Translated material
Galleon Gold
Cemetery Treasures
Archaeologists and historians are increasingly concerned about the fate of artifacts resting in the holds of sunken ships. Inspired by the successes of Odyssey Marine Exploration, hundreds of people rushed to search for underwater treasures. Modern treasure hunters today are armed with especially sensitive sonars, GPS, remote-controlled devices for diving to great depths, i.e. the most modern equipment, which scientists can often only dream of.
“For many years, the most important sites were safe because they were extremely difficult to get to,” explains David Gaimster, general secretary of the Society of Antiquaries. “Now, due to the rapid development of technology, everything has changed. Hiding behind lofty words about science, commercial treasure hunters are increasingly searching for underwater treasures. They melt the coins into bars or sell them to collectors. In both cases, science is forever deprived of very important artifacts.”
Historians have calculated that over the entire history of mankind, about 3 million ships have sunk. Of course, not everyone carried jewelry and money. Of interest to treasure hunters are “only” about 3 thousand sunken ships, on board of which, according to historians, there may be valuables worth more than $200 billion.
The western Mediterranean and Caribbean Sea are considered the richest graveyard of sunken ships. In the Mediterranean Sea, from the 16th to the 19th centuries alone, at least 700 ships sank. Many of them transported gold, silver and precious stones.
Going into the water at the resorts of the southern coast of Spain, vacationers do not even realize that the bottom under their feet is golden, not only figuratively, but also in the literal sense of the word. There is almost $150 billion worth of gold and silver there.
“In the Gulf of Cadiz (washes the southwestern shores of the Iberian Peninsula - Ed. ) there is more gold and silver than in the basements of the National Bank of Spain,” says archeology professor Manuel Bueno.
From the moon to water
Hundreds of companies are now searching for underwater treasures, but the largest, most famous and successful among them is Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc., whose office is located in Tampa, Florida.
Odyssey was founded 14 years ago by Greg Simms, a big fan of diving, history and pirate novels. At one time, by the way, he worked for Bob Hope, an adventurer who sold plots on... the Moon.
The first major success for underwater treasure hunters came in 2003, when, after almost a decade of searching, Odyssey found the remains of the paddle steamer Republic.
On October 18, 1865, the Republic left New York and headed for New Orleans. On board were 59 crew members and passengers, and in the holds were tens of thousands of gold 20-dollar coins intended to restore the US South destroyed by the Civil War. A week later, the ship was caught in a strong storm and sank near Savannah, a town located near the confluence of the river of the same name into the Atlantic Ocean. Passengers and sailors managed to transfer to boats and rafts, and the valuable cargo ended up at the bottom of the ocean.
Using special sonars, robots and magnetometric instruments, treasure hunters checked almost 4 thousand square meters. km of the ocean floor before the wreckage of the ship was discovered about 160 km southeast of Savannah at a depth of 510 m.
The main protagonist in the rescue operation was the seven-ton underwater robot Zeus, which can be controlled from the surface of the water. The reconnaissance robot is equipped with powerful spotlights, video cameras and other equipment; costs about $8 million and is capable of operating at depths of up to 2.5 km.
Odyssey specialists recovered 50 thousand gold coins and other valuable items from the Republic. The total value of the found treasure exceeded $75 million.
Golden "Maiden"
This spring, representatives of Odyssey Marine announced a ship found off the coast of Great Britain and cannons from the “colonial period” recovered from it. The company then applied for two sites on the bottom of the English Channel. However, the matter, apparently, is not only about the guns. In its application filed in Tampa court, the company did not even mention the name of the ship and the exact coordinates of the location where the discovery was made. Of course, this is not a mistake, but common practice. All information about the find is carefully classified.
Therefore, scientists can only guess what the Americans found. So far, most maritime historians agree that Odyssey Marine has discovered the wreck of the French galleon "Maiden", the pride of the East India Company founded in the 17th century. The "Virgin", guarded by three ships, was carrying gold, silver, spices and ambergris from Madagascar - a valuable waxy substance formed in the digestive tract of sperm whales and used in perfumery as a perfume fixative. The cargo was estimated at 1.5 million pounds sterling in mid-17th century prices and 200 million pounds sterling in current prices.
