In 1708, during the War of the Spanish Succession, the Royal Navy destroyed the galleon, but its final resting place remained a mystery for more than three centuries. Today, its contents may be worth billions of dollars.
The Colombian army has published a video depicting gold coins and other valuable things near the shipwreck of the San Jose galleon, which is thought to contain treasure worth billions of dollars.
Experts think that the ship was carrying at least 200 tonnes of loot, including millions of high-purity gold doubloon pieces, as well as numerous silver coins and emeralds that the Spanish empire had stolen from South America and are worth up to $17 billion (£13.5 billion) today.
In addition to gold coins and ingots, the film also depicts ancient guns as well as complete Chinese ceramics, pottery, and cannons aboard the ship.
Government and military archaeologists in Colombia are examining the inscriptions on this material to establish its origin.
President Ivan Duque lauded his nation’s navy for collecting “pictures with an unprecedented level of precision” and stated that the shipwreck and its contents would remain in Colombia rather than be sold as part of the rescue operation.
The salvage rights have been the subject of decades of litigation and are contested by a professional salvage company that claims to have discovered the shipwreck in 1981, Colombia, Spain, and the Qhara Qhara nation of indigenous Bolivians who assert that the Spanish stole the wealth from their people.
The photographs supplied by the Colombian army were obtained by a remotely operated submersible vehicle that descended to a depth of about one kilometer. Its exact location is classified as a state secret.
In the early 1980s, the US-based salvage business Sea Search Armada – owned by investors including the late John Ehrlichman, the White House adviser under President Nixon jailed for his role in the Watergate scandal – claimed to have discovered the debris.
It is unclear whether the location described by the firm and that discovered by the Colombian navy are the same.
Multiple court arguments about how much the business would be owed if it conducted the salvage operations have concluded, leaving Sea Search Armada with little legal recourse.
The submersible vehicle of the Colombian navy discovered two shipwrecks nearby, one of a colonial vessel and the other of a schooner believed to date back to Colombia’s battle for independence from Spain in 1819.
“Now that we’ve made two other archaeological findings in the same region, we have further alternatives for exploration. Thus, the task has only begun “According to Reuters, navy chief Admiral Gabriel Perez stated.
President Duque continued, “The goal is to recover it and establish sustainable financial structures for future extractions.” Thus, we safeguard the treasure, the heritage of the San Jose galleon.
