Our focus
this month continues to be traditional Ibicenco
culture, with special reference to the island's pretourism
industries. Having explored so far in our
series the production of salt and the quarrying of
stone, we will now turn our attention to Ibiza's
valuable forest resources, a living stock of raw
materials ranging from food to fuel. In particular
we will centre on two of these products, timber
and its natural offshoot, pitch tar, both of which
played a key role in shipbuilding.
From antiquity to modern times, naval
construction comprised an integral part of island
life and, before the advent of tourism,
undoubtedly constituted the most dynamic sector
in island economy. Like many Mediterranean
islands, Ibiza was endowed with the ideal
combination of natural resources to make it a shipyard par excellence: the woodland was dense and
the coastline was dotted with sandy coves where vessels could be beached and repaired, or else
built entirely from scratch. Greek seafarers, in fact, were so impressed by the thick coppice of Ibiza
and Formentera that they named the islands 'the Pitiuses', meaning 'pine covered isles'.
Repairs en route
Every bit as practical as they were philosophical, Hellenic
traders singled out the feature they found most attractive about
Ibiza: its availability of shipbuilding materials. The 'Ulyssian' nature
of ancient commerce made it imperative to have outposts,
staged at regular intervals, where repairs could be made. Logically,
any stopover which facilitated naval maintenance was
viewed as desirable and visited frequently. Ibiza lent itself perfectly
to this task and, in conjunction with other strengths, became
one of the important nodes in the western Mediterranean
network of connectivity - ultimately more Punic than Greek, but
nonetheless a functional port of call for ships of all nations.
Not only was there timber for the taking, there was also the
possibility of obtaining pitch, a thick sticky substance manufactured
from the resinous sap of pine trees and used in sealing
ships. The age-old method of repairing leaky hulls consisted of
beaching and careening the vessels, plugging the cracks with
hemp fibres and sealing the wound with pitch. If the damage
was severe, rotten planks would be replaced by new ones and
the fresh joints then sealed with hemp and pitch. An interesting
fact is that not only was pitch one of antiquity's only water-proof
substances, but it became even more impermeable upon contact
with sea water.
Tar ovens
It seems probable that the Greeks introduced a special kind of
oven toIbiza for the purposes of pitch production. Here I have made extensive use of the late Rafael Sainz's interesting book, The Tales of
Mel, for my information. He explains that the Greeks were the first
people to employ ovens in this endeavour, the alternative method
being to boil the sap down in cauldrons. The Greeks, however, preferred
to use ovens and disseminated this technology among neighbouring
lands. Sainz informs us that, "The remains of some [the original]
tar ovens, similar to those found in Ibiza... can still be seen on
various Greek islands and along the Adriatic coastline in the most
wooded areas." Hence, although they never set up a permanent
colony in Ibiza, it becomes clear from the foregoing that Greek seafarers
fairly regularly stopped in Ibiza and brought their shipbuilding
craft with them.
Tar, A sticky issue
By the Middle Ages, the production of pitch came to be one of
Ibiza's most important industries. During the 13th century, the enterprise
was so highly regarded that conflicts periodically arose
as to who the rightful exploiter should be. One dispute involved
the age-old feud between Church and State. In this case the former
entity was personified by the Archbishop of Tarragona, the
island's ecclesiastic authority, the latter by the King of Mallorca,
the island's temporal authority. Both prelate and monarch asserted
ownership of the Ibicenco forest, with its lucrative industry of
timber and derivatives, and each party was eager to lay claim
to the handsome profits these generated.
Indeed, as Sainz points out, the marketing of pitch was a delicate
issue, "... in times when a well-sealed boat was a potential enemy that could attack, rob and destroy at any moment," the
government had to be extremely cautious about whom they sold
this precious stuff to. Sainz further informs us that, "According to
documents stored in ancient archives, tar produced in Ibiza was
better than any other found along the coastlines of the Mediterranean.
The authorities therefore supervised its production and
commercialization, as it was a rare commodity which was frequently
unavailable."
Another indication of this industry's importance to the pretourism
economy is the high number of tar ovens found on the island.
To date, about thirty of them have been discovered throughout
the woodland and catalogued by local historians. The frequency
of place names that make reference to this activity is also
telling. Sainz mentions three: "Near the village of San Jose there is
a puig de sa Pega (Sticky Peak) and near the village of San Antonio
there is a puig de sa Tea (Pitch Peak). On the island of Formentera
one can find the torrent de sa Tea (Pitch Gully), out on
the Barbary Cape."
Several centuries later, in 1786, Ibiza's first post-conquest bishop,
Abad y la Sierra, wrote an exhaustive report on various aspects
of the island upon assuming his prelature. His rather censorious
observations on the marina reveal that shipbuilding was already
a going concern whose momentum would be difficult to stop.
