Colombia strikes gold with discovery of long-lost Spanish treasure galleon

“We have found the San Jose galleon”.

The company, whose subsidiary claimed in the early 1980s that it had found the galleon’s final resting place, was engaged in a long-running battle with the government of Colombia.

Described as the holy grail of shipwrecks, it is thought to have been carrying the largest amount of treasure ever lost at sea: gold, silver, gems and jewellery collected in Spain’s South American colonies.

At a press conference in the colonial port city of Cartagena, he said Colombian researchers, working with a “dream team” of global investigators, had found the Spanish galleon San José on November 27.

Ernesto Montenegro, Director of the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History of Colombia, talks to the media while he shows a picture of remains of the Galleon San Jose during a press conference in Cartagena, Colombia, Saturday, Dec. 5, 2015. The invention is the newest chapter in an ongoing saga in that started three centuries ago, on Jun. eight, 1708, when the Spanish ship with 600 people aboard sank to the underside of the ocean ’cause it was making an attempt to outrun a nimble of British warships.

Ceramics found in the wreck of the galleon off Colombia’s Caribbean coast.

Rampietti said that Santos, despite his enthusiasm during the press conference, did not reveal many details about the discovery, saying that the exact location of the ship was now a state secret. Archaeological excavation and scientific tests will continue to ensure it can be properly preserved, said the president.

The ship was loaded with gold and silver from mines in Peru, with the intention to fund the Spanish War of Succession, which was fought from 1701 to 1714 between France and Austria over who would rule Spain. Commodore Charles Wager, in command of four British ships including HMS Expedition, attacked the fleet off the island of Baru. However, as it was about to be captured it blew up and sank.

A group now owned by SSA said in 1981 that it had located the area in which the ship sank. “She immediately sank with all her riches”.

Although humans have yet to reach the wreckage site, autonomous underwater vehicles have gone there and brought back photos of dolphin-stamped bronze cannons in a well-preserved state that leave no doubt to the ship’s identity, the government said.