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28-05-2024
LONDON: The Colombian government has started exploring a sunk 18th Century Spanish galleon dubbed the “holy grail of shipwrecks”.
The South American nation has also declared a protected archaeological area around the San Jose galleon which was sunk by the British Royal Navy in 1708 in the Caribbean Sea.
The ship, whose ownership remains contested, was carrying one of the largest hauls of valuables ever lost at sea when it was attacked just outside of the Colombian city of Cartagena.
It is estimated to be laden with as much as £16bn ($20bn) in treasure.
At the time, the vessel had been transporting its precious cargo to the Spanish king to help pay for his war against the British. Almost 600 crew members went down with it. The first stage of the research project described as a “characterization phase” will use remote sensors to generate images of the site to build an inventory of the archaeological material on the seabed.
Underwater robots will also take readings around the shipwreck, which will be used to inform academic studies, the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History said.
Subsequent phases will depend on what comes to light in this first phase of the project, it added.
The title of the project translates as “towards the heart of the San José galleon”.
Juan David Correa, Colombia’s culture minister, described the exploratory expedition as “unprecedented”.
The Colombian government has said the declaration of the site as a protected area would allow for it to be preserved, given its “high scientific and heritage value”.
Colombia announced the discovery of the wreckage in 2015 but it is subject to longstanding legal disputes over who owns the contents of the ship.
US salvage company, Sea Search Armada, is one of the parties laying claim to it, as Spain has previously.
The Colombian government has said no archaeological excavations are planned in the initial stage of the project.
It had claimed in December 2015, the wreck of a Spanish ship laden with treasure that was sunk by the British more than 300 years ago has been found off the Colombian coast, says President Juan Manuel Santos.
“Great news! We have found the San Jose galleon,” the president tweeted, external.
The wreck was discovered near the port city of Cartagena.
It has been described as the holy grail of shipwrecks, as the ship was carrying one of the largest amounts of valuables ever to have been lost at sea.
Santos said the cargo was worth at least $1bn (£662m).
The San Jose was carrying gold, silver, gems and jewelry collected in the South American colonies to be shipped to Spain’s king to help finance his war of succession against the British when it was sunk in June 1708.
The vessel was attacked by a British warship just outside Cartagena.
Colombian officials would not reveal the precise location of the wreck, but Santos said the find “constitutes one of the greatest, if not the biggest, as some say discoveries of submerged patrimony in the history of mankind”.
He said that a museum would be built in Cartagena to house the ship’s treasures.
Ownership of the wreck has been the subject of a long-running legal row.
The Colombian government did not mention its long-running quarrel with US-based salvage company Sea Search Armada (SSA) over claims to the treasure.
A group now owned by SSA said in 1981 that it had located the area in which the ship sank. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
