Image: Heritage Images//Getty Images
By Tim Newcomb
The hauling up of the world’s most valuable shipwreck had to start somewhere. So crews brought to the surface three small gold and bronze coins from the 1700s, pulled from the Spanish galleon the San José, considered the Holy Grail of all shipwrecks. But there’s plenty more still sitting 1,970 feet below the ocean’s surface off the coast of Colombia—as much as $17 billion worth.
And now, nearly a year after those first pieces broke the surface, more questions than answers are emerging from the wreck. The biggest one is: has somebody been down there already?
The San José, sunk by the British Royal Navy in the Caribbean during the War of Spanish Succession in 1708, was full of value. The ship was laden with 10 years’ worth of gold, silver, and gems—tribute from Spanish colonies in Latin America headed back to the Spanish king. The Colombian Ministry of Culture, Arts, and Knowledge used a robotic underwater vehicle to secure the first samples of that cargo in late 2025, picking up three coins, a bronze cannon (along with fragments of wood, rope, and sediment), and two porcelain cups—each with a different style—without disturbing the structure of the galleon itself.
Read the full article on Popular Mechanics:
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/archaeology/a74231577/holy-grail-of-shipwrecks-dispute/
