Archaeologists working in the burial mound of Casas del Turuñuelo, near the town of Guareña in Badajoz, Extremadura, have unearthed a bronze chariot unlike any previously documented on the Iberian Peninsula. The discovery, made during the eighth excavation campaign of the Building Tartessos project, offers fresh evidence of the extensive trade links that connected the ancient Tartessian culture with the wider Mediterranean world around 2,500 years ago.
The chariot features a box decorated with intricate reliefs: at the front, a depiction of Achelous, a river deity associated with the underworld; on the sides, two griffins with eagle heads and lion bodies; and at the ends, two human figures with raised arms supporting the structure. The wheels are also ornately decorated. Esther Rodríguez, co-director of the excavations, described it as “one of the most significant finds made to date at this Tartessian site.”
A Window into Tartessian Trade
The piece was recovered in the southern sector of the main building, where excavations began in 2015. The research team from the Institute of Archaeology of Mérida—a joint centre of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the regional government of Extremadura—notes that the only known parallels belong to the Etruscan civilisation, which flourished in central Italy between the 8th and 5th centuries BC. This reinforces the hypothesis that the chariot reached southwestern Iberia through the same exchange networks that linked Tartessos with the rest of the Mediterranean.
Co-director Sebastián Celestino suggested the chariot may have been used in banquet rituals. It was found next to a room where the Turuñuelo community is believed to have held a final feast before deliberately sealing the building at the end of the 5th century BC.
Alongside the chariot, archaeologists recovered a range of imported materials that significantly expand the map of Tartessos’s external relations. These include pottery from Greek Attica, an alabaster vessel of Egyptian origin, and several ivories decorated with warriors and animal and plant motifs, pointing to workshops in the eastern Mediterranean. “These materials are providing us with exceptional information to understand the trade relations between the East and the Iberian Peninsula,” Rodríguez explained. “We are documenting imports and unique pieces that help to reconstruct these exchange networks.”
The 2026 campaign, conducted in April and May, also broadened knowledge of the building itself. Work in the northern and southern sectors of the mound—which measures 90 metres in diameter and six metres in height—identified new rooms and circulation spaces. In the northern sector, two braziers and a bronze cauldron were uncovered, though the volume of pottery was lower than in previous campaigns, a fact researchers attribute to the nature of the areas explored this year.
Ten Years of Discoveries
The Casas del Turuñuelo site has yielded a decade of discoveries that have progressively redrawn the image of Tartessos. In 2017, the remains of the largest animal sacrifice known in the western Mediterranean were documented. In 2023, the first human representations of that culture came to light. A year later, a slate plaque with scenes of warriors and an alphabet in southern Palaeohispanic script added another dimension to the record. And in 2025, the site yielded the oldest Greek marble altar in the western Mediterranean.
With the field campaign concluded, the project now enters its laboratory phase. Restoration, documentation, and analysis of the pieces are being carried out at the Service for Conservation, Restoration and Scientific Studies of Archaeological Heritage (SECYR) at the Autonomous University of Madrid, a partner in the project since its inception. “The second phase of any archaeological excavation is indispensable,” Rodríguez noted. “A crucial piece of work is now beginning that will allow us to better understand the function of the spaces, the trade relations and, ultimately, the lives of those who inhabited this place.”
The project brings together around thirty institutions and a hundred national and international researchers, with backing from the Provincial Council of Badajoz and Guareña Town Council, as well as institutional support from the CSIC and the regional government of Extremadura. For readers interested in other recent archaeological finds in Europe, see our coverage of the nearly intact WWII StuG III assault gun found at a German naval air base.
