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December 21, 2007
Shipwreck provides historic data
The shipwreck seems to have been a commercial vessel of the Late Classical period. >
A shipwreck off the south coast may provide valuable information about the nautical and economic history of the region, according to the Department of Antiquities.
The shipwreck at Mazotos is the first underwater research project to be exclusively run by Cypriot institutions.
The project was undertaken by the Research Unit of Archaeology of the University of Cyprus in agreement with the Department of Antiquities.
According to a statement from the Department of Antiquities, the shipwreck seems to have been a commercial vessel of the Late Classical period.
Part of the cargo of the ship lies on the sea bottom and consists of amphorae, most probably from Chios.
No other ceramic types were identified for the time being or any other parts of the ship (such as anchors) but the spatial distribution of the amphorae may indicate that the hull of the ship is buried under the sand.
Study of shipwreck reveals treasure trove of details
By Alexia Saoulli THE DEPARTMENT of Antiquities yesterday announced the completion of the first underwater research project of the Mazotos shipwreck. Its study is expected to be of great significance for the nautical and economic history of the Eastern Mediterranean as it is one of the very few shipwrecks of the Classical period found in such a good state of preservation, the department said. “The results will throw light on important research questions such as the commercial relations between the North Aegean and the South Eastern Mediterranean and the role of Cyprus in these transport routes during the last phases of the Cypriot city-kingdoms as well as on types and sizes of ships amongst others,” it said. The project was undertaken by the Research Unit of Archaeology of the University of Cyprus in agreement with the Department of Antiquities and with funding and logistical support from the Thetis Foundation. It is the first time a project of this kind has been exclusively undertaking by Cypriot institutions. The research programme was carried out from November 17 to 24 and focused on the documentation of the shipwreck using photographic and drawing methods so as to make an initial assessment and plan the next period of research accordingly. The shipwreck seems to have been a commercial vessel of the Late Classical period (mid-300BC). Part of the cargo of the ship lies on the seabed and consists of amphorae, most probably from the Greek island of Chios. No other ceramic types were identified for the time being or any other parts of the ship but the spatial distribution of the amphorae may indicate that the hull of the ship is buried under the sand, the department said. The research was carried out by Dr Stella Demesticha, Visiting Lecturer of Underwater Archaeology at the University of Cyprus. The participants were specialists from Greece, divers of the Federation of Professional Divers and other Cypriot professional divers.Posted by victoria at 09:21 AM
December 13, 2007
Captain Kidd Shipwreck Discovered
Communications, at 812-855-0084 or traljame@indiana.edu.
IU marine protection authority Charles Beeker examines possible wreckage from Capt. Kidd's Quedagh Merchant
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Resting in less than 10 feet of Caribbean seawater, the wreckage of Quedagh Merchant, the ship abandoned by the scandalous 17th century pirate Captain William Kidd as he raced to New York in an ill-fated attempt to clear his name, has escaped discovery -- until now.
An underwater archaeology team from Indiana University announced today (Dec. 13) the discovery of the remnants. IU marine protection authority Charles Beeker said his team has been licensed to study the wreckage and to convert the site into an underwater preserve, where it will be accessible to the public.
Beeker, director of Academic Diving and Underwater Science Programs in IU Bloomington's School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, said it is remarkable that the wreck has remained undiscovered all these years given its location, just 70 feet off the coast of Catalina Island in the Dominican Republic, and because it has been sought actively by treasure hunters.
"I've been on literally thousands of shipwrecks in my career," Beeker said. "This is one of the first sites I've been on where I haven't seen any looting. We've got a shipwreck in crystal clear, pristine water that's amazingly untouched. We want to keep it that way, so we made the announcement now to ensure the site's protection from looters."
The find is valuable because of the potential to reveal important information about piracy in the Caribbean and about the legendary Capt. Kidd, said John Foster, California's state underwater archaeologist, who is participating in the research.
IU anthropology doctoral student Fritz Hanselmann documents one of the "great guns" as described by Captain Kidd
"I look forward to a meticulous study of the ship, its age, its armament, its construction, its use, its contents and the reconstructed wrecking process that resulted in the site we see today," Foster said. "Because there is extensive, written documentation, this is an opportunity we rarely have to test historic information against the archaeological record."
