Incredible Shipwrecks Throughout time many things have been lost at sea. I suspect when the first boats were created which could sail on the ocean, tragedy began to strike. Sailors probably found out the hard way, just because the weather looked good, it could change fast once you were on the ocean. There was also the fact sometimes rogue waves would hit a ship and capsize it. I imagine the early companies who launched ships had to allow for a certain number of losses to the weather, pirates and unseen causes. One of the most amazing objects lost at sea and found about two thousand years later was an ancient mechanical Greek computer called the Antikythera Mechanism. We still don’t know if it was the only one made. It was at least 1,000 years ahead in the type of its construction with precision metal gears and such. Perhaps, it was a prototype and if it would have reached its destination, more of them would have been manufactured, advancing technology hundreds of years ahead of where it is today. Sometimes different types of alcoholic beverages have been found and even though they might have been hundreds of years old, were still safe to drink. I find this amazing. I can only imagine the value of a bottle of a two hundred year old booze of any kind that was still good. It seems plenty of weapons from all different ages have been found hiding in shipwrecks or scattered over the sea floor. Cannons first saw universal use on ships in the Renaissance which began in the 14 century. Some of those early cannons must have really weighed down the ships. I would guess too many cannons would have slowed a ship down. Sometimes these early cannons would fire bolts, stone balls or metal pellets. Finding old cannons in the ocean, can be very exciting. They were so valuable in their day, any way they could be retrieved would have been used. The same went for anchors. I guess one thing we have to remember is the fact a shipwreck is probably also a grave site. We know a lot of modern warships which sunk went down with many of the crew. When a submarine was sunk the chances were the entire crew died, with a small exception from time to time. Skeletons have been found every so often in wrecks. The Titanic is famous for supposedly being sink proof, but we all know that wasn’t true. When it went down after striking an iceberg, only about 706 people survived out of a total estimated at 2,224. Another famous ship sinking occurred in the 17th century when Sweden built their most powerful warship the Vasa, but it sank after only traveling one mile. On board were said to be 30 passengers. The ship was eventually salvaged in 1961 with some of the passengers still onboard. Some personal items have been recovered such as letters. They have been found in some of the more recent wrecks, but tablets have been found which contain writing on wrecks as far back as the 14 century B.C. What some people care about more than anything else is the treasure they might find. There have been quite a few shipwrecks which were said to contain gold and jewels. Spain was famous for taking gold from the new world and bringing it back to the homeland. Sometimes the ships didn’t make it and sunk. One would have to be very familiar with salvage law if the shipwrecks were in international waters, before deciding if salvage was worth it. One American Company spent years planning to recover a sunken Spanish shipwreck and retrieved a treasure worth more than 500 million dollars. The wreck had been discovered off the Portugal coast. The company had spent 2 million dollars to recover the wreck and was taken to court. An American judge ordered the firm to return all the treasure to Spain. The ship had been sunk in 1804 by the British in a battle with Spain. So much treasure was found on the wreck, Spain dispatched two large planes to transport it back. The company accused Washington of interfering with the judge and claimed other treasure hunters will not report their finds and melt them down. A very interesting find was made by an amateur archeologist. It was of a shipwreck which dated somewhere between 1200 and 900 B.C. Finding a shipwreck this old makes it even more exciting, especially if it has objects still on it. It was discovered in 2010 and at that time 300 artifacts had already been found from the wreck. It included weapons, jewelry, and tin and copper ingots. Historically, this was a tremendous find which proved trade had taken place between Europe and Britain at the time. This was way before the conquest of Britain by Rome. The country of origin of the ship is unknown, and the wreck is in such bad shape there are no visible clues in its construction. One shipwreck which was very interesting for different reasons was the wreck of the S.S. Central America. The ship was transporting 15 tons of gold when it sunk in a storm. It was discovered in 1987 which led to 39 different insurance companies claiming the treasure. They all said they had already paid claims when the ship sunk. When all was said and done, the people who discovered the wreck were allowed by the court to keep 92 percent of the treasure. Just one of the gold bars from the treasure sold for 8 million dollars. The collector value was far more valuable than the gold bar itself. One valuable shipwreck was not found in the ocean. It was found buried in the sand. Geologists who were on the payroll of the De Beers diamond company found the wreck. It was the oldest wreck ever found on the coast of Africa. It had a lot of cargo still aboard. There were 22 gold ingots among the cargo which included thousands of gold coins, and weapons, elephant tusks and several cannons. It has been estimated the ship sailed in 1533. It was found the ship was Portuguese and the name of it was the Bom Jesus. It has been estimated there are over 4,311 or more shipwrecks. Every time a ship sinks, the total increases if the ship isn’t salvaged. I would imagine some areas of the ocean like the Marianas Trench which is 36,068 feet deep and has only been lightly explored, has shipwrecks down there we might never find out about, or even if we did, they are too deep to retrieve since the pressure is so enormous.
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