Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
History
Mallorca's position in the heart of Europe's most fought-over sea has
placed it in the path of the great sweeps of Mediterranean history and these
events have radically transformed the island time and again. And yet, for all
its experience of invasion, war, prosperity and hunger, Mallorca has rarely
been at the heart of great European affairs.
Mallorca's story begins with a series of unsolved mysteries, with a culture whose
talayots
(watchtowers) are among the few signposts to their presence on the island; these stone
towers continue to intrigue archaeologists. The Talayotic people had the island to them-
selves until the arrival of the Romans in the 2nd century BC. Roman Mallorca remained
largely peaceful until the Vandals swept all before them in AD 426, before yielding to the
Byzantines a century later. But it was the Muslim armies who brought the gifts of prosper-
ity and religious coexistence to the island, ruling for over 300 years from the early 9th
century. In 1229, Jaume I seized the island and it has been in Christian (and, most often,
Catalan) hands ever since. Over the centuries that followed, life was often pretty grim for
Mallorca's rural poor, living at the whim of absentee landlords, and Mallorca also found
itself buffeted by the winds of change blowing from the Spanish mainland, from the grand
questions of royal succession to the devastating Spanish Civil War in the 1930s.
Following the Civil War, particularly from the 1960s, Mallorca was transformed beyond
recognition by the mass tourism which has yanked the island from centuries of provincial
doldrums and propelled it to newfound wealth and somewhat forced cosmopolitanism.
Some historians claim the funny white, green and red clay figurine-whistles known as
si-
urells
were introduced to Mallorca by the Phoenicians and may have represented ancient
deities. Classic figures include bulls, horse-riders and dog-headed men.
The Talayotic Period
The Balearic Islands were separated from the Spanish continent a mere eight million years
ago. They were inhabited by a variety of animal life that carried on in splendid isolation
until around 9000 to 10,000 years ago, when the first groups of Epipaleolithic people set
out from the Spanish coast in rudimentary vessels and bumped into Mallorca.
The earliest signs of human presence on the island date to around 7200 BC. In the fol-
lowing 6000 years the population, made up of disparate groups or tribes, largely lived in
caves or other natural shelters as hunter-gatherers. About 2000 BC they started building
