Lost treasure, gold coins worth billions discovered in 300-year-old San Jose galleon shipwreck in Colombia, reports Ancient Origins.
Sunken treasure
Billions of dollars of gold, silver and emeralds encrust a tiny patch of the Caribbean Sea. In 1708, during the War of Spanish Succession (1701 to 1714), a British Navy warship sailing from Panama sank the 62-gun Spanish galleon known as the San José. This treasure-laden galleon has lain undisturbed off the coast of Cartagena, the fortified city on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, for the last three centuries.
When the wreck of the San José was discovered in 2015 it sparked an international uproar as several countries laid claim on her immensely valuable cargo, dubbed the Holy Grail of shipwrecks. Nevertheless, Colombia’s President Ivan Duque announced that the Colombian Navy (ARC) has sent a high tech robot to a depth of 944.88 metres (3,100 ft) with a high-resolution camera.
Imaging the Sunken Treasures and Cannons of the San Jose Wreck
Scanning the San José’s hull, which has been estimated to contain around 20 billion dollars (£16.7 billion) worth of precious metals, the robotic-diver filmed some of the gold coins and collections of intact crockery. “These are important discoveries that guarantee the protection of the San José Galleon while advancing in what would be a future extraction process, maintaining the unification as a World Heritage Site under our sovereign custody,” stated Duque in Radio Nacional de Colombia .
Colombia’s soon-to-be-replaced President Duque, after the June 19th 2022 general elections, said that the Colombian Navy used high-tech equipment to a series of striking images representing a “level of precision that’s never been seen before.” The robot sent back digital images of gold ingots and coins, and well-preserved crockery.
A report in The Daily Mail explained that, among the intact porcelain crockery, pottery and glass bottles, the robot spied an “intricate Chinese dinner set.” Furthermore, the deep-diving electronic treasure hunter also identified a cannon made in Seville in 1655 AD.
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Source: Ancient Origins