Historians differ on whether Kidd was actually a pirate or a privateer -- someone who captured pirates. After his conviction of piracy and murder charges in a sensational London trial, he was left to hang over the River Thames for two years.
Historians write that Kidd captured the Quedagh Merchant, loaded with valuable satins and silks, gold, silver and other East Indian merchandise, but left the ship in the Caribbean as he sailed to New York on a less conspicuous sloop to clear his name of the criminal charges.
Anthropologist Geoffrey Conrad, director of IU Bloomington's Mathers Museum of World Cultures, said the men Kidd entrusted with his ship reportedly looted it, and then set it ablaze and adrift down the Rio Dulce. Conrad said the location of the wreckage and the formation and size of the canons, which had been used as ballast, are consistent with historical records of the ship. They also found pieces of several anchors under the cannons.
"All the evidence that we find underwater is consistent with what we know from historical documentation, which is extensive," Conrad said. "Through rigorous archeological investigations, we will conclusively prove that this is the Capt. Kidd shipwreck."
Photo by: Howard Pyle for Book of Pirates
The IU team examined the shipwreck at the request of the Dominican Republic's Oficina Nacional De Patrimonio Cultural Subacuático.
"The site was initially discovered by a local prominent resident of Casa De Campo, who recognized the significance of the numerous cannons and requested the site be properly investigated," said ONPCS Technical Director Francis Soto. "So, I contacted IU."
Beeker and Conrad have worked closely with ONPCS for 11 years since they began conducting underwater and land-based archaeological research related to the era when the Old World and New World first met.
"It continues our work down there from the age of discovery to the golden age of piracy, the transformation of both the native and introduced cultures of the Caribbean," Conrad said.
Much of their work is focused in the area of La Isabela Bay, the site of the first permanent Spanish settlement established by Christopher Columbus. The Taino were the first indigenous people to interact with Europeans. Beeker said much of the history of this period is based on speculation, something he and Conrad are trying to change.
The IU research in the Dominican Republic typically involves professors and graduate students from various IU Bloomington schools and departments, including the School of HPER, the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, and the departments of anthropology, biology, geology and mathematics in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Anthropology doctorate student Fritz Hanselmann, who teaches underwater archaeology techniques in HPER, said there have only been a few pirate ships ever discovered in the Americas, and that IU's multi-disciplinary research will make a significant contribution to the field.
HPER Dean Robert M. Goodman accompanied the most recent expedition to learn more about this successful interdisciplinary and international research collaboration. He also went to explore potential public health linkages between the School of HPER and the Universidad Autonoma de Santo Domingo, founded in 1538. It is the largest university in the country and the oldest in the Americas.
"Indiana University is working to increase its international presence," Goodman said. "Earlier this month, the IU Board of Trustees was presented a strategic plan that calls for increased student and faculty participation in study abroad and international service learning programs, as well as the development of strategic international partnerships that support overseas study, global research and the recruitment of international students.
"The archeological work being done by IU in the Dominican Republic affords us tremendous entrée for wider areas of collaboration," he said. "Because of the network that Mr. Beeker and Dr. Conrad have established, the Universidad Autonóma de Santo Domingo is eager to establish a formal agreement with IU. We met with the secretary of state for environment and national resources, the dean of faculties of health sciences at the university, representatives from USAID, and the president of the hotel association, all of whom are eager to foster relationships between IU and agencies of the Dominican Republic. This was an incredibly productive trip for IU."
Beeker and his students have conducted underwater research projects on submerged ships, cargo and other cultural and biological resources throughout the United States and the Caribbean for more than 20 years. Many of his research projects have resulted in the establishment of state or federal underwater parks and preserves, and have led to a number of site nominations to the National Register of Historic Places.
Beeker also serves on the Marine Protected Areas Federal Advisory Committee for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He can be reached at 812-855-5748 or cbeeker@indiana.edu. To learn more about the Underwater Science program visit http://www.indiana.edu/~scuba.