On July 10, 1666, the galleon was supposed to arrive at its final destination - Le Havre, but the day before the French were ambushed by British privateers near the island of Guernsey (located in the English Channel, part of the Channel Islands). Two ships, including the Virgin, were sunk. While trying to save valuables, 36 sailors drowned.
Considering that the Explorer, the main search and rescue vessel of Odyssey Marine, is equipped with the most modern devices, sensors, small remote-controlled submarines, and spent four whole weeks in the Guernsey area in the spring, it can be assumed that the Americans found the Virgin. In addition, experts believe that there are simply no other sunken ships in these waters that Odyssey is interested in.
The actions of treasure hunters from Florida are closely monitored in Paris. If Odyssey really found the Maiden, then the French have the right to demand the valuable cargo. According to international maritime laws, warships and everything on them at the time of the crash belong to the country under whose flag they sailed.
In addition, France has signed the UNESCO Convention for the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage, which effectively prohibits the search for sunken ships for commercial purposes, which, despite numerous assurances to the contrary, Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. is doing. However, the UNESCO Convention is not a decree for Americans, because Washington, like London, for unknown reasons has not yet signed it.
Now the main thing for the French is to prove that it was the Virgo galleon that found Odyssey. This will not be easy to do, because the Americans keep all information secret. In addition, before our eyes is the example of Spain, which is now suing Odyssey for the record-breaking treasures found by the company.
Operation "Royal Merchant"
The scandalous story surrounding the largest discovery of all time began last May, when a representative of Odyssey Marine announced at a press conference that 17 tons of gold and silver coins, precious bars and jewelry had been discovered at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. At the same time, as usual, the Americans spoke rather vaguely about the location of the treasure, which gave rise to many different rumors.
Most boiled down to the fact that in the area of the British Isles of Scilly (an archipelago 45 km southwest of the British coast), the largest maritime treasure in history was found, valued at more than half a billion dollars.
Representatives of Odyssey Marine did not disclose the name of the sunken ship, tentatively calling it the “Black Swan”. This was the name of the ship in the 1942 Hollywood film of the same name.
At first, maritime historians suggested that American treasure hunters had found the Royal Merchant, a 32-gun English frigate with a displacement of 700 tons, which sank off the coast of Cornwall in the fall of 1641. He was transporting silver coins, pay for the 30,000-strong Spanish army in Flanders. The value of the cargo can be judged by the fact that it accounted for a third of the then Spanish treasury! The loss of this money led to an economic crisis in the country.
The "merchant" was caught in a strong storm several tens of miles off the English coast. Together with 18 sailors, the entire cargo went to the bottom.
As for the location, it follows from the words of the Odyssey representative that the remains of the ship were discovered approximately 65 km from Land's End, the southwestern tip of England. It was no coincidence that the Americans reported exactly this distance from the cape. The goal is obvious - to create the impression that the ship was found in international waters. By the way, many British people doubted the data published by Odyssey.
The head of Odyssey Marine, Greg Simms, explained his reluctance to give exact coordinates for security reasons. Treasures and artifacts, he argued, may not all have been recovered. If you tell the exact location of the ship, then “black” treasure hunters can get them.
It is suspicious that the Americans took the treasures recovered from the bottom not to the nearby town of Penzance, but 2 thousand km away to Gibraltar (a British possession in Southwestern Europe, on the southern coast of the Iberian Peninsula). From Gibraltar, the coins were sent in plastic containers on two cargo planes, first to New York and then to Miami.
According to maritime laws, 90% of treasure found in international waters belongs to the person who found it. But only if no other owners are found. Since in this case the “Merchant” was transporting Spanish money, Madrid should have the most serious grounds for claiming the wealth found.
All this talk about owners and kilometers, as it soon became clear, was aimed at diverting attention from the real place where the treasure was discovered - the coast of Spain. Despite the fact that the version with the “Royal Merchant” looked quite convincing, the cautious Spaniards suspected from the very beginning that the Americans were leading everyone by the nose. And how can one not suspect fraud if the coins were transported from England to Florida via Gibraltar?
In Madrid it was suggested that the story of the “Merchant” was invented as a distraction and that the treasure was recovered from a sunken ship in the Gibraltar area. American treasure hunters responded evasively to all requests from the Spanish authorities: it was allegedly impossible to establish either the nationality of the ship or its name. But at the same time, they constantly emphasized that they act in accordance with all international laws.
