[1] In 1887, there were met with at the gates of Cádiz, at about five metres beneath the surface of the earth, three rude tombs of shelly limestone, in which were found some skeletons, a few small bronze instruments and some trinkets—the latter of undoubted oriental manufacture.

According to the account published in the Scientific American four years after the discovery, although the sarcophagus is of essentially oriental manufacture, it has undoubtedly undergone the Hellenistic influence, which implies an epoch posterior to that of Pericles, who died in 429 BC.

The personage represented, a man of mature age with noble lineaments and aquiline nose, has thick hair corned up on the forehead in the form of a crown, and a beard plaited in the Asiatic fashion.

According to the Scientific American, "It suffices to look at this sarcophagus to recognise the exclusively Phoenician character of it, and the complete analogy with the monuments of the same species met with in Phoenicia, in Cyprus, in Sicily, in Malta, in Sardinia, and everywhere where were established those of Tyre and Sidon, but never until now in Spain.

Nothing denoted externally the existence of these sarcophagi hidden from investigation according to a usage that is established especially by the imprecations graven upon the basaltic casket now preserved in the Museum of the Louvre, and which contained the ashes of Eshmanazar, King of Sidon.

[3] Quintero Atauri tuvo, en fin, un sueño, pero nunca supo que dormía sobre ese sueño.. Jamás se nos ocurre mirar la tierra que pisamos cada día de nuestra existencia, aunque la mayoría de las veces esa tierra pisoteada es el único tesoro accesible: un lugar insignificante en el universo.Quintero Atauri had, in short, a dream, but he never knew that he was sleeping on that dream … It never occurs to us to look at the land we tread every day of our existence, although most of the time that trampled land is the only accessible treasure: an insignificant place in the universe.

The fact that carvings of this magnitude were made thousands of kilometres from the place where they were found speaks for itself both of the uses maintained by the Phoenician people and of the same importance acquired by the city of Cádiz as the nerve centre of their presence in the westernmost point of the continent.