Treasure-Ships, According to UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage, they estimate the ocean floors are littered with about three million shipwrecks. UNESCO is the agency given to determine who owns the valuable cargos of these shipwrecks.
In the US costal waters alone there are about 65, 000 sunken ships since the 16th century. Some of these ships carried vast treasures below is just some of the most valuable ones, some found some still to be found.
Flor do Mar
Wrecked in 1511 the Portuguese had a field day when they overran the ancient kingdom of Malacca in present-day Malaysia after its sultan declined a request for permission to trade there. Admiral Alfonso d'Albuquerque's men spent three days sacking the city and relieving it of 60 tons of gold booty plus the sultan's throne - not to mention his ingots and coinage - and more than 200 chests of diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and sapphires.
The admiral called it "the richest treasure on earth that I have ever seen," and loaded it aboard the Flor do Mar. The Portuguese didn't get far with it, though; she went down in a storm off the northern coast of Sumatra along with riches estimated to be worth $1.7 to $3 billion.
San José
The San José is c
onsidered to be the richest treasure ships ever lost in the Western Hemisphere. She sank in about 1,000 feet of water on June 8th, 1708. This loss resulted from a battle with an English squadron. Due to the ongoing War of the Spanish Succession, no treasure had been sent from South America to Spain for a period of six years.English Commodore Charles Wager tracked down the treasure-laden ship 16 miles off Cartagena and sunk it in 1000 feet of water. The San José was loaded with eleven million pesos (about 344 tons of gold and silver coins). 116 chests of emeralds, and the personal wealth of the Viceroy of Peru.
An eyewitness report indicates that it went down off Baru Island, between the Isla del Tesoro (known as Treasure Island) and Baru Peninsula, in an area near Cartagena, in what is today known as Colombia. The estimated Value of the cargo today is more than 1 Billion US dollars
Admiral Nakhimov
In the Battle of Tsushima, a decisive fight of the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War, wh
ich saw the cruiser Admiral Nakhimov destroyed in 1905 she went down along with most of the Russian fleet -- scuttled, actually, after being struck by a Japanese torpedo in the straits between Korea and Japan.The Admiral would be a mere footnote to history had she not putatively been the paymaster to the fleet and carrying more than 5,000 boxes of gold coins and ingots worth an estimated $32 billion.
Dmitri Donskoi
Also went down in the same battle: she was reputedly carrying gold worth $124 billion. Both ships are not confirmed by the Russians as carrying any gold at all so maybe it is just a story. But the value of these cargoes keep people looking.
Las Cinque Chagas
Sunk on J
une 13th 1594. The Portuguese carrack (merchant ship) Las Cinque Chagas was returning home from the East Indies in June of 1594 bulging with treasure that included bounty rescued from two other wrecked ships. 3,500,000 cruzadoes, plus an unknown number of chests of diamonds, rubies and pearls.The overloaded vessel sailed into the Azores to replenish stocks, pulled out the next day, and came under protracted attack by four English warships. She went down in deep waters about 18 miles south of the channel between Pico and Fayal, in the Azores.
The riches that sank with her is believed to have been thousands of tons of the richest cargo (including diamonds, rubies, and pearls) ever to leave an Asian port. Reputed value more than 1 Billion US Dollars.
Cacafuego
Seized in 1579 After the globetrotting Francis Drake used subterfuge (setting a dilly-
dallying pace so as not to betray hostile motives) to capture the Spanish galleon Cacafuego off the coast of Ecuador.Drake hauled aboard enough gold and silver to enable Queen Elizabeth I to pay off England's national debt. Exact figures were hushed up, but the take supposedly included 80 pounds of gold, 20 tons of silver, 13 cases of silver coins, and cases full of pearls and precious stones.
But did Francis hand it all over the Crown? Rumor has it that excessive weight forced him to scuttle 45 tons of silver off Casland, Costa Rica, while others say he reserved a sizable treasure for himself and deposited it on Oak Island in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia. The island's so-called Money Pit has been rendered Swiss cheese by treasure hunters over the course of 200 years. So far no treasure has been recovered
Lutine
Wrecked in 1
799. It isn't always deep water that keeps shipwrecked treasure hidden. The British frigate Lutine was carrying 1,000 bars of gold and 500 bars of silver from London to Hamburg in 1799 when she went down in a gale the sandbank covered waters between the islands of Vlieland and Terschelling in Holland's West Frisian Islands, her cargo swallowed by the eternally shifting sand banks that have digested thousands of other ships.A few gold and silver bars were salvaged, and the ship's bell was recovered in 1858; the rest of the buried riches are estimated to be worth some $30 million dollars today. The Lloyd's of London insurance payout was the largest ever at the time.
