The Colombian Navy – Armada Nacional – confirmed Monday that it located two large shipwrecks close to the location of where the San José galleon is buried. The shipwrecks, one a Spanish galleon and the other a Republican-era Scooner, were photographed by a submersible robot equipped with a high-resolution camera. The first images of the sunken vessels were released by President Iván Duque during a press conference accompanied by Minister of Defense Diego Molano and Commander of the Navy, Admiral Gabriel Pérez Garcés.
In images taken at a depth of 930 meters, and location near the Barú peninsula, details of cannons, vases, Chinese porcelain cups, swords and gold minted “Pieces of Eight” can be seen strewn on the ocean floor, and similar cargo to that of the nearby San José. The San José galleon was sunk on June 8, 1708, during a fierce naval battle. The 62-cannon galleon and insignia of the Spanish crown was sailing from Cartagena to Portobelo, in present-day Panama, laden with gold, silver, jewelry and other precious cargo estimated to worth today at US$20 billion.
The pride of the Spanish Armada had, until that fateful night, successfully evaded privateers, until it was attacked by forces commandeered by Admiral Charles Wagner. All of the 600-man crew perished during the battle, and its loot lost to the ocean floor – until 2015. After an exhaustive search involving the Colombian Navy and researchers from the Massachusetts-based Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the identity of the “Holy Grail of Shipwrecks” was confirmed in 2018, and sparked an international debate between Colombia and Spain over which country has legal jurisdiction over the shipwreck.
Spain claimed that as the ship sunk with their royal flag, and the site is a hallowed burial ground for 600 souls, all recovered items were rightfully theirs with proof of the royal charter. Colombia, however, successfully argued that since the galleon is in what is today sovereign waters, the ownership of what is widely-considered to be the largest underwater treasure ever discovered, belongs fully to the state.
In May 2018, both governments reached a compromise in the San José’s ownership dispute, to preserve the mass grave, yet collaborate on the recovery of treasure. Over 6,000 pictures captured by a Rembus 6000 submarine reveal an extensive array of artifacts strewn over several nautical miles of ocean floor.
In one of his last decisions as President, Juan Manuel Santos in 2018 suspended a decision to appoint a prospective salvor for the San José, leaving the decision to the government of Iván Duque. During four years of President Duque’s administration the San José galleon has remained untouched.
At the presentation of the most recent underwater discoveries, President Duque highlighted the “historical and scientific milestone achieved by the Colombian Navy,” and emphasized that neither the San José galleon, nor the two nearby ships, have been intervened by humans. “Our Government has decided that all this treasure is a unified heritage, that it cannot be divided, that cannot be separated, and is in its entirety of enormous patrimonial wealth,” said President Duque. “The use high-tech equipment and computers shows that our capabilities are robust and will allow us to protect all this submerged patrimony,” he added.
¡Qué orgullo! Expedición no intrusiva de @ArmadaColombia en el Galeón San José permitió hallazgo de 2 naufragios.
Esta es una demostración más del trabajo de nuestros hombres y mujeres de Armada, siempre protegiendo los intereses marítimos de la Nación y la soberanía del país. pic.twitter.com/vfjf83sF4W
— Diego Molano Aponte (@Diego_Molano) June 7, 2022
Admiral José Joaquín Amézquita of the General Maritime Directorate explained that as a result of high-precision imagery, it was possible to identify the year and ports where the ship’s cannons were manufactured – Sevilla and Cadiz in 1655. The hull of the Republican Scooner, built some 200-year ago, can also be appreciated in close detail with underwater camera footage.
Maritime archaeologists from the Navy, Ministry of Culture and country’s Natural History Institute – ICANH – are working to identify the inscriptions on Chinese pottery, and thereby determine the galleon’s port of call: either Mexico or South America, as the ship was loaded with silver from Peru and Bolivia. “Our work has just begun,” highlighted Admiral Pérez.
Admiral Amézquita added that at least 13 new shipwrecks have also been spotted in the same area and will be explored in the future. “In the campaigns previously carried out with sensors on the surface, we found on the seabed, in the area where the San José is located, sites that show us a configuration similar to where the two wrecks that we were able to identify,” he said.
The exact location of the three wrecks remains a highly-guarded government secret, but is believed to be some 50 nautical miles northwest of Cartagena, and site permanently protected by the Colombian Navy.
