DR treasure

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expatsooner

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Treasure Hunters find 16th century cache in shipwreck off Dominican Republic

First paragraph of the article is below:

September 10, 2013 (MMD Newswire) -- A Florida based treasure hunting firm has discovered a 450 year old ship that wrecked off the Dominican coast, it's cargo is the single largest cache of 16th century pewter tableware ever discovered, and that's not all. The ship was also carrying unique and valuable artifacts including some extremely rare Spanish silver coins from the late 1400's through the mid 1500's and several gold artifacts too. Divers from Anchor Research and Salvage (a Global Marine Exploration, Inc. company) working with the Punta Cana Foundation discovered the wreck and are recovering the artifacts, of which 75% will soon be displayed in Dominican Museums. Anchor Research and Salvage crews carefully excavated the wreck site under contract from the Underwater Cultural Heritage division of the Dominican Minister of Culture's office
 
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Eugeniefs

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I really hope that we do get to see these items in a museum and it doesn't just go to private collectors or anyone else around the world!
 
Rattus_Rattus

Rattus_Rattus

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I hate it when these greedy people come to this country and start looting the treasures pretending to be "protecting" the heritage of the country.
One second they talk about the importance of history- and in the next second you see the same pieces for sale to anyone at a foreign countrys Auction house.


It is wrong, these people are destroying the priceless history of a whole island.

I hope a hurricane will add these "archeologs" to the list over "missing" ships on the Hispa?ola.
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Sorry for rant- i have been working for museums, and i have seen countless historical places ruined thanks to such critters pretending to "save" history. But in the end it is ALWAYS about filling up their greedy wallets.
 
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william webster

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They had/have an archeological dig at Playa Grande and found interesting artifacts.... gold coin , etc

The dig was on Christian Bales' property and I hear he is funding further work - even out in to the water.

Some of the finds have the historians rethinking the north coast activity... seems there was activity earlier than they had previously thought.

I'll see if I can find out more.
 
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expatsooner

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I can understand your frustration but with underwater work especially I think it is only fair that highly trained workers with expensive specialized equipment get to make a decent living from their recovery efforts esp. since there would be no way in hades that the DR government would ever be able to recover the items on their own.

I would wager that fewer items would be seen by the public if it were just an "inside job" by the government alone than are now going to be seen since they have this agreement with the outside recovery company.
 
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expatsooner

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Punta Cana Report Book – April to June Published | Global Marine Exploration this is a list of items found if anyone is interested in getting the book.

So it sounds like roughly 25% of the items recovered is the "fee" for the work. It will be interesting to see the company's 25% that will most likely be sold and how that amount compares to what actually makes it on view at the DR museums. I don't know if there will be 3x the amount of items on view once the artifacts travel through the DR government system.
 
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boknows

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It is real easy to say it should go to a museum when you are not the one that found the treasure on the ocean floor. I hope I am never put in that situation cause WW might not like my offering to the museum.
 
Rattus_Rattus

Rattus_Rattus

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I have found priceless artifacts when working for the museum. I never kept anything. I even paid for all equipment i used, everytime.

And for the record, no i never had anyone looking over my shoulder, i could easily have stolen anything i found.
 
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bob saunders

bob saunders

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Rattus_Rattus said:
I hate it when these greedy people come to this country and start looting the treasures pretending to be "protecting" the heritage of the country.
One second they talk about the importance of history- and in the next second you see the same pieces for sale to anyone at a foreign countrys Auction house.


It is wrong, these people are destroying the priceless history of a whole island.

I hope a hurricane will add these "archeologs" to the list over "missing" ships on the Hispa?ola.
--


Sorry for rant- i have been working for museums, and i have seen countless historical places ruined thanks to such critters pretending to "save" history. But in the end it is ALWAYS about filling up their greedy wallets.
Click to expand...

Well the ship is not Dominican and none of the content seem to be from the DR either. Wouldn't it be Spanish heritage?
 
Rattus_Rattus

Rattus_Rattus

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For me the important part is to keep the greedy "foreign" fingers away from other countries history- so let those countries involved in their own national history find out what to do- Without any assistance from the thiefs in suits.

If this company really were Marine Archeologist, they would never placed one tiny item on a Auction House just to make themselfs rich. They would have given everything to the local authorities so the countries future children could be learning from their past.

Now there are just photos of smiling arseholes stealing their history. Not much to learn from is it?!
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So tell me what you feel in this case Bob- you must have an answer for me since you are asking?
 
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william webster

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They say the coin found at Playa Grande was minted in Spain and stamped as the currency of the new world.