Notre Dame de Deliverance
Wrecked in 1755 . When the French West Indies merchant ship Notre Dame de Deliverance departed Havana in October 1755, she was packed with 1,200 pounds of gold bullio
n, 15,000 gold doubloons, six chests of gems, and more than a million silver pieces.The vessel was chartered by Spain to haul treasures from mines in Mexico, Peru, and Columbia. A hurricane sent her to her fate about 40 miles off the coast of Key West.
A Florida court awarded salvage rights to a team of American treasure hunters, who believe they have located the ship-and estimate its worth at between $2 billion and $3 billion.
Spain claims that the treasure is its own, under terms of a 1902 treaty, and it's just a matter of time before France stakes its claim, because, after all, Notre Dame is a church in Paris. T he cargo included: 437 kilogram of gold bullion in 17 chests,
more than 15,000 gold coins
153 golden snuff boxes
six chests of gems
more than 1,000,000 silver pieces
14 kg of sliver ore
six pairs of diamond earrings
Whydah pirate ship
The Whydah
, bearing 28 cannons and skippered by pirate "Black Sam" Bellamy, was loaded with booty from more than 50 ships when she went down in a howling nor'easter off Cape Cod in 1718.A reported summary of the ship's contents includes 50,000 pounds sterling in coin, gold and silver bars, a large ruby, several emerald-studded crosses, and several hundred gold and silver "biscuit ingots."
Barry Clifford located the wreck in 1984, and has found thousands of coins and pieces of rare African gold jewelry, but according to Clifford's colleague, historian Ken Kinkor, the ship's mother lode remains untouched: a large ornate iron box trapped beneath 15 cannons, only discovered last summer.
La Madalena
A 250-ton Spanish galleon by the name of La Madalena commanded by Captain Cristobel Rodriquez was headed back to Spain after visiting Vercruz, Mexico and Havana in 1563. A bad storm tossed the small boat around and finally sank the galleon. There were 300 people aboard and only 16 survived the storm.
At the time when the storm hit, she was carrying over 50 tons of silver in bullion and coins, 1,110 pounds of gold in jewelry and small ingots, 170 boxes of silver objects such as candle sticks, and many other valuables that belonged to passengers
Santa Rosa
In 1726, San
ta Rosa, a Portuguese ship, carrying 26 tons of registered gold bullion and coins she had picked up in Salvador, caught fire and blew up off the coast of Brazil.Weighed down by more than five tons of gold, the galleon Santa Rosa, the mightiest ship in colonial Portugal's fleet, set sail for Europe from the Brazilian port of Salvador in late August 1726.
But on Sept. 6, just as the ship passed Recife, the gunpowder in its hold blew up and it sank, killing all but seven of the 700 men, women and children aboard. The explosion probably was an accident, but it could have been sabotage. No one knows for sure.
This ship is actively being searched for by Odyssey Marine.
Santa Catalina
In 1636, the Santa Catalina, only a few miles from her destination of Lisbon, Portugal, went down due to faulty navigation. She carried more than 3,500,000 cruzadoes in gold coin plus 22 chests of diamonds, rubies, and other precious stones.
Santissima Trinidad
In 1616, Santissima Trinidad, a Spanish Manila Galleon, on her way to Acapulco, went down in a typhoon, somewhere around the Osumi Strait, off the southern extremity of Japan. Her cargo is estimated to have been 3,000,000 pesos (94 tons of coins).
Xavier
In 1656, the San Francisco Xavier was lost in Spain's Bay of Cadiz. After battling with an English squadron, she made for port and just before reaching her destination, blew up. She went down with more than 2,000,000 pesos (63 tons of coins).
Verelst
The Verelst is considered to be the richest treasure ship ever lost by the Dutch. She was dashed to pieces in 1771 on a barrier reef near a fishing village known as Grand Gaube, on Mauritius Island in the Indian Ocean.