Conrad can be reached at 812-855-5340 and conrad@indiana.edu.
Francis Soto, with ONPCS, can be reached at 809-685-9072 and francis_soto@hotmail.com. To learn more about Beeker and Conrad's search for Columbus' sunken ships, read http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/3790.html.
Posted by victoria at 12:51 PM
GHOSTSHIPS OF THE GREAT LAKES - PART 4
Ghostship of the Great Lakes part 4
When New York's most prominent shipyard, Bidwell and Banta, launched the Niagara in 1846, the vessel was one of the largest, fastest, and most luxurious steamboats the world had ever seen. Seeing the much-heralded Niagara for the first time, one reporter wrote that "we had been lead to anticipate a most magnificent boat, but the reality far exceeded our anticipations."
Posted by victoria at 12:46 PM
December 10, 2007
Ghostship of the Great Lakes Part 3
Ghostship of the Great Lakes Part 3
Mike and Warren prep for a deep dive in Lake Erie that requires commercial dive gear, including a dive helmet.
Posted by victoria at 01:19 PM
December 07, 2007
December 7th 1941 - Pearl Harbor
At 6:00 a.m. on December 7th six Japanese carriers launched a first wave of 181 planes composed of torpedo bombers, dive-bombers, horizontal bombers and fighters on Pearl Harbour. Caught off guard by the subsequent waves of attack within the first 10 minutes the USS Arizona had been hit twice. The devastating explosion that resulted ripped through the forward part of the ship igniting brutal fires that burned for two days; debris showered down on Ford Island and the surrounding area. The Arizona had been struck down taking with her 1103 lives, over half the casualties of that infamous day.
The Japanese attacked military airfields at the same time they hit the fleet anchored in Pearl Harbor. Overall, twenty-one ships of the U.S. Pacific Fleet were sunk or damaged, aircraft losses were 188 destroyed and 159 damaged, American dead numbered 2,403. That figure included 68 civilians, and there were 1,178 military and civilian wounded.
Battleship Row
USS Arizona Memorial
For more information find the USS Arizona and USS Oklahoma on the map.
Posted by victoria at 09:43 AM
GHOSTSHIPS OF THE GREAT LAKES - PART 2
Ghostship of the Great Lakes Part 2
Mike and the dive team continue the search with a helmet dive on an unidentified wreck.
Survivors of the Niagara disaster estimated that only 20 minutes elapsed between the outbreak of the fire and the total abandonment of the ship. Since the passengers and crew had little time to collect their belongings, the Niagara took an abundance of cultural artifacts down with it when it sank. In about 50 feet of water, the remains of the Niagara settled to the bottom of Lake Michigan about one mile off shore. Memories of the disaster persisted and were occasionally revisited in newspapers and by maritime buffs, but deeper knowledge of the Niagara and Great Lakes palace steamers faded.
Posted by victoria at 09:35 AM
December 06, 2007
Halifax Explosion Remembered
On December 6, 1917, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the largest man-made explosion until the first atomic bomb occurred.
At 8:45 in the morning a French ammunition ship, the Mont Blanc and the Norwegian cargo ship Imo collided in the narrows of Halifax harbour. Vapors from vats of benzol, which were wrongly stored on the deck of the Mont Blanc, were set afire by sparks from the collision. The Mont Blanc was shipping large quantities of munitions to Europe as part of the war effort. She was carrying over 2700 tons of explosives, such as TNT, guncotton, and picric acid. The fire engulfed the Mont Blanc and the crew quickly abandoned ship upon the Captain's orders. They rowed to safety in two rowboats and reached safety on the Dartmouth shore as the burning ship continued to drift toward the busy port of Halifax.
At 9:04:35, with firefighters on the scene and school children gathering to watch, a massive explosion ensued. More than 2.5 km2 of Halifax was leveled and windows were shattered as far as Truro, Nova Scotia, 100 kilometres away. An anchor from the Mont Blanc was found five kilometres from the harbour. The disaster resulted in approximately 1635 deaths (approx. 1000 died instantaneously from the blast), nine thousand injured and approximately 30 million dollars in damage. 325 acres of city was destroyed. 1500 people became homeless as a result of the devastation. The following day a blizzard hit the city, crippling recovery efforts.
