TARSHISH, tar/shish. According to the Old Testament, a region which was the resort of Phcenieian commerce, and the source of valuable mineral products. The earliest mention is in Genesis x. 4, where it is associated with lands probably identical with Crete. Cyprus. and Rhodes. Its special trade was with Tyre, which seems to have had there a colonial factory (cf. Isa. xxii.; Ezek. xxvii. 12, 25). Certain texts, however, seem to oppose this western location. 'Ships of Tharshish' are mentioned as starting from Solomon's port at Ezion-geber (q.v.) on the Red Sea ( I. Kings x. 22; xxii. 48) ; while the Chronicler (II. Chron. ix. 21; xx. 36-37) makes them go to Tarshish from that point. Hence has arisen the view that the Hebrews and Phoenicians circumnavigated Africa, or else that there was an Oriental land of Tarshish in addition to the Occidental one. 'Ship of Tarshish,' however, is now generally supposed to mean some kind of large vessel de signed for distant voyages. It is also possible, as held by some, that Phoenician ships were trans ported across the isthmus of Suez. No identifi cation of this Western Tarshish has yet been ac cepted by scholars. The oldest view identifies it with the Tartessus of Herodotus (iv. 152), Strabo
(ii. 15S), and other Greeks, at the mouth of the Guadalquivir, near Cadiz; and the southern part of Spain in general is largely accepted as the region of Tarshish. The location in Spain would agree with the products assigned to Tarshish, silver, iron, lead, while the tin may have been brought thither from the British Isles. Also the jewel called the stone of Tarshish, or simply a tarshish (translated beryl in Exodus xxviii. 20, and elsewhere), may represent one of the numer ous precious stones found in Spain. On the ground of etymological comparison, the Tyrrhe nian or Etruscan region is accepted by some schol ars, and it is to be observed that the term is al ways used vaguely. Consult: Bochart, Geo graphic Sacra (Caen, 1646) ; Ritter. Erdkunde (Eng. trans. Comparative Geography, vol. i., Edinburgh, 1886) ; Meyer, Geschichte des Al tertums, vol. i. (Stuttgart, 1884) ; Renouf, in Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archce °logy, vol. xvi.; Winekler, Forschungen, vol. i. (Leipzig, 1893) ; Cheyne and W. M. /Miller, in Orientalische Litteraturzeitung, vol. iii.; Haupt, in Proceedings of Thirteenth International Con gress of Orientalists.