The history of Ibiza has its beginnings in
1600 BC, however, there are no chronological records until 654 BC,
when Carthage founded lbosim, nowadays Eivissa, the capital of the
island, and it was Diodoro Sículo who was the first to mention
us ".. After the afore -mentioned island (Sardinia) lies the
so-called Pitiusa, which carries this name because of the great
number of pine trees wbich grow on it...".
The Carthaginians of ibiza came from Phoenicia and were very good
traders. They were followed by the Romans under whom Ibiza received
the title of Confederated City. In the following five centuries,
know as the "dark centuries" because very little is known
about them, ruled the Barbarians and the Byzantines, and their rule
ended in the year 711 when the Arabs arrived and with them the name
"Yebisah" for the island. The key Catalonian conquest
took place, an act with wich the islands Ibiza and Formentera became
part of what we nowadays call "western world".
Ibiza was attacked by Saracens who, under the protection of Turkish
squadrons, made the Mediterranean unsafe. From this epoch stem the
fortified rural churches and the watch towers that surround the
island.
Ibiza town was founded by the Phoenicians 2600 year ago, and ever
since then has been continually populated. The urban structure of
the walled town, Dalt Vila (High Town) is created around an original
nucleus, the actual castle, and developed in spontaneous, sporadic
and heterogeneous editions, without any original planning, adapted
to the geographical conditions and with no other criterion other
than the defence needs of each period. Dalt Vila is surrounded by
a wall constructed in the XVIth century according to the Renaissance
conception of defense by the Italian engineers Juan Baptista Calvi
and Jacobo Paleazo Fratin. The walls consist of seven bastions armed
with artillery and a ravelin, connected by defensive walls. Inside,
remains of the medieval wall can be found, arranged in four adjacent
areas, each on a different level and easy to recognize.
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