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From Think Spain

The wreck of a 13th or 14th century ship has come to light on a construction site in Barcelona's Barceloneta district - beside the Balaurd del Migdia and behind Francia train station - that used to be under water.

The remains were discovered at around seven metres below sea level on the site of a new residential apartment block being built by the Sacyr Vallehermoso company on a plot previously owned by Renfe.

Since July 2006, when work began, experts from Barcelona's Archaeological Museum and the regional Heritage department have been supervising the project given the site's central location.

Mayor Jordi Hereu has visited the dig accompanied by the curator of Barcelona's History Museum, Joan Roca, who commented that the wrecked ship seems to have been designed for the North Atlantic which suggests that the port's trading activity was not limited to the Mediterranean.

By Randy Boswell


Canadian scientists will lower robotic probes to the bottom of Lake Ontario next week to conduct the most detailed examination ever of two American ships that sank in a storm during the War of 1812.

The investigation of the wrecks of the Hamilton and the Scourge -- part of the buildup to bicentennial commemorations of the 1812-14 war between Britain and the United States, fought largely in Canada -- could include the first glimpses inside the sunken vessels, which contain the remains of about 50 American sailors lost in the failed invasion of Upper Canada.

The project involves experts from Parks Canada, the Canadian Navy and Coast Guard, as well as private archeologists and officials with the provincial, municipal and American governments.

The five-day, around-the-clock operation -- which is to conclude with a memorial service honouring those who died when the ships went down in August 1813 -- should also quell concerns expressed recently by critics in Canada and the U.S. that too little has been done to research the wrecks or exploit their value as symbols of an epic military struggle, one that ended in a virtual stalemate but shaped the identities of two nations.

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By Werner Menges


The discovery of a treasure-laden shipwreck, estimated to be around 500 years old, in Namdeb's Mining Area 1 near Oranjemund early last month is only the first chapter in what could turn into a long slog of archaeological detective work to unravel the secrets of an ill-fated pioneer of sea travel off the Southern African coast.

The easy part of working on an archaeological site like this is the digging up of the site and recovering relevant material from it, archaeologist Dieter Noli, who played a leading part in the first examination of the wreck site in April, told The Namibian in a telephonic interview from Cape Town yesterday.

The hard work is analyzing what was found at the site, he said.

That is expected to be painstaking labor that could take months before it is even known what the real significance of the discovery is, he said. 

He is convinced, though, that he and his colleagues who will be helping to study the wreck and its contents will eventually be able to find out whose ship this was and what business it was on when it came to an end on that barren stretch of Namibian coastline, Noli indicated.

"We have to piece together the puzzle. It's a fascinating story," he said.

The discovery of the ship has been worldwide news, with Namdeb claiming in its announcement of the find last week that this may be the oldest sub-Saharan shipwreck ever discovered.

By All Hungary News


The legend goes something like this: after the disastrous Battle of Mohács in 1526, the twenty-one-year-old Queen Mary of Hungary fled the encroaching Ottoman army on a caravan of ships headed to Vienna.

But, on her way up the Danube a few ships sank along with their valuable cargo.

It is said that to this day they remain hidden in the murky depths of the river.

Soon, any truth to this story may soon be discovered, or disproved.


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By Ben Sills

Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc.'s 17 ton-haul (15,400 kilograms) of sunken treasure from the Atlantic Ocean came from a Spanish warship and must be returned to the country, a lawyer said after an inspection of the artifacts.

Spain expects the new evidence from the inspection will persuade a U.S. court in Tampa, Florida, to order Odyssey to return the treasure without compensation, James Goold, a lawyer for the government, said at a press conference in Madrid today.

"What Odyssey has done is morally and legally unacceptable," Goold said. The company secretly stripped a Spanish ship of coins and other artifacts then tried to hide them by claiming that it did not know the identity of the ship.''

Representatives of the Spanish government visited Tampa last month to inspect the artifacts recovered from a wreck that Odyssey codenamed "Black Swan." Spain contested the company's claim to the wreck in a U.S. court case in Florida.

By John A.Torres


More Indiana Jones-like mythology fills the state's high security vault than Spanish doubloons or pirate's booty.

Recent media reports, as well as a state legislator's attempt to sell off Florida's salvaged treasure to offset budget cuts, have fueled grandiose images of the public gold holdings.

They're not accurate, says Ryan Wheeler, Florida's chief archaeologist, as the warmer weather and calmer waters of May mark the unofficial start to the treasure hunting season.

"There is a myth that we have all this stuff that we don't show people," he said from his Tallahassee office. "Everyone bought into this notion that we have a secret treasure room."

Wheeler, head of the state's Bureau of Archaeological Research, said the state's estimated $17 million in salvaged gold is usually nowhere near the protected storage area.


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By Rowan Philp


Dieter Noli thought a small bag would be sufficient to hold priceless gold coins from the shipwreck.

Within an hour, he realised he needed to use his Stetson hat.

But by the end of the day, the archaeologist needed a bucket to hold the ship’s treasure, as 2500 coins, minted around 1500AD for Spain’s Queen Isabella, emerged from the Namibian sea bed.

Unearthed by a De Beers mining operation on the Namibian coast this month, the ship — thought to be a Columbus-era Portuguese explorer — has been hailed as the greatest maritime archaeological discovery in Southern Africa.

The unusually large store of gold also represents one of its greatest mysteries since the vessel, which was “armed to the teeth”, was already on its way home, fully laden with an equally mysterious cargo.

Noli, 52, said it was “the most gold ever found at an archaeological site in Africa since the huge find at the Valley of the Kings in Egypt”.

By Dani Cooper

Some of Australia's most important watery war graves could be located for about one-tenth of the cost of finding the HMAS Sydney, the nation's most high-profile naval shipwreck, a researcher says.

Associate Professor Mark Staniforth, a maritime archaeologist from Adelaide's Flinders University, says last month's discovery of the HMAS Sydney, sunk off the coast of Western Australia, is enormously significant for Australia.

But he says the A$4.5 million (US$4 million) the federal government invested for the search is dead money because no infrastructure remains in public hands to do further searches.

Staniforth says if the government spends A$500,000, this could buy a base suite of equipment, including multi-beam echo sounder, sonar sounder and magnetometer.

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