"Incessant is the construction of large ships which are continually
being produced in this shipyard, at such a rate that, in less
than two years, ten ships have been launched into the water, four
are in the shipyard at the time of writing, and no sooner does one
leave the docks than another keel is set in place, and all this despite
the fact that Ibiza has none of the utensils necessary for shipbuilding
save timber and tar. It is public knowledge that [these
ships] are being built to order by different merchants from Mahon,
Cartagena and Cadiz, God knows whether natives or foreigners.
The toleration of such a considerable number of large ships depletes
these islands of the flower of their seamen who are taken
on as crew, bearing them away so that here on the islands they
cannot perform any useful employment; the rich hills are stripped
of the most select building timber in detriment of the Royal Armada
and the copious fruits of the forest are destroyed. To the same
end, pines are continually cut down for the tar ovens, not only to
use in the ships they build here but also to export to other places,
all without any benefit to the State or to commerce, only to those
subjects who mastermind this."
Despite the bishop's woeful tone, no steps were ever taken
to reduce shipbuilding. On the contrary, throughout the 18th and
19th centuries this enterprise increased exponentially enabling a
small sector of Ibicenco businessmen to amass large fortunes.
Most notable in this regard is the Matutes family.
Another sombre report, this one written in 1845 by the political
head of the Balearics, Don Gibert, observes that, "Another item of
export which merits special mention is the timber which is shipped
to Algeria. (...) This business is ruinous because in short time it is
going to do away with the beautiful forests that [Ibiza] once had,
presently reduced almost to their minimum expression." Gibert's
alarm, no doubt well founded in his day, would have turned from
dismay to sheer disbelief had he lived to witness the diminished
forests of today's Ibiza.
Considerations of a higher order
Now turning our attention away from doom and gloom, and as
proof that some trees did manage to survive in Ibiza, let us move on
to a wonderful account of the veneration that the Ibicenco woodland
evoked in the generations of yore.
Returning to The Tales of Mel,
Sainz paints a colourful portrait of a shipbuilder from Valencia who came to Ibiza during the 1940s, for a visit. This woodworker amazed
the author and his brother, still small lads at the time, with "the secrets
of trees in Ibiza", an arboreal ensemble which the naval craftsman
raised to the high realm of "enchanted forest".
"Because of these trees," he told the boys, "the Greeks baptized
these idyllic islands with the magical name of the 'Pitiuses': by this
name they were known along the shipping routes that run from
the Orient to the Occident. And they were also known as such in
the travellers' tales of classical historians. They were singled out,
above all other known shores and islands as an extraordinary site,
and well worth seeing: not only because they are beautiful and
possess all the qualities to be regarded as sacred... (but) because
of the shape and quality of their trees, and because of the rapid
and spontaneous re-growth which made them an inexhaustible
source of wood, so rich and so cheap."
Salt curing
The high quality of Ibicenco timber had much to do with the
way the wood was treated. Trees were always felled during the
winter months when their sap was at its lowest ebb. The dressed
trunks were then hauled to the sea and submerged for several
weeks in the salt water. This process partially petrified the wood,
making it both more resilient and more durable for naval construction.
(As an interesting aside, trunks thus fortified were also
used as roof beams in domestic construction).
The saltiest water on the island, and therefore the best for treating
wood, was at ses Salines salt-works. Therefore, whenever possible,
the freshly cut timber would be taken to this site and cured
in the salt pans. Conveniently, at this time of year salt production
was in a dormant stage, eliminating any conflict of interest between
the two industries. Another advantage is that, in winter, coverage
of the trunks was at a maximum because the pans were
still quite full before the rapid evaporation that would occur as
the weather became warmer.
When the time was right, the timber would be removed from its
salt-water cure, transported to the various shipyards around the
island and crafted into extraordinarily seaworthy vessels. The higher
mysteries of this process are described by Sainz's Valencian
who explained that through the ages shipbuilders used "the direction
of the grain in the wood in such a way that the orientation
of the timber [would] help the elasticity of the good Aleppo pine
to provide the strength needed for navigation with sail and oar."
Continuing in an increasingly esoteric vein, the shipbuilder remarks
that "The shapes and dimensions are embedded into the
bodies of the trees . . . Not one of them is straight, they are all leaning,
or curved, or have other rare tendencies, depending on
winds: for initiates in naval construction they are part of a kind of
magical art, in which each piece fits perfectly into the final puzzle,
as if prefabricated by the hand of Neptune. These are sacred
timbers... the secret of [Ibiza's] forests."
By Emily Kaufman
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