The Spanish Galeon San José was sunk transporting 20,000 million dollars. Mexico and Colombia are going to bring that treasure to light

The history of San José Galeon It is very particular. The ship left the shipyards of Guipúzcoa in 1706 to the sea of ​​the Caribem, and there it was loaded to the flag with gold, gems and jewels from Peruvian, Bolivian and Mexican mines. It was a Awesome boat With 40 meters of length, 64 cannons and a crew of 600 people, but was sunk after an attack of British privateers in 1708, leaving only 10 survivors and that juicy treasure in the depths of the sea off the coast of Cartagena.

It is one of the More than 1,500 Spanish Spanish ships Through the world and Mexico and Colombia are collaborating to ‘rescue’ those treasures that have been in the back of the ocean for more than 300 years. It has a value My dear of 20,000 million dollars and is the protagonist of an authentic soap opera.

A soap opera. The history of San José did not end when the ship touched background. In fact, I may only start. In 1981, the Search Armed Exploration Company claimed to have located the Spanish wreck and delivered the coordinates Not Spain, but Colombia. The treatment? Supposedly, access to half of the treasure. However, in 2015, the Colombian government said they found the remains in a place different from that indicated above.

That enraged the company Cazatesoros, who claimed that it was a strategy so that Colombia did not have to share the treasure. Neither short nor lazy, former president Juan Manuel Santos proudly said it was one of the most important treasures in Colombiaand everything pointed out that Search Armada would not see a cent. Meanwhile, Spain was not with crossed arms and appealed to his sovereignty about Galeon.

Investigating. In 2024, with the wreck even in dispute, the Commission for the Investigation and Accusation of the House of Representatives of Colombia opened an investigation against former president Santos. The reason? “Intrusion and looting” of the Spanish Galeon.

“It’s not a treasure”. The current Colombian government has another point of view and, in May last year, declared as the protected archaeological area the pungent area. The Minister of Cultures of Colombia, Juan David Correa, said that it was “the first time that an archaeological heritage area submerged at such depth is declared, it is historical for Latin America. We already have a special plan of underwater archaeological management.”

Protection. The objective, then, is to guarantee the protection and conservation of the Galeon, as Alhena Caicedo, director of the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History, and said history, and The doors were not closed to treat the wreck as shared heritage. The objective now is to see what the ship was transporting and catalog it. It seems that it is not a treasure rescue mission, such as Correa itself: “It is not an extraction mission for economic value. What we want is to leave Colombia the possibility of a scientific-cultural mission that will have several stages and that starts today.”

Mexico + Colombia. And that is where the National Institute of Anthropology and History -INAH- of Mexico comes into play. In an initiative called “Towards the heart of the San José Galeon”, Colombian and Mexican researchers are collaborating to be able to carry out this ‘recovery’ process. Mexico has a great experience when making archaeological expeditions (with recent examples such as the entire Mayan train networkthe application of New techniques to explore the interior of pyramids and the Underground stay mapping).

A underwater expedition is different, but there they also have something to say. Colombian researchers asked INAH members about their experience in the project of Our Lady of Juncala ship that shipwrecked in 1613 in the Gulf of Mexico and with which there are parallels in the case of the San José expedition. In addition, between Colombia and Mexico there are archaeologists support programs that are formed in a cross way in both countries, as if it were an Erasmus of archeology.

Digitize everything. Therefore, Mexico is advising Colombia, but it is these who, using submarine robots, are exploring San José and its surroundings in a program consisting of four phases:

• First phase (it began in May 2024): an underwater research ship comes into play with dynamic and acoustic positioning technologies, as well as a remote operating vehicle with sensors that has the mission of reaching the site.
• Second phase: generation of images of the site with which to prepare a record of the archaeological evidence for the classification of materials and their origin.
• THIRD PHASE: prediagnosis of conservation to establish starting points on the level of deterioration of the elements.
• Fourth phase: Digital documenting the archaeological context through photogrammetry techniques for informative purposes.

It seems that Colombia’s plans are clear and, according to the details of the different phases, it does not seem that the goal is to get everything they find out of the water, but to catalog it so that we can see the state of the ship and its shipment 300 years later (in addition to the wealth it carried when it was sunk).

Next steps. These last weeks, however, There have been important findings. The ICANH confirmed new “areas of interest” on the site, with Chinese porcelain, ingots, weapons and currencies that allow us to know more about the context of the sunken galleon. In addition, both INAH and the Ministry of Culture of Colombia have set October 2025 and the date on which they will detail the next steps of the mission.

The idea is to profile that strategy of ‘towards the heart of the Galeon’ in order to exhibit tangible results before the end of the current presidential mandate in 2026. And, surely, it will be then when the controversy between Spain, Colombia, the indigenous community Qhara Qhara that demands Rights on the Treasury and the company that claims to have discovered the wreck to a new level.

Images INAH, Wikipedia, ICANH

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*An earlier version of this article was published in July 2024