In addition to a cargo of more than 2,000,000 gold florins (weight unknown), she was known to have carried 740 pounds of diamonds in seventeen bound chests (considered to be one of the largest quantity of diamonds ever lost in any wreck).
One of the diamonds was alleged to be the size of a man's fist and if true, would be the largest such stone ever to be discovered anywhere in the world.
She was found a few years ago but nothing of her great treasure was recovered.
Grosvenor
The Grosvenor is considered to be the richest British East Indiaman ship ever lost.
It wrecked on a reef August 4th, 1782, broke apart and sank on a deserted coast known as Pondoland, north of Port St. John, about 700 miles northeast of Cape Town, South Africa.The loss included 2,600,000 gold Pagoda coins (weight unknown), 1,400 gold ingots (weight unknown), nineteen chests of diamonds, emeralds, rubies and sapphires and an extremely valuable jewel encrusted gold peacock throne from India.
Many have tried to find the treasure, and the ship is claimed to have been found, on a very inhospitable part of the coast. But the treasure is still to be located.
Santa Maria de Finisterra
The Spanish ship Santa Maria de Finisterra, while at anchor in Havana harbor on January 7th, 1552, sank with no apparent reason. It had been loaded with more than 2,000,000 pesos (63 tons of coins).
This ship was probably salvaged at the time.
Genovesa
In 1730, the rich
ly laden Spanish ship Genovesa sank about 100 miles southwest of Kingston, Jamaica, in the Pedro Banks. The specific area in which it perished is also called "The Viper" because many ships perished there.The following was recovered just after the shipwreck The list, based on the receipts, is as follows: - 101 silver bars weighing 14.935 marcos and 4 ounces, valued at 119.480 pesos
- Chest No. 15 with 9.338 doubloons of 4 pesos, valued at 37.352 pesos
- Chest No. 16 with 6.756 ½ doubloons of 4 pesos, valued at 27.026 pesos
- Also in Chest No. 16: 11 gold bars weighing 106 lbs., 11 ounces (“ English weights”) , valued at 20.528 pesos
- As well, amongst the chests above, there were different pieces of silver which weigh 31 lbs. 7 ½ ounces and valued at 376 pesos
- 7 chests numbered 1, 3, 5, 6, 11, 12 y 14, with silver coins for a total of 18.866 pesos
A sack with 4 gold pieces which formed one whole gold bar, two half bars and a small piece, all four weigh 24 lbs. 10 ounces, which according to English weights has a value of 4.768 pesos.
- In the same sack: 330 pesos and 6 reales, 192 of these in doubloons.
Admiralty Corporation are searching for this shipwreck.
Matanzas Bay
In 1588, to avoid losing their treasure in a battle with Dutch warships, 24 Spanish Galleons entered Matanzas Bay, Cuba, in an attempt to unload their rich cargoes. They were not fast enough. Without firing a shot, the Dutch grabbed more than 25,000,000 pesos.
There was so much treasure that they had to re-float 4 of the Spanish ships to carry off their plunder. Although considered to be the greatest treasure ever captured.
The Dutch could have seized twice as much as they took (781 tons of precious metals) had they known that the Spanish had concealed huge amounts of gold and precious stones under the ballast of their ships.
As a result, Piet Heyn, the Dutch commander, had his men burn twenty galleons, sending them all to the bottom of Matanzas Bay where they still remain today.
La Victoria
Sank on Anegada in 1738 with the loss of all her cargo. She was carrying on board treasure to the value of $1,750,000.00 which if multiplied with inflation would represent a vast sum today. There was no recorded salvage of this ship and to the best of anybody’s knowledge, the vessel is still lying on the bottom with her cargo intact.
San Ignacio
wrecked on the reef in Anegada 1742. A manifest for the ship recovered from the archives in Seville shows that she was amongst other things carrying one hundred tons of gold and four cases of uncut diamonds
3 comments:
NEWS RELEASE
NEW READING OF MYSTERIOUS OAK ISLAND INSCRIPTION
Theory points to possible connection with nearby Birch Island
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia: Wednesday, June 13th, 2006 - - For the past two centuries, the tunnels of Nova Scotia’s Oak Island have piqued the imagination of historians and treasure hunters alike. Now, a new theory by First Nations researcher Keith Ranville may add fresh speculation to the mystery. Based on a unique reading of an inscription once found in the “Money Pit,” Mr. Ranville believes that the answer to the riddle may be found on nearby Birch Island.
