A Comparative Insight into Encounters, Territorialities, Identities, and Violence: Phoenicians in Southwestern Iberia and Portugese in Africa

Abstract

By examining the relationship between territoriality and identity
construction, this paper aims to provide a comparative analysis of
three contexts where encounters between foreign colonial powers
and local autochthonous communities took place. The comparison
is thus focused on the interaction between Africans and Portuguese
in two different contexts (Sa~o Jorge da Mina/ Elmina, Ghana between
the fifteenth and the nineteenth centuries, and colonial Angola from
the 1850ís onwards), on the one hand, and on the encounters between
Phoenicians and Autochthonous communities of Southwestern Iberia
(Tartessos?) in the first half of the first Millennium BC. This study
raises new questions about the role played by sanctuaries and violence
in the deconstruction of indigenous territorial perceptions and the
subsequent construction of colonial territories in the Iron Age of
Southwestern Iberia. Also in examination are the relevance and
usefulness of a comparative methodology in the analysis of encounters
between diverse cultural actors as expressed in the archaeological
record.