17th-century galleon with £3.8m treasures found off Bahama coast

The wreck of a 17th-century ship found off the coast of Great Bahama Island is a Spanish galleon carrying valuables worth more than £3.8 million, according to research conducted in the Bahamas.

A team of marine archaeologists estimated the value of the cargo based on an analysis of valuable items found on the bottom of the Caribbean Sea, which came from the galleon named Nuestra Señora de las Maravillas.

The study was based on items found in the wreck, which have been deposited in the Maritime Museum in Freeport on Great Bahama Island.

Archaeologists from the Bahamas, working with Allen Exploration, a company specialising in underwater searches, determined that the Spanish shipwreck occurred about 350 years ago. They specified that the vessel was sailing from Cuba to a port in Andalusia, in southern Spain. From there, the cargo was to be transported to the main city of the region, Seville.

According to Carl Allen, executive director of Allen Exploration, the preliminary analysis of the value of the cargo carried by the Spanish vessel is the first attempt to determine this yet unvalued transport.

He explained that the problem in accurately determining the value of the cargo, which included gold and silver handicrafts, coins, ceramics, and precious stones, lies in the large area it occupies on the seabed, estimated to be around 13 square kilometres.

Carl Allen stated that the wide dispersal of the treasures is not the only challenge in collecting the entire cargo from the Spanish galleon, which sank after a collision with another ship, an event that 45 crew members survived.

Carl Allen added that some valuables fell into seabeds filled with dense sands or dead coral reefs, making the search difficult. His company has been involved in the search for the cargo of the sunken ship Nuestra Señora de las Maravillas since 2019.