Oak Island, located on the scenic Mahone Bay about an hour’s drive south of the provincial capital of Halifax, has been associated with buried treasure since the late 18th century. Local settlers reportedly found a ship’s tackle block hanging from a tree branch, overhanging a large depression in the ground. Early efforts to dig down failed when the diggers encountered layers of timber every 10 feet. In the ensuing generations, several organized excavation attempts have drilled down nearly 200 feet, en route encountering some artifacts within the staggered layers of logs, clay, putty, charcoal, flagstones and most perplexingly, coconut husks. Among the scores of enthusiastic treasure hunters was a young Franklin Roosevelt, one of the investors in a 1909 excavation attempt.
During the earlier diggings of 1800’s, the tunnel had become flooded by seawater – which many believed was the result booby trap being sprung – thus complicating further digging since then. A drilling effort in the mid 1800’s was said to have uncovered fragments of a gold chain. In 1971, a camera was lowered into the pit and reportedly captured images of wooden chests and human remains.
One of the most fascinating artifacts from the pit was said to be a flat stone recovered at the 90 foot depth, carrying a mysterious inscription. A fragment of stone with similar symbols was found nearby in Smith’s Cove in the 1930’s. The stone tablet itself has gone missing, but a record of its symbols remains. Until now, the consensus is that the symbols are a code translated as “forty feet below two million pounds are buried.” However, Keith Ranville’s theory offers a different interpretation as to the stone’s symbols, which could lead to a new explanation of the Oak Island mystery.
“I believe these symbols have been incorrectly assumed to stand for something else. In the First Nations tradition that I’m a part of, we believe symbols should simply be looked at in and of themselves, rather than thinking of them as codes that have to be cracked,” Mr. Ranville explained. “In the pictograms of Cree Salavics, for example, the images are meant to be descriptive, not abstract.” Using this approach, Mr. Ranville examined the Oak Island symbols and found what may be a set of instructions about a tunnel system involving both Oak Island and nearby Birch Island.
For example, the stone inscription begins with a triangle symbol, which is repeated throughout. Mr. Ranville believes that this represents nearby Birch Island, which has a distinctly triangular clearing on its north shore. Likewise, a symbol showing a circle divided into two hemispheres can be thought of as representing north/south directional markers. A series of dots in singles, pairs and triplets may be quantitative symbols.
Examining all the symbols in this way, Mr. Ranville believes that the symbols on the Money Pit’s stone tablet are actually technical instructions describing the location and layout of a possible underground network involving both Oak Island and Birch Island. “There was a fragment of another stone tablet that was found on Oak Island’s Smith Cove in the 1930’s,” Mr. Ranville explained. “It too has these types of symbols, but one in particular appears to be a Greek symbol designating ‘underwater door’. In conjunction with the other symbols, I believe this points to underwater doors and additional shafts on Birch Island itself.” Smith’s Cove is on the part of Oak Island that is closest to Birch Island, and is said to have yielded several artifacts itself over the years.
“Based on the inscribed symbols, I think we should be looking at Oak Island and Birch Island together in order to solve the mystery. If Birch Island proves to have underwater doors and tunnels around its triangular clearing, then it would be a huge step forward in our understanding of what Oak Island is all about.”
There have been many, occasionally bizarre, theories as to what the Oak Island tunnels may contain: a Masonic vault containing the Holy Grail, Viking or Pirate booty, Inca treasure, the French Royal Crown Jewels, payroll for colonial British soldiers or even the secret writings of Francis Bacon. Mr. Ranville prefers not to speculate. “Those are interesting and sometimes funny theories, but I’d rather just look at the evidence that we do have, and go from there.”
Mr. Ranville is a self-taught researcher born in Manitoba. While living in Vancouver, he became acquainted with the Oak Island mystery and began studying it. In October 2005, he relocated to Nova Scotia to further research and advance his theories on the subject.
Both Oak Island and Birch Island are private property, and access must be sought by permission of the landowners.
# # #
Thank you,
Keith Ranville
Santa Catalina, found and receovered in 2007.
By Pirate.
When are you going to realise that the entrance to the underground "limestone" cave system is on the mainland??? Look for a hidden cave entrance walk down the tunnel and collect the damn chests! Gee why cant anyone see this??
Bluebeard
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