If not for the efforts of neighboring Provinces, the Boston Red Cross and the Massachusetts Public Safety Committee the devastation would have escalated further. Each year, Nova Scotia donates a giant evergreen to the people of Boston as a thank you for their assistance following the Halifax Explosion.
Click Here To view rare film footage shot in the aftermath of the 1917 Halifax Explosion. Six minutes of black-and-white moving images, attributed to professional cameraman W.G. MacLaughlan, document in eerie silence and jerky movements the waste and devastation of a city destroyed, and the efforts that went into rebuilding it.
For more information on the Halifax Explosion find the Mont Blanc on the map.
Every Christmas since 1917, Nova Scotia has donated a large Christmas tree to the City of Boston in thanks and remembrance for the help the Boston Red Cross and the Massachusetts Public Safety Committee provided in the time of major need. The tree is Boston's premier Christmas tree and is lit in the Boston Common throughout the holiday season.
Posted by victoria at 09:41 AM
December 05, 2007
GHOSTSHIPS OF THE GREAT LAKES - PART 1
PLAY GHOSTSHIPS OF THE GREAT LAKES PART ONE
For more than a century, the ship and its contents laid undisturbed, frozen in time. However, with the invention and popularization of scuba gear during the 1950s and 1960s, this suddenly changed. In the mid-1960s, divers discovered the remains of the Niagara. For more than two decades, treasure hunters and salvagers thoroughly stripped artifacts and fittings from what was probably Wisconsin's greatest treasure trove of nineteenth century cultural artifacts. Rumors tell of entire crates of unbroken china and other artifacts being hauled off to the garages of Wisconsin and Illinois. Unfortunately, the knowledge that could have been gained by studying those artifacts is lost forever.
The structure of the wreck itself suffered additional damage by looters. One of the Niagara's two great paddlewheels, 30 feet in diameter, survived upright and largely intact into the 1980s, until a diver toppled it in a search for artifacts. Today, fragments of the wheel lie on the port side of the hull, directly abeam the engine assembly.
Despite the unfortunate pillage, the wreck of the Niagara remains a rich source of information about mid-nineteenth century shipbuilding technology and maritime culture. In 1993, the Wisconsin Historical Society began archaeological and historical research on the Niagara, one of the few examples of sidewheel steamers still in existence.
Check back tomorrow for part 2 of Ghostships of the Great Lakes and go to the Shipwreck Map > to learn more about the Niagara now!
Posted by victoria at 10:23 AM
December 04, 2007
J. Richard Steffy; Made Shipwreck Analysis Scientific
NY Times.com
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
J. Richard Steffy, who made his living as an electrical contractor until he was 48, then cast security aside to pursue his passion, studying shipwrecks, and become a leading a expert in the field, died Thursday in Bryan, Tex. He was 83.
The cause was chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, Jennifer Steffy, his daughter-in-law, said.
Using the hull timber drawings and photographs, J. Richard Steffy was able to make this 1:10 scale site diorama of the Serçe Liman1 shipwreck as found on the sea floor.
Mr. Steffy helped make shipwreck analysis a scientific discipline. Beginning at his dining-room table manipulating pieces of wood, he thought of new ways to reconstruct ancient boats and ships in three dimensions. He then added what he learned from historical archives to interpret partly preserved shipwrecks.
His enthusiasm, talent and scholarship would eventually make him a full professor at Texas A&M University, despite never having graduated from college. In 1985, he would win a “genius grant” from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. His book, “Wooden Ship Building and the Interpretation of Shipwrecks,” (1994) became a standard in the field.
He pioneered the arcane art of examining wood fragments and myriad lumpish remains of amphora containers, and of reconstructing entire ships and cargoes — sometimes conceptually and sometimes in reality. He reveled in the mission.
“I like to think that shipbuilding was the most important early everyday technology,” he said in an interview with The New York Times in 1992. “The Greeks and Romans built big and beautiful temples, but I think there’s really nothing like a ship, their ships.”