It seems these are rare since the Spanish 'New World' currency had a short life.
 
bob saunders

bob saunders

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Rattus_Rattus said:
For me the important part is to keep the greedy "foreign" fingers away from other countries history- so let those countries involved in their own national history find out what to do- Without any assistance from the thiefs in suits.

If this company really were Marine Archeologist, they would never placed one tiny item on a Auction House just to make themselfs rich. They would have given everything to the local authorities so the countries future children could be learning from their past.

Now there are just photos of smiling arseholes stealing their history. Not much to learn from is it?!
--

So tell me what you feel in this case Bob- you must have an answer for me since you are asking?
Click to expand...

Well I'm of two minds on this. The discoverers are the ones that put the time, money and research, as well as the actual effort into the find, and it's really Spanish history more so that Dominican history. I believe that if it is on Dominican territory there must already be either a law in place or an agreement with the government that provides for recovery of historical artifacts. If government could just take 100% of what treasure hunters find, there would be a lot of treasure remain unfound or just stolen without any publicity.
I am a fan of museums and history being on display for the general public, but think hard work and brains should be rewards as well.
 
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CaptnGlenn

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Here's my two pesos

Dominican territorial waters??? Dominican property

International waters??? Up for grabs to whoever has the ability and means to find and recover.

Unfortunately, international law in these matters seems to have drifted away from pure salvage rights in cases where documentation of specific wrecks can confirm origin of the ship, even if it lies in international waters ... as seen in the recent successful claim by Spain of a famous wreck that was found and contents recovered by private company who spent millions to find and recover, only to have their claim grabbed by Spain.
 
Rattus_Rattus

Rattus_Rattus

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Thank you for your answer Bob.

The RD should have hired their own crew to do this work, they have some very skilled marine archeologists in SD, they should paid these workers a decent salary and made it a national project to search the coastline with assistance and aid from students from this countrys schools.


Just remember one little thing next time you feel these foregin "professionals" need to be rewarded with priceless artifacts: When a countrys history are removed, and sold of like a piece of meat, there will not magical reappearing of another historical finding on that place.

When it is gone, then it is gone.- Forever.

You are mentioning you feel the discovers should be rewarded for finding the wreck? Why? No one has put a dagger in their back and said- Lets go to Hispa?ola and be rich like Mel Fisher did outside florida in the 80s.

Looting of wrecks has always been a problem, and as long as there are no effecient laws against such threats, then it will continue.. With or without a permit, the result is the same since we saw they are selling the artifacts on a auction.

It is to cry over.
 
Rattus_Rattus

Rattus_Rattus

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CaptnGlenn said:
Here's my two pesos

Dominican territorial waters??? Dominican property

International waters??? Up for grabs to whoever has the ability and means to find and recover.

Unfortunately, international law in these matters seems to have drifted away from pure salvage rights in cases where documentation of specific wrecks can confirm origin of the ship, even if it lies in international waters ... as seen in the recent successful claim by Spain of a famous wreck that was found and contents recovered by private company who spent millions to find and recover, only to have their claim grabbed by Spain.
Click to expand...

They stole this without permission and shipped it to the US just because they knew perfectly well they had done something illegal. This is the reason for it ended up in court.

Dont believe everything you see on US made TV productions. This maybe comes as an surprise on you, but there exists other countries on this globe than the US.....
 
bob saunders

bob saunders

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Rattus_Rattus said:
Thank you for your answer Bob.

The RD should have hired their own crew to do this work, they have some very skilled marine archeologists in SD, they should paid these workers a decent salary and made it a national project to search the coastline with assistance and aid from students from this countrys schools.


Just remember one little thing next time you feel these foregin "professionals" need to be rewarded with priceless artifacts: When a countrys history are removed, and sold of like a piece of meat, there will not magical reappearing of another historical finding on that place.

When it is gone, then it is gone.- Forever.

You are mentioning you feel the discovers should be rewarded for finding the wreck? Why? No one has put a dagger in their back and said- Lets go to Hispa?ola and be rich like Mel Fisher did outside florida in the 80s.

Looting of wrecks has always been a problem, and as long as there are no effecient laws against such threats, then it will continue.. With or without a permit, the result is the same since we saw they are selling the artifacts on a auction.

It is to cry over.
Click to expand...

So you don't believe hard work should be rewarded? As I said- whose history is it? It's a Spanish ship that seems to mainly have Spanish origin artifacts (I haven't see a list of what was found) . Just because it happened to sink near the Island of Hispaniola doesn't make it Dominican history,. I'm sure the majority of non-Spanish artifacts are from Mexico , Central America, or South America. Should those countries not have a stronger claim than the DR? 75% will soon be displayed in Dominican Museums. Anchor Research and Salvage crews carefully excavated the wreck site under contract from the Underwater Cultural Heritage division of the Dominican Minister of Culture's office.
 
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