Sixteenth-century shipwreck discovered by Brazil team
- On 02/03/2012
- In Underwater Archeology
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From Fox News Latino
A team of Brazilian archaeologists and divers who discovered the remains of a Spanish vessel off the southern state of Santa Catarina say the recovered fragments correspond to a shipwreck that occurred in 1583.
The recovered pieces and the documentary review indicate the wreck was a supply ship for a fleet that left Spain in 1581 on a mission to build two forts on the Strait of Magellan to stymie the advance of English pirates menacing Madrid's territories in the New World.
Historical documents make mention of the Jan. 7, 1583 shipwreck off Brazil's coast.
"On March 14, we'll begin a new round of diving to try to recover the maximum number of pieces possible," Beth Karam, spokeswoman for the Universidade do Sul de Santa Catarina, told Efe.
The shipwreck was located in an area off the Pinheira and Sonho beaches near Florianopolis, Santa Catarina's capital.
The find is attributed to divers with the Barra Sul Project, an organization that was founded in 2005 to search for underwater archaeological remains off Santa Catarina's coast and which so far has located three 16th century shipwrecks.
The first recovered fragment from this latest find was a stone with a high-relief shield of two lions and two castles with a Portuguese symbol in the center.
That shield dates back to the kingdoms of Leon and Castile and the 1580-1640 Iberian Union, when the monarchies of Spain and Portugal were unified.
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