Mr. Steffy set sail on his personal voyage in 1963, when he wrote a letter to George Bass, an underwater archaeologist, about an article Dr. Bass had written in National Geographic about a shipwreck in Turkey. Mr. Steffy asked if he could build a model to help in the research, specifying that he meant a serious scientific representation, not a model for a mantelpiece.
Soon, Mr. Steffy was delivering an annual lecture to graduate students on ancient seafaring at the University of Pennsylvania, where Dr. Bass taught. He got a grant to go to Cyprus to rebuild a ship from thousands of soggy wooden fragments; it took from 1972 to 1974. Around then, he bid farewell to the family business he had run for 22 years. He had little savings and two teenage sons.
“You’re crazy,” Dr. Bass remembered telling him. “You’ll starve.”
The two men joined with Michael L. Katzev, a noted underwater archaeologist, to form what became the Institute of Nautical Archaeology. Dr. Bass gambled, too, giving up a tenured professorship at Penn for the new endeavor. The institute began in Mr. Steffy’s home in Denver, Pa.
His talent shone early when a woman called to say that a Viking vessel had washed up on a New Jersey beach. The scientists drove over to take a look. Mr. Steffy said that it came from Maine and estimated the date it was built. Newspaper clips proved him exactly right.
The institute moved to Texas A&M in the early 1970s, eventually extending its work to four continents. In addition to working at the institute, Mr. Steffy and Dr. Bass became the university’s first professors of nautical archaeology. There are now seven.
John Richard Steffy was born on May 1, 1924, in Lancaster, Pa. He attended a local community college and Milwaukee School of Engineering, without graduating.
His wife, the former Esther Lucille Koch, died in 1991.
Mr. Steffy is survived by his sons, David, of Great Falls, Va., and Loren, of The Woodlands, Tex.; his sister, Muriel Steffy Lipp, of Alexandria, Va., and his brother, Milton G., of Denver, Pa., and seven grandchildren.
Among the ships Mr. Steffy reconstructed were the Kyrenia, named after the Cypriot port near where it sank; an 11th-century merchant ship wrecked near Turkey; a first-century Roman boat found buried in Italy; and a British vessel scuttled in the York River in Virginia in 1781.
After an ancient wreck dated to about 1025 was found in the Aegean in 1973 with the largest collection of Islamic glass ever found, Mr. Steffy analyzed the waterlogged timbers. He found planks had been nailed to the frame, unlike the earlier method of inserting the frame afterward, Saudi Aramco World said in 1984.
In 1992, nautical remains were found in the Sea of Galilee. The boat was in the style used in the Mediterranean from the second millennium B.C. to the end of the Roman period in A.D. 324.
Dr. Steffy was the obvious choice to interpret what the news media had quickly named “the Jesus boat.” Shelley Wachsmann, an Israeli government archaeologist, explained: “He reads wood like you read a newspaper. He almost gets into the mind of the builder.”
The team watched breathlessly as Mr. Steffy took his first look at the boat, and solemnly declared, “Yup, it’s an old boat.”
Posted by victoria at 11:52 AM
Underwater Academics
Kaitlin Shawgo www.idsnews.com
The smell of chlorine fills the warm air as a couple of blurry masses move underwater. Scuba diving suits and other diving equipment hang on the wall in the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation building. In one corner, silver diving tanks are lined up like tin soldiers. The pool may seem like a normal practice area for scuba divers, until further inspection reveals a cabinet labeled “Archaeology supplies.” This is where students majoring in underwater archaeology and science through the Individualized Major Program practice.
Charles Beeker, director of the Office of Underwater Science and the Academic Diving Program in HPER, said while other colleges offer graduate training in underwater archaeology, IU is the only college in the country to offer undergraduate work. While it may seem strange to offer an underwater archaeology degree in the middle of a non-coastal state, IU is known as a research university, he said.
“Why not IU?” he said. “We’ve had one of the oldest diving programs in the country ... (and) one of the best anthropology departments in the country.”
