Picture a legendary shipwreck filled with silver coins, jewels and other treasures, and you might be imagining Nuestra Señora de las Maravilas.
This The ship sank 368 years ago near the Bahamas. In the centuries since, pirates and treasure hunters have made off with millions of silver pesos, dazzling emeralds, weapons and other loot.
Experts once thought that little of the wreckage remained. Since 2019, however, divers have found thousands of artifacts. They have helped scientists learn more about it The past of the BahamasIncluding how piracy shaped the islands.
Experts believe there is more to discover. What remains beneath the sand can be worth millions.
No one was sure if anything was left of the wreckage.
In 2019, the Bahamian government granted millionaire Carl Allen and his company, AllenX, the rights to explore and salvage what remains – if anything – of the Marvillas. What the company revealed was shocking.
In the years since, AlanX has gotten more 10,000 artifactsIncluding gold chains, silver bars and emeralds. The company works with archaeologists, including Michael Pattman, director of the Bahamas Maritime Museum, to document both the site and the find.
Everyday objects such as olive jars, pipes and wine bottles are also a form of treasure because they help archaeologists work with them. ALANX understands who was on board, what they ate, how they dressed and what personal items they traveled with.
Allen started the Bahamas Maritime Museum to hold the recovered treasure, which he said he has no current plans to sell. His company and government split Finds.
We will never know how much wealth fell with the ship.
The ship’s artefacts span about 2 miles Under the sea, some moved Surrounded by storms. Many are buried deep in the sand, so archaeologists use devices called magnetometers to find them.
So long after a ship has sunk, it’s hard to know what’s left. Jim Sinclair, who works with ALANX, told CBS News in 2023 that there could still be $100 million worth of artifacts under the sand.
Before setting sail, Maravillao proceeded gold and silver From another ship. There is no list of what was brought aboard. The ship also stopped in Mexico, but there is no record of what was in that cargo.
“We’re still trying to unravel that mystery,” Pattman said.
Poor record-keeping, pirate- and storm-prone waters mean it’s impossible to know the extent of the original cargo and what still lies on the seabed.
There are other shipwrecks waiting to be rediscovered.
The Maravilla is far from the only shipwreck in Bahamas waters.
Researchers looked at archival materials and found 176 shipwrecks near the Bahamas 1526 and 1976. Most shipwrecks were caused by rocks and storms, the researchers found. Unlike the treasure-laden Maravilas, many ships contained cargo Coal, lumber, rum, cigarsand coffee.
Also made by AllenX Map Some known wrecks in the area. So far, he knows where 19 are, but there are dozens more that are hidden under the sea. However, exploring more sites can be difficult.
Bahamian politician Jomo Campbell has been critical of modern treasure hunting, saying that organizations such as ALANX cannot be licensed to explore and recover items from multiple wrecks. Tribune Business Reported in 2023.
More than 600 people died when the ship sank.
In January 1656, Maravilas and another ship accidentally collided, causing Maravilas to run aground on a rock.
The second ship continued, but the damage to the Maravilas took away much of its possessions and hundreds of passengers. towards the sea floor under an hour.
“Shortly after this happened, we had what we call a winter storm in the northern Bahamas,” Pattman told Business Insider. “So that made the environment even more treacherous.”
More than 600 people, a combination of sailors, passengers and prisoners, died from drowning or hypothermia. According to the historian Leonardo Moreno-Alvarez. Only 45 people survived.
People immediately started saving silver.
The ship sank in relatively shallow water about 30 feet deep off present-day Grand Bahama Island. This attracted numerous groups, including pirates, who immediately began looting the wreck for its treasure.
In fact, this debris probably helps launch a “The Golden Age of Piracy“on New Providence Island and its city of Nassau, according to a recent report published by Payment and his colleagues in the Journal of the Bahamas Maritime Museum.
Pirate ships were able to loot the Maravillas site and then maneuver through very shallow water to follow the warships, Pattman said. Nassau was sparsely populated, and the colonists were eager to trade with pirates.
Island governors often cut deals and pardoned pirates. As the illegal salvage continued, “this helped build Nassau into what is now known as the ‘Pirate Republic'”. Patman said.
The Golden Age lasted until 1718 when Captain Woods Rogers Began to forgive pirates in exchange for hunting down other pirates.
“Some people in the Bahamas consider Woods Rogers a hero,” Pattman said. “I’m not.” His mission was to eradicate piracy and restore commerce, but he did so by restoring the plantation system and turning the Bahamas into a center of slavery, he said.
Treasure hunting re-emerged in the 1970s.
There were few attempts to bring silver from the scrap Over the next 150 years, however, the ship was largely forgotten, Pattman said. Then in 1972 Robert Marx found Artifacts related to ships.
Archaeologists Criticized Marx’s work was devastating and Unscientific Because there was little documentation of where the items were found. At least some treasure hunters used explosives to make the bust Buried ArtifactsAccording to the report ofOcean Dispatch“
In the 1980s, another treasure hunter, Herbert Humphreys Jr., claimed to have found emeralds, silver coins, and more valuable artifacts. Equivalent About $11 million today. In 1987, his recovery company released a 100-carat emerald.
As part of this salvage license, treasure hunters kept 75% of what they found, and the rest went to the Bahamian government.
Enough looting occurred in private collections that the Bahamian government banned the removal of items from shipwrecks in 1999.
After 2012 amend In order to protect antiquities in the Bahamas, ALANX was able to apply for a research and recovery license.
one more the latest The amendment gives an equal split of recovered items to treasure hunters and the government, where 75% of it went to the explorers.
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