Treasure worth billions lost when the British Royal Navy sank a galleon centuries ago may finally be recovered, with exploration now taking place.
The Colombian government managed to locate the wreck of the San José in 2015, but where it lies is a state secret.
At over half a kilometre down, it is in the extreme depths of the Caribbean Sea and so far too inaccessible for even the most skilled divers.
After years of legal wrangling over who would own the wreck, and the potential treasure worth £16 billion, the government has started surveying the surrounding area to see which pieces of the wreck can be recovered.
The government said it will invest around $4.5 million this year in an archaeological exploration of the 62-gun, three-masted galleon that sank in 1708 after being ambushed on its way to Cartagena, Colombia.
It had been transporting its valuable cargo to the King of Spain to help pay for a costly war against the British when it was sank, with almost 600 lives lost of crew on board.
The first phase of the mission will use underwater robots and remote sensors to build a picture of what actually lies on the seabed, while at the same time taking readers to help with academic studies, according to the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History.
What happens after this will depend on the results of this ‘characterisation phase’, with no actual excavations yet planned.
The finding of the ship has been controversial, with Spain previously laying claim to the wreck as well as US salvage company Sea Search Armada, which claims to have been the ones to discover it.
Known by some as the ‘holy grail of shipwrecks’, it is believed to hold 11 million gold and silver coins, emeralds and other precious cargo from Spanish-controlled colonies.
With new technology capable of exploring the deep seas has come a focus on understanding the mysteries of shipwrecks once impossible to find.
A British company plans to spend all of 2024 looking for the ‘El Dorado of the Seas’, another shipwreck thought to potentially be worth billions.
The Merchant Royal’s shipwreck is somewhere off the coast of Cornwall, but has never been found despite carrying up to £4 billion of gold and other precious metals.
The wreck went down on its way to Dartmouth on September 23, 1641, after stopping off in the Spanish port of Cadiz where it was repaired and took on more cargo on its way back from Mexico and the Caribbean.
Multibeam Services has unmanned underwater vessels worth £3.5 million each capable of going 6,000 metres – deeper than the deepest part of the search area – as well as new sonar tech, which could finally solve the mystery.
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