Underwater archaeology is just one subcategory of the underwater science degree, which uses scuba as a tool in a range of fields like biology or geology. Underwater archaeology is more specific, focusing on man-made materials. Other subcategories include marine biology, geology and underwater resource management, all of which, Beeker said, relate to each other. For example, he said, an archaeologist can’t bring up an artifact from the ocean without first thinking of all of the organisms living on the artifact.
Jessica Keller, a junior who works as a conservation technician in the underwater science lab for credit, was recently accepted into the individualized major program for underwater archaeology. She will be one of fewer than 10 students a year who graduate with a degree in underwater archaeology. Keller, who started at IU as a theatre major, said she chose the major because she likes the idea of discovery.
“There are so many things that aren’t found yet,” she said, which includes shipwrecks and artifacts. Keller isn’t sure what she wants to do after graduation, but she said graduate school would probably be her first choice.
Frederick Hanselmann, research associate and anthropology Ph.D. student, who also studies underwater archeology, said many students go on to study underwater archaeology further after getting an undergraduate degree.
“Everybody pretty much steers toward grad school,” he said.
He explained that underwater archaeologists, and archaeologists in general, have a greater chance of being hired to large organizations such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration with a master’s degree. Some who look for a job with just a bachelor degree find jobs with Cultural Resource Management firms, which don’t pay as well. Cultural Resource Management firms work in salvage archaeology, where archaeologists go to a place that is about to be developed and try to excavate as much as they can before that happens. Also, depending on each student’s focus, they can go into the diving industry, marine conservation or biology, working on creating underwater museums of shipwrecks as well.
Beeker and anthropology professor Geoffrey Conrad sponsor students who want to major in underwater archaeology. Conrad said he enjoys sponsoring the program because he knows students are really passionate about underwater archaeology.
“I’ve seen students who’ve had undistinguished academic careers up to this point, and they come in here and it all clicks,” he said. “It’s something to get their hands on, and it’s very hands-on.”
Conrad, who is also director of the Mathers Museum of World Cultures, said the first student with an underwater archaeology degree graduated around 1998.
Conrad and Beeker have been working together since about 1996, when Beeker persuaded Conrad to travel to the Caribbean to look at a shipwreck Beeker was studying. Conrad said the trip grabbed his attention.
“That’s when I got hooked,” he said.
Before taking any other classes, students must get scuba certification through E370 Scuba Certification or a similar class. After that, students can take the spring semester class, HPER E471, Underwater Archaeology Techniques, which combines archaeology fundamentals with scuba diving. However, there is plenty of activity in the lab and in the pool.
The lab is a small room divided in two with lingering remnants from its previous incarnation as a weight room. On one side of the partition, artifacts from various shipwrecks rest in fish tanks and in plastic tubs with bubbling water. Books line a bookcase that makes up the partition and on the other side are computers, rolled-up maps, an informal table for students and Beeker’s desk.
Beeker, who is known to his students simply as “Charlie,” attended IU in the ’60s. He has been featured in programs on the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and The Learning Channel, especially with his work in studying shipwrecks. Senior Dylan Wickersham, who is double-majoring in underwater archaeology and environmental management, said Beeker’s knowledge is another reason underwater science is being taught in the Midwest.
“He’s been in the academic community for so long,” Wickersham said. “His passion for it, his drive, is inspiring.”
Students interested in the underwater archaeology major apply through the Individualized Major Program, present a curriculum and are interviewed by a panel. After that, the most important part, Beeker said, is to be certified in scuba diving.
“To me, the emphasis is ... taking a group of undergraduate students, giving them diving as a tool ... and putting them on a project,” he said.
Beeker said students first practice scuba diving in the HPER pool and are then taken to Mitchell Quarry in the spring to practice with simulated shipwrecks and artifacts. From there, they can apply to go on trips to the Florida Keys or the Dominican Republic to look at actual shipwrecks.
Beeker said it’s up to the students to come up with their own funds, but some students receive grants and scholarships.
Students in the underwater archaeology program are given small projects revolving around actual shipwrecks and artifacts to work on before doing their final senior-year project. Wickersham, who became interested in underwater archaeology after taking a scuba diving class with Beeker, is working on mapping a shipwreck site two hours north of San Francisco for his final project.
