ANTH318
Nautical Archaeology of the Americas
Class 3
Most wrecks from the Age of
Discovery have been destroyed by treasure hunters. When wrecks are destroyed by treasure hunters no information is
recorded about the context in which artifacts were found (where in the
wreck, how, in what association with what other artifacts,
etc.). Perhaps more important, the hull
remains are never considered important, and much information is lost on how
these ships were designed, built, and sailed.
More than 50 years after the first Spanish wrecks
were found in the Caribbean, many ships have been salvaged, many artifacts
auctioned, and many fortunes spent in search of mythical treasure ships. Yet, nobody seems to be able to
state with a reasonable degree of certainty how big these vessels were, how
many decks they had, how flat their bottoms were, how high their sides were,
what the shape of their hulls was, where their masts were stepped over the
keel, how many tons they could displace, how fast they could sail, etc. And the unanswered questions never end: for
instance, the question how large the trees were from which their timbers were
cut is a pretty important one.
The fact is that we know more about
the Roman craft that sailed the Mediterranean around the time of Christ than we
know about the vessels of the discoveries.
Why is this? Mostly because it is believed that these
vessels carried treasures, and up to now it has been considered more important
to salvage and sell their cargoes than to understand the people that built and
sailed them.
*
The questions are therefore: What is treasure hunting? Who are these treasure hunters? Why is treasure hunting not forbidden around
the world?
It is generally assumed that treasure hunting is the
activity of salvage archaeological sites with the intent of selling the
artifacts retrieved. We speak of
treasure hunting when the aim is to sell the artifacts. This is independent of the eventual presence
of archaeologists in treasure hunting ventures.
Treasure hunters have been in existence for much
longer than archaeologists. In fact,
nautical archaeology evolved from treasure hunting in the late 1800s and early
1900s. Many times, the early land
archaeologists that explored the Egyptian tombs, the lost ruins of Troy, the
earliest Mycenaean cities, or the secret cities of the Inca were more
interested in artifacts than in contexts.
In a sense, they were not much different from today's treasure hunters.
Modern archaeology is a scientific
discipline that studies the remains of ancient human activity. This approach places a great emphasis on the
careful study of contexts, rather than on the collection (and much less the
sale) of exotic or valuable artifacts.
As to the second question, of identifying today's
treasure hunters, one must divide them into two major groups:
Those searching actual treasures,
and those seeking investors for their ventures. Those who look for sunken treasure have existed for many
centuries. There have been salvage
ventures for a long time. Perhaps since
the time of the first shipwreck in shallow water. And to dive and see the bottom of the sea with all its mysteries
and treasures has been an old aspiration of human kind.
The Romans had divers to rescue
sunken cargo. They were called urinatori
and their work was regulated by law,
the Lex Rhodia.
In the Renaissance there were many
attempts to rescue treasure at greater depths, and machines were developed to help in the rescue. In 1464 Leon Battista Alberti recovered artifacts
from the Lake Nemi wrecks (the remains of emperor Caligula's floating palaces). In 1535 Francesco de Marchi also recovered
artifacts from the same site.
During the period of the
European expansion overseas, salvaging sunken cargoes became almost routine as
maritime traffic grew and the value of the cargoes transported increased. Many adventurers tried their own luck in the
Caribbean.
William Phipps (to whom we will
refer later in the semester for much different reasons) was lucky to find and
rescue a part of the cargo of the Nuestra Señora de la Concepción (1641)
in the 1680s.
Other, more pro-active adventurers,
gave destiny a little hand by provoking the wrecks in particular spots, so that
the salvage would be easier. There are
many well-known communities of wreckers, perhaps the best known being the
fiction one created by Daphne du Maurier in her novel Jamaica Inn.
The development of SCUBA in the 1950s brought old stories of sunken
Spanish treasure to many summer treasure hunters and the first few discoveries
gathered lots of press and excitement.
In the late 1940s Art McKee had
found some large silver ingots in Florida, on what is thought to be the wreck
of the Genovesa from 1730. His
appearance on TV came to the attention of many divers and adventurers and
started a race for sunken treasure in Florida.
But it was not until a decade later, in the early 1960s, that
important treasure was indeed found under water.
After finding silver coins on the
beach, north of Cape Canaveral, a small contractor named Kip Wagner decided to
found a treasure hunting company with some friends and go look for the wrecks
where these coins were supposed to come from.
He found the remains of the 1715 Spanish fleet, destroyed by
a hurricane on the coast of Florida.
A chicken farmer joined Wagner’s project for one summer, and became so
excited that he decided to dedicate his life to find the largest of the
mythical treasures: the wreck of the Nuestra Señora de Atocha, lost in
1622 in yet another hurricane.
As to the second type of treasure hunters, those who
focus more on a good story and a nice set of sponsors, their motto has been for
centuries P. T. Barnum's famous quote: "A sucker is born every
minute!"
making money from the Even if they
only operate in the US and in 3rd World nations.
But to understand why
treasure hunting companies are still operating we must take a closer look at
the story and the logics of the treasure hunting business.
As to the third question, why is
treasure hunting not forbidden around the world, we must realize that treasure
hunting is already forbidden in the whole Europe, in many countries around the
Mediterranean sea, in many states of the USA, in almost all of the Caribbean
countries, and in some Asian countries.
*
In this
course we will analyse two case studies:
the Geldermalsen and the Nuestra
Señora de Atocha.
Geldermalsen, 1752
Found in 1985 by Michael Hatcher and his Swiss
partner Max de Rham. Since 1975 Michael
Hatcher had run a salvage company, United Sub Sea Services, and had already
salvaged several wrecks in Asia. The
large quantity of porcelain was salvaged and sold at auction (by Christie’s
in Amsterdam under the designation “The Nanking Cargo”).
See Peter Throckmorton´s
article for this class.
Atocha, 1622
Sunk by a hurricane together with another seven ships of a
fleet of 28 vessels that had left Havana to Spain on September 4, 1622. The Nuestra Señora de Atocha, the
vice-flagship (almiranta). It
was found by Melvin Fisher in the 1980s, salvaged and part of the collection
auctioned.
See your notes from the video shown in class.
Bibliography
Readings Packet
Draper, Robert. “Indian Takers,” Texas Monthly,
March, 1993, 104-107, 121-124.
Elia, Ricardo. “Nautical Shenanigans [review of book Walking
the Plank],” Archaeology, Vol. 48, No. 1, January-February, 1995,
79-84.
Haldane, Cheryl. “The Abandoned Shipwreck Act,” INA
Newsletter, Vol. 15, No. 2, 9.
United States Senate. Public Law 100-298 [S. 858], Abandoned
Shipwreck Act of 1987, April 28, 1988 (Courtesy of Calvin R. Cummings).
Bass, George F. “The Men Who Stole the Stars,” INA
Newsletter, Vol. 15, No. 2, 11.
Throckmorton, Peter. “The World’s Worst Investment: The Economics
of Treasure Hunting with Real Life Comparisons,” Underwater Archaeology
Proceedings, Toni Carrell, ed.,
Society for Historical Archaeology, 1990, 6-10.
Bass, George F. “After the Diving is Over,” Underwater
Archaeology Proceedings, Toni Carrell, ed., Society for Historical
Archaeology, 1990, 10-13.