Gold coins and ingots, cannon, swords, storage jars and intact Chinese crockery have been captured on newly released video footage of the deep-lying San José treasure ship off Colombia’s Caribbean coast.
And with two previously unknown wrecks discovered in the vicinity and at least 10 more now under investigation, questions are being asked about what the Colombian government intends to do about the valuable shipwreck heritage it has claimed as its own.
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The survey was the latest of four carried out by the Colombian Navy, which has been monitoring the 18th-century Spanish galleon using an ROV and hi-res cameras at a depth of around 950m.
Sharper imaging made it possible to read inscriptions on the ship’s cannon, which revealed them to have been made in Seville and Cadiz in Spain, one in 1655. The gold coins were identified as pieces of eight.
“We carried out non-intrusive observation work on the seabed where the San José galleon rests, checking that this heritage of humanity is intact and has not suffered any disturbance from human action,” stated the navy.
The other wrecks it reported were thought to be at least 200 years old, dating to Colombia’s war for independence from Spain and thought to have been sunk in battle. At least 10 more such wrecks are said to be awaiting investigation.
The 64-gun San José was carrying some 7 million gold coins along with ingots, silver coins and gems to Spain during the War of the Spanish Succession when it was sunk by four Royal Navy warships on 8 June, 1708 near the port of Cartagena, with the loss of most of its 600 crew.
Its cargo could be the most valuable ever located, estimated to be worth up to £14 billion today, but salvage has yet to be carried out.
A 1981 claim by a private salvor that the wreck had been found sparked a 30-year battle over legal ownership between Colombia, Spain and a Bolivian group that claimed its ancestors had mined the precious metals.
In 2013 Colombia changed its heritage law with the intention of ending international legal challenges, and in 2015 confirmed that it had located the wreck.
President Ivan Duque recently reiterated the country’s claim that it intends to keep the shipwreck under close surveillance against the possibility of looting, and to recover and conserve the contents not for profit but for museum display.
According to San José researcher Nelson Freddy Padilla, questions remain about exactly when the video footage was recorded and who would carry out the proposed salvage.
“Years go by, and the issue of the dozens of sunken galleons in Colombian seas is not resolved in depth,” he told the Spanish newspaper El Pais. “There is no serious scientific plan to remove them and put all that knowledge at the service of culture.”
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