Measuring a shipwreck site, mapping it and working on proposals to make the site into an underwater park or museum are typical tasks, yet meaningful, Beeker said.
“(Students) are being guided on stuff that’s on the cutting edge,” he said.
Keller said pursuing an underwater archaeology degree requires adventurous, enthusiastic, hardworking students. Another crucial aspect, she added, is that underwater archaeology is the major to choose if “you don’t mind getting sand in your clothes.”
Posted by victoria at 10:26 AM
December 03, 2007
Spanish shipwreck deep in legal tangle
A.Carrasco Ragel / EPA
ANOTHER DISPUTE: A vessel belonging to Odyssey Marine Exploration leaves Algeciras, Spain. Odyssey says it has found a $500-million shipwreck, but Spain has challenged the firm for the rights.
The galleon San Jose sank off Colombia in 1708 carrying treasure said to be worth $2 billion today. But disputes over who gets the loot have prevented its recovery.
By Chris Kraul and Carol J. Williams, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
December 2, 2007
CARTAGENA, Colombia — For nearly 300 years, the wreck of the Spanish galleon San Jose has tantalized archaeologists and salvagers alike. When it sank in 800-foot-deep waters off this fortified Spanish colonial city, it was carrying gold, silver and precious jewels that a group of treasure hunters believes are now worth $2 billion.
But a quarter of a century after the U.S. group, which originally included a Hollywood actor, a professional golfer and a convicted Watergate felon, staked its claim, exploration and retrieval of the wreck seem as distant as the sinking sun at dusk over this historic walled city.
The stalemate over the claim by Seattle-based Sea Search Armada is partly the result of sweeping changes in international marine law and judicial interpretations during the last two decades that have made business more difficult for shipwreck salvagers. Colombia is loath to give a private foreign group access to a valuable historical site, though exploration permits it issued nearly 30 years ago seemed to do just that.
Legal experts say the new rules are a reaction to the access that salvagers got to the Titanic and 17th century Spanish galleon Nuestra Senora de Atocha in the 1970s and 1980s, which earned them tens of millions of dollars. The rules include a 2001 international UNESCO pact signed by 16 countries, not including the United States or Colombia, that converted shipwrecks into a new class of protected historical landmarks, giving archaeological and historical preservation precedence over profit-driven salvage.
The evolving standards apply to the hundreds of ships carrying potentially billions in booty that sank in the Caribbean and Atlantic during the centuries of colonial plunder, when Spanish galleons, British frigates and Portuguese slavers plied the waters between Europe and the New World.
"The San Jose case is probably the best example of how the world has changed around salvagers," said Ole Varmer, an attorney with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Washington. "And it looks like the Colombian government changed its mind."
The richest of all colonial-era wrecks may well be the San Jose. It was stocked to the hatches with bullion and coins from Peru as it sailed in a convoy toward the fortified city of Cartagena in May 1708. Before it reached port, a fleet of British navy ships intercepted the Spanish ships, and an explosion sank the San Jose, sending its treasures and 600 crew members to the ocean floor.
The ship was known to have had a rich cargo because the convoy was the first in 10 years sent by the Spanish crown to bring home colonial booty, said University of Minnesota historian Carla Rahn Phillips. Ship traffic had been halted during the War of the Spanish Succession.
A costly search
It was not until the last couple of decades that technological advances gave explorers adequate tools to search for treasure at such a depth. Robotic instruments now can distinguish precious metals from iron and reach once-impossibly deep sites.
But such technology is expensive, and Colombian officials such as Armando Lopez, special legal counsel to President Alvaro Uribe, say that the government can't afford to explore the shipwreck on its own.
"There are too many other priorities, such as housing, health and welfare of Colombians," Lopez said in an interview.
Formed in 1982, the Sea Search Armada partnership originally included actor Michael Landon, pro golfer Cary Middlecoff and onetime Nixon aide John D. Ehrlichman, all now dead.
