally seen as a trading post and convenient stopover during bad weather for Cadiz-bound ships. However, the concentration of nearby Phoenician settlements, the presence of a wealthy elite spanning generations, and evidence of sophisticated urban planning and industrial activity suggest a more deeper role in the local community.
Morro de Mequitilla was first identified by the German Archaeological Institute of Madrid in 1967 following earlier investigations at the Trayamar Necropolis, with excavations in the 1970s and an authoritative site survey led by the renowned archaeologist and historian Hermanfrid Schubart.
The two coastal promontories of Morro de Mezquitilla and Trayamar formed a peninsula in ancient times, and the settlement pattern is typically Phoenician in terms of its natural defences on a hilltop overlooking the sea, providing visibility and a safe harbour in a sheltered bay, with a cemetery on the opposite bank of a navigable inland waterway.
The area has revealed a cluster of Phoenician settlements in close proximity, with the Chorreras site only 800 m to the east and Toscanos 7 km to the west. This concentration initially puzzled historians who assumed the main Phoenician objective in southern Spain was Cadiz and the silver mines of Huelva, downplaying their wider influence and relations with the local population.
The earliest phase of Phoenician settlement at Morro de Mezquitilla dating to around 810 BC involved the construction of large rectangular residences, including a 190 m² building with 16 separate rooms arranged around a courtyard. The walls were made of sun-dried brick and plastered in red-brown lime, a durable building method that was unknown on the Iberian Peninsula at the time.
The luxurious dwellings were situated on regularly laid out streets following the natural slope of the hill, representing advanced urban planning for an important, orderly and prosperous settlement, confirmed by the monumental family tombs of the Phoenician elite on the opposite bank of the Algarrobo river at Trayamar.
A new phase of construction took place at Morro de Mezquitilla in the seventh century BC during the peak of the Phoenician colonial enterprise in Spain, with more solid residences built on stone foundations with a different orientation, and an expansion of the settlement probably to accommodate the population of Chorreras which was peacefully abandoned at the time.
A fascinating feature of Morro de Mezquitilla is the existence of a manufacturing quarter on the outskirts of the residential area, consisting of industrial metal and ceramic workshops dating from the settlement’s foundation. The metal workshops did not carry out primary smelting and were more like a blacksmith’s, recycling and reworking iron and copper apparently to meet the domestic needs of the settlers.
A number of metalworking furnaces have been discovered with the remains of iron slag, fragments of bellows, nozzles, ventilation pipes and containers with iron ore residue attached. This is the most extensive evidence of Phoenician metallurgy so far found in Spain, where crafted metalwork was unknown, and indicates the presence of specialist industrial workers living permanently in the settlement from the very beginning.
While not on the scale of production at Cerro del Villar, large quantities of handmade and revolutionary wheel-turned pottery have been found at the site, with the differing width of the red-slip plate rims proving crucial in dating Phoenician settlements in Spain.
Las Chorreras
The Phoenician settlement of Chorreras is located less than a kilometre to the east of Morro de Mezquitilla on a rocky promontory overlooking the sea. The site was only occupied for a short period of time, from roughly 750 to 700 BC, before it was peacefully abandoned, with the population moving the short distance to Morro de Mezquitilla.
Chorreras was never reoccupied or built over, and excavations have therefore been able to reveal the site plan and urban structure in more detail than is usual for ancient Phoenician sites. There is evidence of large and solidly built houses with multiple rooms on wide and regularly laid out streets with considerable open space between residences.
An oval-shaped shaft tomb was discovered at Chorreras consisting of a sandstone container, an alabaster burial urn, ceramic vessels and a scarab (protective amulet). The cremated remains are those of a woman aged around 18 years old and a newborn child from an elite family, who probably died during childbirth.
Velez-Malaga
Address
Opening Hours
Tues-Fri: 10 am–2 pm, 5-8 pm
Sat-Sun: 10 am–2 pm
Free admission.
The Museum of Velez-Malaga has a dedicated Phoenician room showcasing artifacts discovered in the Axarquia region of Andalusia, as well as documents, information and 3D models related to the Phoenician presence in the area.
The Museum’s director, Emilio Martin Cordoba, is a leading authority on the Phoenician settlements in Southern Spain, and also organises an annual guided coach tour of the main local sites including Toscanos, Morro de Mezquitilla and Trayamar.
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