One of the world’s most valuable shipwrecks has been found by Colombia’s military off the coast of the city of Cartagena, President Juan Manual Santos announced.
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“This constitutes one of the greatest – if not the biggest, as some say – discoveries of submerged patrimony in the history of mankind”, said Santos during a press conference on Saturday in Cartagena.
A United States salvage company SSA claims it located the area where the ship sank back in 1981 but an American court ruled in 2011 that the San Jose is the property of the Colombian government.
A legal battle has raged in the U.S., Colombia and Spain over who owns the rights to the sunken treasure from what maritime experts consider the holy grail of Spanish colonial shipwrecks.
This is the first look at a sunken Spanish galleon that is thought to be holding as much as £1 BILLION of treasure. Commodore Charles Wager, in command of four British ships including HMS Expedition, attacked the fleet off the island of Baru.
The Galleon San Jose was blown up and sank in June 1708 during a naval confrontation with the British as part of the War of Spanish Succession, and some 600 lives were believed to have been lost.
More details will be provided at a news conference on Saturday, Mr Santos said on his Twitter account.
It is not yet known whether the Colombian government and Sea Search Armada will split any proceeds from the vessel’s cargo.
Thus far, sonar images have spotted bronze cannons made specifically for the ship, arms, ceramics and other artifacts. It said a team of worldwide experts, the country’s navy and archaeology experts found the wreck last week.
General location of where the San Jose wreckage was found.
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“The amount and type of the material leave no doubt of the identity” of the shipwreck, said Ernesto Montenegro, head of the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History.
