Throughout the planet it is estimated that there are close to three million Of pecios, vessels that caught in their day and now rest at the bottom of the oceans, turned into sentences of marine life. This list is included from transatlantic as The Titanic to destroyers of World War II, abandoned boats or colonial caravels. Few arouse the interest of San Joséthe galleon sunk in 1708 off the coast of Colombia with the wineries full of gold, silver and gems, a treasure that some value in almost 20,000 million of dollars.
His exact whereabouts was a mystery for centuries. Now Colombian archaeologists believe Having located it without a doubt thanks to a track that confirms the opulence of his treasure: the gold coins that he transported on board.
A Milmillonario Treasury. In his day the San José was an imposing galeon, a large ship of 40 meters of length12 of manga, three masts and 64 cannons built in Guipúzcoa commissioned by King Carlos II. Your mission: work on the Indian fleet. Neither its power nor its dimension avoided however that the history of San José was brief. The ship ended up sinking from the coast of Colombia in June 1708, only a few years after its launch, beaten by the cannons of a squad of British privateers during the Battle of Barúin full war of Spanish succession.
The most curious thing is that the legend of San José began just then, after its shipwreck. And the reason is simple: in addition to a crew formed by hundreds of sailors, the galleon loaded with gold, silver and gems, among other treasures. There is talk of a loot of 200 tons that today would reach a value of billions of dollars. Some estimates place it in 17,000 millionothers in more than 20,000. There are also those that reduce that calculation, but without leaving the land of the thousands of millionsan imposing treasure.
And where is the San José? For centuries that was the great unknown. It was known that the wreck was In the Colombian Caribbeanbut … where exactly? What were your coordinates? In 1981 A company announced to hype and saucer having found the Galeon and allegedly delivered the information to the government in exchange for keeping a part of the treasure, but the story soon complicated. In 2015 The country’s authorities claimed to have located the remains of the Spanish ship in a different place, which tightened the disputes about who has the merit of the finding and (more importantly) the rights over the treasure.
The big clue: the coins. Historical discoveries often depend on small details. And underwater archeology is no exception. Although experts have been convinced that the vestiges resting in front of the Colombian coast are the remains of San José, a New research published in Antiquity He has just reaffirmed the identity of the wreck. And in a fairly peculiar way: analyzing the gold coins located in the underwater deposit, at approximately 600 meters deep
To get it a Colombian team undertook Between 2022 and 2024 Several expeditions focused on the remains of the wreck. He did it With the help of a rova non -manned submarine vehicle that allowed experts to obtain high resolution photos of the coins that rest on the site. Thanks to techniques such as The photogrammetry They were also able to draw a three -dimensional reconstruction of the wreck and several models and digital replicas of the environment.
And what did they discover? They found Macuquinashand coined coins and that were used for more than two centuries in the trade of the Americas. With the help of high resolution photos taken in situ – the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History assures That no object object was extracted – experts discovered that the pieces have an average diameter of 32.5 mm, weigh 27 grams and are coined with revealing designs.
On the obverse, the coins show a variant of The Jerusalem Cross (A large cross with four smaller) next to a shield with castles and lions, symbol of Castilla y León. On the back they carry the Hercules crowned columns On waves, which relates the pieces to the Lima Mint.
Squeezing clues. They are not the only clues identified by archaeologists, who have identified a “L” that seems to refer to Lima, an “8” that shows the value of the currency and an “H” related to the brand of Francisco de Hurtadohe Major trial of Indies in 1707. In the central part of the coins the legend “PVA”, “Plus Ultra” is also appreciated, a wink to the maritime expansion of the Spanish monarchy.
The information is completed with three digits (707) located at the bottom of the pillars, a reference to the year in which the coins were coined: 1707, just before the San José sink into the Caribbean.
Why is it important? Because all these data are clues that help to better understand the site and the circumstances in which the galleon that rests there. “Unraveling the characteristics of the currencies helps to determine the age and origin of the wreck”, collect the article. “First, it establishes a temporal frame: the sinking had to occur after 1707. This, along with other tests, such as the presence of Chinese porcelain Kangxi And inscriptions in the cannons dating from 1665, suggests that the ship sank at the beginning of the XVIII. “
“Corroborate identification”. The coins also give clues on the route that must have followed the sunken galleon. “In the Viceroyalty of Peru, several gold mines were registered, mainly in Puno and Huamanga. It is likely that the material to coined the coins would be obtained from these mines and processed in the house of La Moneda de Lima, which resumed operations in 1683 and began to coined gold in 1696,” Experts reveal In your study.
All those evidence, added to what historians already know about colonial history, leads them to A resounding conclusion: “The set of tests corroborates the identification of shipwreck as the San José Galleon, a hypothesis that is considered from its finding in 2015”.
“The only ship”. “The discovery of Macuquinos created in 1707 in the house of La Moneda de Lima points to a vessel that sailed through the Tierra Firm Route at the beginning of the 18th century. The San José Galeon is the only ship that meets these characteristics “, Zanjan Experts, who claim the value of currencies as “crucial artifacts” to date and understand better deposits, especially those related to shipwrecks.
“They serve as valuable deposits of historical information, especially when examining cases related to the Firm Earth Fleetwhich connected Spain with the Viceroyalty of Peru between the XVI and the beginning of the XVIII. “
Mystery settled? No. It is pending one of the greatest unknowns that surround the wreck of the San José: What will be your future? His enormous historical and patrimonial value has been located in recent years in the center of An intense battle for their rights. Colombia He has shown His interest in the wreck, Spain also gave One step forward And as a backdrop are the claims of the company that claims to have discovered the wreck, the indigenous community of Qhara Qhara, which demands Treasury rights, and experts who They ask Leave the wreck as it is.
Images | Wikipedia and Presidency of the Republic-Colombia
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