Colombian government
A section of the Spanish galleon San José, which sank off the Caribbean coast of Colombia in 1708.
It has been hailed as the most valuable shipwreck in the world.
A Spanish galleon, the San José, was sunk by the British off the coast of Colombia more than 300 years ago. It was carrying a cargo of gold, silver and emeralds worth billions of dollars.
But years after its discovery, a debate still rages over who owns this treasure and what should be done with the wreck.
The Colombian and Spanish states have claimed ownership, as have a U.S. salvage company and indigenous groups in South America. There have been court battles in Colombia and the United States, and the case is now before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.
The Colombian government says it wants to recover the remains of the ship and place them in a museum. Treasure hunters point to the commercial value of the cargo, which could reach $18 billion (£13 billion).
But archaeologists say the wreck – and thousands of others scattered around the world – should be left where they are. Maritime historians point out that the San José is a cemetery and must be respected as such: around 600 people drowned when the ship sank.
“It’s an absolute disaster and I don’t see an easy way out,” said Carla Rahn Phillips, a historian who wrote a book about San Jose. “The Spanish state, the Colombian government, the different indigenous groups, the treasure hunters. I don't think it's possible to satisfy everyone.
The San José sank in 1708 while sailing from what is now Panama to the port city of Cartagena in Colombia. From there it was to cross the Atlantic to Spain, but the Spanish were at war with the British at the time and a British warship intercepted it.
The British wanted to seize the ship and its treasure, but accidentally fired a cannonball into the San José's powder magazines. The ship exploded and sank within minutes.
The wreck remained on the sea floor until the 1980s, when an American salvage company, Glocca Mora, claimed to have found it. He tried to persuade the Colombians to join together to collect the treasure and share the profits, but the two sides failed to agree on who should receive what share and became embroiled in a legal battle.
In 2015, the Colombians said they had found the ship, independently of information provided by the Americans, on another part of the seabed. Since then, they have maintained that Glocca Mora, now known as the Sea Search Armada, had no rights to the ship or its treasure.
National Maritime Museum
The San José was attacked and sunk by the British, as shown in this 18th-century painting.
The Spanish state has asserted its rights, arguing that the San José and its cargo remain state property, and indigenous groups in Bolivia and Peru say they are entitled to at least part of the spoils.
They argue that it is not a Spanish treasure because it was plundered by the Spanish from mines in the Andes during the colonial period.
“This wealth came from the mines of Potosí, in the Bolivian highlands,” explains Samuel Flores, representative of the Qhara Qhara people, one of the indigenous groups.
“This cargo belongs to our people – the silver, the gold – and we believe it should be extracted from the seabed to prevent treasure hunters from plundering it. How many years have passed? Three hundred years? They owe us this debt.
The Colombians released tantalizing videos of the San José, taken with submersible cameras. They show the bow of a wooden ship, encrusted with marine life, a few bronze cannons scattered on the sand, and pieces of blue and white porcelain and gold gleaming on the ocean floor.
As part of its trial in The Hague, Sea Search Armada commissioned a study of the cargo. He estimates its value between $7 billion and $18 billion.
“This treasure that sank with the ship included seven million pesos, 116 steel chests filled with emeralds, 30 million gold coins,” explains Rahim Moloo, Sea Search Armada's lawyer. He described it as “the greatest treasure in the history of mankind.”
Others are less convinced.
Reuters
The Colombian government sent a team to explore the wreck earlier this year.
“I try to resist giving current estimates on anything,” says Ms. Rahn Phillips.
“If you're talking about gold and silver coins, do we now make an estimate based on the weight of the gold? Or do we look at what collectors might pay for these gold coins?
“To me, it makes almost no sense to try to give a number now. Treasure hunters' estimates, to me, are laughable.”
Although the San José is often described as the Holy Grail of shipwrecks, it is – according to the United Nations – just one of an estimated three million ships sunk at the bottom of our oceans. There is often very little clarity about who owns them, who has the right to explore them and – if there is treasure on board – who has the right to keep it.
In 1982, the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Law of the Sea – often described as “the constitution of the oceans”, but it says very little about shipwrecks. It is for this reason that the UN adopted a second set of rules in 2001: the 2001 UNESCO Underwater Cultural Heritage Convention.
It says a lot more about the wrecks, but many countries have refused to ratify it, fearing it would weaken their claims to the riches of their waters. Colombia and the United States, for example, have not signed it.
“The current legal framework is neither clear nor comprehensive,” says Michail Risvas, a lawyer at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom. A specialist in international arbitration and maritime disputes, he adds: “I fear that international law does not have clear answers. »
Rodrigo Pacheco Ruiz
Rodrigo Pacheco Ruiz, a deep-sea diver and wreck explorer, believes the San José should stay where it is.
For many archaeologists, wrecks like that of the San José should be left alone and explored “in situ”, at the bottom of the ocean.
“If you just go down, take a lot of artifacts and bring them to the surface, you just have a bunch of stuff. There is no story to tell,” says Rodrigo Pacheco Ruiz, a Mexican diver who has explored dozens of wrecks around the world.
“You can just count coins, you can count china, but there's no 'why was that on board?' Who was the owner? Where was he going? – the human story behind it all.
Juan Guillermo Martín, a Colombian maritime archaeologist who has closely followed the San José case, agrees.
“The treasure of the San José must remain at the bottom of the sea, as well as the human remains of the 600 crew members who died there,” he says. “The treasure is part of the archaeological context, and as such has no commercial value. Its value is strictly scientific.
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