And it’s not just one: there are around 250 shipwrecks with treasures in the waters of the islands and the mainland coast. “There is no contingency plan to protect a find like this”, warns Portuguese underwater archaeologist.
Nearly 250 ships with treasures are shipwrecked in the waters of the Azores and Madeira archipelagos and on the Portuguese mainland coast, the underwater archaeologist told Lusa Alexandre Monteirowhich mapped the ships sunk in these regions.
According to the researcher at the History, Territories and Communities Institute, at Universidade Nova de Lisboa, who has been diving and studying underwater finds for 25 years, the database he created identified 8,620 shipwrecks in this maritime territory.
“I have around 7,500 ships for the mainland coast, around 1,000 for the Azores and 120 ships for the Madeira coast. They got lost there”, he said, explaining that these are ships from after 1500, when documentation began to exist. This identification is the first step, a starting point to go after the ship.
The archaeologist said that when he was in Azoresfound reference, in a footnote, to the loss of a flagship from 1615 — Nossa Senhora da Luz, in Faial.
“I wanted to find this ship. It took me four years to research various archives and, after those four years, I dived and on the first dive I did I found the point of the wreck,” he said.
“When treasure hunting companies appeared knocking on the door of the regional government of the Azores, our biggest drama it was that we didn’t know how many ships and where they were. It was known, it was suspected, but our knowledge was zero”, he said.
Our Lady of the Rosary has 22 tons of gold and silver
The situation today is different and it is precisely from this database that Alexandre Monteiro states that there are around 250 ships with treasures that were lost in the territorial waters of the Azores, Madeira and the Portuguese mainland coast and that remain there.
“I know that in front of Troy there is a Spanish ship from 1589, called Our Lady of the Rosary. I investigated and I even know the name of the commander’s mother and are there officially 22 tons of gold and silver”, he revealed.
Asked whether the Portuguese Government is aware of this information, the researcher said that it is published, but that nobody did anything.
Regarding the risk of these treasures being at the mercy of treasure hunters, Alexandre Monteiro said that “it is difficult, because everything will be under the sand”.
And he lamented: “We know that there are 250 ships with treasures and we know that, sooner or later, a port project, anything will find something like this. There is no contingency plan to protect a find like this”.
“If I spent a month working on the project, I would find the ship”, he assured.
Ship to Kenya? “Almost certainly” is Vasco da Gama’s Saint George
Regarding the galleon São Jorge, sunk 500 years ago during Vasco da Gama’s third and last expedition to India, which in Malindi, Kenya, Alexandre Monteiro states that there are strong convictions, but there are still no absolute certainties, unless it is found “a board saying that it is the galleon São Jorge”.
“We can, of course, say that it is a Portuguese ship, then say that it is a ship from the first half of the 16th century, that it is a ship that was lost when going to India and then, finally, say that, given the documentary evidence , It is most likely the galleon São Jorge, almost certainly”.
The feat is of great importance, as it is “the oldest Portuguese ship to be discovered and archaeologically excavated”.
The find was reported by fishermen off Kenya, near the area of Melindein 2007. Afterwards, Alexandre Monteiro and archaeologist Filipe Castro were contacted by Caesar Bita, a Ukrainian underwater archaeologist, who sent them images of some artefacts, which revealed that “it could only be the Portuguese ship”.