The Spaniards, of course, were not satisfied with such answers. Last summer, a court in the city of Cadiz (located in southeastern Spain) ordered the detention and search of all Odyssey Marine ships. Quite soon, the Spanish coast guard detained first one vessel belonging to Odyssey Marine, and then a second one. After searching them and finding nothing, she released the ships and crews.
After these incidents, Odyssey filed a lawsuit against Spain, demanding compensation in the amount of $5 million for the six-month downtime of its ships caused by the illegal actions of the Spanish police.
Detaining the ships, the Spaniards were already sure that Odyssey had found not the same ship, information about which had spread with strange ease in the media, but a completely different one - Our Lady Mercedes, a 36-gun Spanish frigate carrying very valuable cargo. The Mercedes was carrying more than a million coins minted in the Viceroyalty of Peru, then the financial center of Spanish America. The frigate left through the Strait of Magellan into the Atlantic Ocean and, after a stop in Montevideo, set off for the metropolis, accompanied by three warships.
The seven-month voyage passed without incident, but on the morning of October 5, 1804, not far from the Portuguese Cape St. Mary, the Spaniards met an English squadron. One of the English cannonballs hit the powder magazine of the Mercedes. The ship sank with two hundred sailors and gold coins in the holds.
The British convoyed the remaining three frigates - "Fama", "Medea" and "Santa Clara" to Plymouth, where they received different names and became frigates of His Majesty's fleet. Two months after this attack, Spain declared war on England.
The fact that Odyssey found not the “Royal Merchant”, but a “Mercedes”, was also indicated by indirect evidence. Back in April, a month before the announcement of the discovery of the coins, American treasure hunters asked a Tampa court to recognize their rights to an unidentified 19th-century vessel found about 180 miles west of Gibraltar. In Madrid, not without reason, they assumed that this was the Mercedes and that 17 tons of coins were lifted from it. This, by the way, explains why treasures were exported to America not from England, but from Gibraltar.
The Americans resorted to all sorts of tricks. So, they even tried to hide the date of manufacture of the coins by processing their photographs so that it was impossible to understand when and where they were cast. In doing so, however, they made a small mistake. The photographs that were published in one of the magazines clearly show that the ends of the coins are gurtated (special processing of the edge of the coin). Meanwhile, in Spain, coins began to circulate only in the middle of the 18th century, that is, a hundred years after the death of the “Royal Merchant”.
Since the Mercedes was a warship, according to international maritime law, she and her cargo should belong to Spain, regardless of where it was found. Lawyers acting on behalf of the Spanish government went to court in Tampa, where Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. is located, to force Odyssey to first disclose all information about the treasure.
Judge Mark Pizzo ordered the treasure hunters to provide Madrid with all the necessary information. The other day, another court hearing took place in Tampa, at which the parties' lawyers stated that the transfer and study of documents would last until the fall or even winter. The process will probably begin no earlier than next year, but already now, based on documents received from the Americans, the Spaniards say that the last doubts that the coins were lifted from the Mercedes have disappeared.
“There is no more mystery,” said confidently James Gould, a lawyer from Washington defending the interests of the Spanish government in court.
Madrid demands the return of the entire treasure. Spain has also signed the UNESCO Convention. The Spaniards claim that Odyssey Marine Exploration not only stole their cultural and historical property, but also disturbed the graves of the Spanish sailors who were on board the Mercedes.
Greg Simms, without officially admitting that we are talking about a Mercedes, retorts that since the Spanish authorities never tried to find the ship, they actually abandoned it. By the way, in 1983, Madrid actually abandoned the galleon “Our Lady of Atocha,” which two years later was also found by the American Melian Fischer. Moreover, the fact that Spanish coins were raised from the ocean floor does not mean that they were on a Spanish ship. Before the discovery of the Mercedes, the treasure found by Fischer in 1985 was considered a record one. An American recovered from the holds of Our Lady of Atocha, which sank off the coast of Florida in 1622, 40 tons of gold and silver coins and 40 kg of emeralds, which were sold for $400 million.
Meanwhile, a third party may well intervene in the dispute over the Mercedes treasures. Numerous government and public organizations in Peru want Lima to formally claim its share of the treasure on the grounds that the gold and silver from which the coins were minted were mined in Peruvian mines without the consent of the Incas, the country's indigenous inhabitants.