All along, Sea Search Armada has proposed financing the venture, possibly in cooperation with scientific and academic institutions, if Colombia will only allow it to proceed. Investor attorney Danilo Devis of Barranquilla said the original investor group, which later sold its interest to SSA, got a permit in 1979 from the government to explore the shipwreck site and split whatever it found 50-50 with the Colombian state.
But years-long legal wrangling has ensued.
A Colombian Supreme Court case decided in July, in which both sides claimed victory, seems only to have hardened the standoff. The judges found that anything on board that is "national patrimony" belongs to the Colombian government, and everything else is to be split 50-50 between the investors and the government.
Investor attorney Devis said the government's claims to patrimony, meaning objects of such cultural and historical significance that they belong to a nation in perpetuity, are inappropriate because the cargo came from colonial Peru. In a telephone interview, Jack Harbeston, managing director of the partnership, said he and his associates hoped to strike a deal with Colombia on what constitutes national patrimony that would let exploration begin.
If an agreement is not reached, the investors will sue Colombia in a U.S. court for "de facto expropriation," he said.
Another twist to the case is that Sea Search Armada has presented no physical evidence that it had found the San Jose wreck, only instrument readings. Rather than give one set of coordinates for the ship's location, it filed half a dozen possible sites about 10 miles offshore, thus increasing the area of its claim.
Still uncertain is whether Spain will make its own claim to the ship and its contents under the cultural heritage accord sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. The pact provides that flag vessels and their contents remain the property of the state.
Colombian official Lopez theorized that Spain may be waiting to weigh in until the legal issues are resolved.
Another legal test
On the other side of the Atlantic, a shipwreck site claimed by a Florida-based investor group also is testing the new international legal framework. The so-called Black Swan wreck is thought to contain such riches that a court case is shaping up even before the ship, its location or its nationality have been disclosed.
Odyssey Marine Exploration of Tampa, Fla., announced in March that it had found a wreck in international waters with 17 tons of silver and gold coins and other precious artifacts, providing little additional detail. Odyssey co-founders Greg Stemm and John Morris believe, based on expert examination of the cache, that the treasure could be worth $500 million.
But Spain has challenged Odyssey in U.S. federal court in Tampa, claiming rights to the shipwreck treasure if either it or the vessel turns out to be of Spanish origin.
The case isn't expected to go to trial for nearly a year.
"According to the very limited information that Odyssey has disclosed so far, we believe the shipwreck was located near Cadiz," a Spanish port that was a key departure point for colonial-era Spanish ships, said James A. Goold, a Washington lawyer representing Spain in the Odyssey case.
The coins that have surfaced are gold escudos and silver reales, Spanish coins at the presumed time of the Black Swan shipwreck, Goold said.
Odyssey's founders contend that their discovery of the Black Swan site and importation of its treasure have been legal and in accordance with the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, to which the United States and most seagoing countries belong.
The UNESCO convention on underwater cultural heritage protection, a different accord, is problematic, Odyssey's Stemm said, because "it took the code of ethics of one user group of the resource -- and shipwreck artifacts are a resource -- and ignored all other user groups and constituencies."
Shipwrecks are not of equal historical significance, and their artifacts are not of vital need to national heritage, he argued.
"We need to take a close look at every site and evaluate it on its own merits and significance," Stemm said. "Some sites are going to be very important from the cultural and memorial standpoint, while others are going to be nothing but big piles of coins."
University of Minnesota historian Phillips and NOAA attorney Varmer counter that keeping flagged vessels under state control is a sound principle.
"If you come down on the other side, then the whole world of shipping is up for grabs. That a U.S. Navy ship sinks off the coast of Italy and stays U.S. property makes sense to me in the interests of international law."
Varmer said the United States has not signed the UNESCO cultural accord because it didn't go far enough in guaranteeing nations' access to vessels that sink in foreign territorial waters.
"What is really important is that we acknowledge as a country that the principles are important and that they override private property rights," said Barbara T. Hoffman, a New York lawyer specializing in underwater heritage issues. "The salvors' view has been one of first-come, first-served."
chris.kraul@latimes.com
carol.williams@latimes.com
Kraul reported from Cartagena and Williams from Miami.
Posted by victoria at 01:31 PM
