The first record of human presence in San Antonio is evident in the findings of some of the rock paintings made in the wine cave (Ses Fontanelles) and a bronze ax found in Sa Bassa Red, a farm in San Rafael.
The Phoenicians used the port of San Antonio to carry water for your trip, to fish and salt fish, etc... They lived in separate dwellings spread over the territory. Near the houses buried the dead and it is possible that they had a shrine to the goddessTanit in the cave of St. Agnes.
The arrival of the Romans did not modify the housing system and equally devoted to fish, work the land, firewood and charcoal Thinning the forest that was exported. The Romans gave the name to San Antonio: Portus Magnus, meaning large port, a word that has evolved Portmany.
Around the year 900, came the Arabs from North Africa. This population gave an important boost to agriculture, such as in the flat terraces Abad, built mills to grind grain in Buscastell Broll and took advantage of the pine wood to build boats. In the language of the Arabs have been many words toponymic, as Benimussa, Alcalà or Benimaimó.
In the thirteenth century the ships arrive in Ibiza with the troops of King James I. With the Catalans Ibiza reaches new language, culture and religion. The Ibiza and Formentera king divided into four parts or scantlings (Catalan, quartons), one of which was the Abad, predecessor of the current municipality. The paddocks were divided among the noble lords who had made the conquest for the king by what was left Portmany Guillem de Montgrí .
Families who went to live in Portmany, after the conquest of 1235, only had the current cathedral of Ibiza for their religion, and naturally they fell very far to go and so a group of men went to Tarragona Portmany where resided Mr. Abad, to ask a church permission to build a chapel and a cemetery came in 1305, and probably very soon began construction of the old church that was to be in the same location
