Two areas of island declared Assets of Cultural Interest

The protected area around the islet off the southern coast forms a rectangle and is described as being "one of the richest in respect of the underwater archaeological heritage located in its immediate vicinity". There are fifteen archaeological sites which have yielded four shipwrecks from the third century B.C. to the first A.D. and one from the eighteenth or nineteenth century; remnants of pottery from the Greek, Roman and Mediaeval Ages (third to second century B.C. and thirteenth to fourteenth A.D.) which indicate that the area was used as a pier for loading and unloading ships; a stone anchor dating from 1500-800 B.C.; Roman amphorae (second century B.C.); and iron anchors, cannon and munitions from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The Councillor for Culture, Joan Lluís Torres, explained that there two advantages to the area having been declared a BIC: one was the protection of the archaeological sites and the other that when the time comes for further investigations or excavations the State would give preference to BIC areas in the matter of resources and subsidies.

Punta des Migjorn

The other area declared a BIC last week by the State Government is the Punta des Migjorn paleontological zone in Es Castell district.

The site, which is a Miocene platform some three kilometres in length, is located between Cala Sant Esteve and Sa Cigonya and contains unusual fossils dating back five to twenty million years. These fossilised crustaceans are in an excellent state of preservation, some even retaining their original orange pigmentation, due to the fine sediment in the area.

The main threats to the paleontological site are marine erosion and uncontrolled extraction of the fragile fossils.