Tarshish

Tarshish (Phoenician: 𐤕𐤓𐤔𐤔, romanized: tršš; Hebrew: תַּרְשִׁישׁ, romanized: Taršiš; Koine Greek: Θαρσεῖς, romanized: Tharseis) occurs in the Hebrew Bible with several uncertain meanings, most frequently as a place (probably a large city or region) far across the sea from Phoenicia and the Land of Israel. Tarshish was said to have exported vast quantities of important metals to Phoenicia and Israel. The same place name occurs in the Akkadian inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian emperor Esarhaddon (died 669 BC) and also on the Phoenician inscription of the Nora Stone (around 800 BC) in Sardinia; its precise location was never commonly known, and was eventually lost in antiquity. Legends grew up around it over time, so its identity has been the subject of scholarly research and commentary for more than two thousand years. Its importance stems in part from the fact that Hebrew biblical passages tend to understand Tarshish as a source of King Solomon's tremendous wealth in metals – especially silver, but also gold, tin, and iron according to Ezekiel 27. The metals were reportedly obtained in partnership with the Phoenician king Hiram I of Tyre and fleets of ships from Tarshish, according to Isaiah 23. Tarshish is also the name of a modern village in the Mount Lebanon Governorate, Lebanon, and Tharsis, Huelva is a village in Andalusia, Spain. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia Da'at, the biblical phrase "ships of Tarshish" refers not to ships from a particular location, but to a class of ships: large vessels for long-distance trade.