Many people may not be familiar with the name Conejera, but nearly everyone will recognise its silhouette from the millions of photographs of the famous Ibiza sunset taken from San Antonio in summertime.
There's a magical feeling of peace and tranquillity emanating from it as the sun majestically drops like a flaming ball into the sea beyond. But this small island has just revealed one of its dark secrets.
Three skeletons were discovered in shallow graves during a routine environmental check on the island a couple of years ago and intriguingly one of them had no skull. After scientific analysis in Miami and Barcelona archaeologists are piecing together evidence about the lives and deaths of the three men.
Carbon dating revealed that they lived in the 16th century whilst analysis of the skulls reveals that they were of Anatolian origin. Now part of modern day Turkey it was at that time in the Ottoman Empire and the base for many of the pirate raids on Ibiza during that period. Further evidence – the same deformities of the right forearm in each man – suggests that they were seafarers who spent a lot of time hoisting sails with ropes which would cause this.
Now, the grisly bits, all three skeletons show that the men were all aged between 20 and 24 and all had 2.5 cm lead musket balls in them which had entered in the neck, pelvis and back of the men. One showed signs of many sword wounds and appeared to have suffered a coup de grace of having his throat cut to kill him!
Other pieces of bone have been found in the same area which are not from these three skeletons which has led the archaeologists to postulate that a battle involving Turkish pirates took place here some 500 years ago. Incredible , isn't it?