Second Battle of Trafalgar
Suddenly, London intervened in the conflict surrounding the record treasure found by Odyssey Marine. The British were outraged that Madrid had once again pointedly ignored the territorial waters around Gibraltar, which the British consider their city. The Foreign Office lodged an official protest with the Spanish Foreign Ministry.
Another reason for the worsening relations between Great Britain and Spain is the English ship Sussex, which was simply forgotten after the discovery of coins with the Mercedes. And again it couldn’t be done without Odyssey Marine.
In order to find the frigate Sussex 5 miles off the Spanish coast at a depth of 900 m in early 2002, Odyssey Marine needed to search more than 1 thousand square meters with the help of underwater robots and special underwater scanners similar in operating principle to locators. km of seabed. During the search, the remains of 418 ships were found, including Roman and Carthaginian ships, which had been lying at the bottom for more than two thousand years.
The 80-gun Sussex sailed from Portsmouth in early 1694 at the head of a squadron of 12 ships. On board the frigate was money for the Savoy Duke Viktor Amadeus II. It was a kind of bribe to persuade him to declare the war of France, with which England fought at that time. Sussex’s holds were clogged with chests in which, according to the inventories of the Admiralty, there were 1 million gold and silver coins and dozens of ingredients of precious metals. Now, experts believe, treasures can cost about 2.5 billion pounds.
On February 19, the strongest storm measured the squadron, which only entered the Mediterranean Sea. Sassedex sank along with 560 sailors, officers and all the treasures.
The British government for the first time in history allowed American rescuers to raise treasures along with historical artifacts: guns, ship and navigation equipment, etc.
Odyssey should get a considerable share from the raised treasures. By agreement with the British Ministry of Defense, Americans will get 80% of the first $ 45 million, proceeds from the sale of coins. The income to half a billion parties agreed to divide equally. Of the amount exceeding 500 million, the British government will go 60%.
Madrid for a long time refused to give permission to carry out rescue work, referring to serious doubts that the “Sussex” really lies at the bottom. London had to connect the US State Department. Only under the pressure of Washington, Spain allowed to raise treasures. Rescue work began on December 12, 2005, when Odyssey spent more than $ 5 million in search of more than $ 5. But in January 2006, everything changed. The Spanish newspapers began to blame foreigners of stinging the national treasure of Spain. The Foreign Ministry of Spain terminated the agreement under a foggy pretext of violation by the Americans of some terms of the contract and demanded their immediate departure.
“We will expel from our territorial waters, and if necessary, we will arrest everyone,” the representative of the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs belligerently said, “who will try to sink to the bottom without the permission of the government.”
The influential Madrid newspaper El Mundo called the scandal around the underwater treasures the second trafalgar battle and revenge on the British, who robbed Spanish galeons with gold and silver in the 17th century, and Cesar Antonio Molina, the Minister of Culture of Spain, called ODYSSEY “Pirates of the XXI century”.
Only on March 23, 2007, the Andalusia authorities finally allowed Odyssey to continue rescue work, but a month later the epic with coins began, and the operation for London's displeasure was again discontinued.
There will be no vapor
After the conflict with Odyssey Marine, naval archaeologists from Neres Arqueeologia Subacuatica, organizing archeology under water; On the instructions of the Ministry of Culture of Spain, they began compiling an atlas of underwater treasures. Work on the Atlas will take more than one year, but they have already applied the Mercedes crash to the map.
For the development of litigation between the Government of Spain and Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. Dozens of other companies involved in the search for underwater treasures are closely monitored. It will depend on its outcome where priceless old coins and jewelry will go: in museums or private collections.
But even in the event of a loss in court, talk about the ruin of Odyssey, which is now being searched by eight sites in different parts of the world, clearly early. For the fate of the company, Greg Simms is not worried. With any outcome, he will be shared by the costs of searching and raising treasures.
Yes, and without orders, Simms and the company is not afraid to be left. Madrid provided him with advertising, and interest in underwater treasures is hardly subsided in the near future. It is no coincidence that the Discovery Channel television company signed a two millionth agreement with the American underwater treasure hunters to shoot a 11-searous film on the search for treasures under water.