Revealed: 2015 discovery located Spanish galleon with $22bn cargo

By Daniel Bishton on 30 May, 2018

Samuel Scott, Action off Cartagena, 28 May 1708, a depiction of the battle that sunk the Spanish galleon San José. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

Researchers have revealed the identity of a shipwreck discovered off the coast of Colombia in 2015 as the Spanish galleon San José, sunk in 1708 with a cargo of treasure thought to be worth up to $22 billion (AUD).

Described as ‘the holy grail of shipwrecks’, the San José‘s cargo of emeralds, gold and silver is legendary among bounty hunters and historians alike, downed with 600 sailors aboard during a battle with four British ships during the Spanish War of Secession.

Its final resting place was discovered by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution discovered the ship’s final resting place in November 2015, but only recently received authorisation from Maritime Archaeology Consultants (MAC), Switzerland AG, and the Colombian government to publicly identify the wreck.

The discovery was made with a REMUS 6000, a deepwater AUV with side-scan sonar sensors, with this vehicle also having scanned the wreckage of the Titanic and been deployed to successfully locate the wreckage of Air France Flight 447 in 2011.

Cannons at the San José wreck site aided the wreck’s positive identification. Image: WHOI

In the wake of the revelation, the United Nations’ cultutal heritage body UNESCO sent a letter to Colombian Culture Minister Mariana Garces Cordoba, calling on Colombia to protect the wreck from commercial recovery of its cargo.

“Allowing the commercial exploitation of Colombia’s cultural heritage goes against the best scientific standards and international ethical principles as laid down especially in the UNESCO Underwater Cultural Heritage Convention,” the letter said.

The ship has previously been the cause of a legal stoush between Colombia, Spain and the US over the rights to the cargo, when a discovery claim was made in 1981 by US-based company Sea Search Armada.

WHOI, the undersea exploration firm who were involved in the successful location of the San José, have claimed they have no financial stake in the discovery.