Gold Recovered In Sunken Spanish Treasure Ship Galleon Espadarte C. 1558 AD

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Gold Recovered in Sunken Spanish Treasure Ship Galleon Espadarte c. 1558 AD<br>***Gold Nugget/Flake Recovered from the Sunken Spanish Treasure Galleon Espadarte circa 1558 A.D.<br>***MASSIVE TREASURE FIND***<br>**One Gold Nugget/Flake Recovered from Espadarte**<br>**Historical Information (Provided by Daniel Frank Sedwick, LLC of Winter Park, Florida)<br>The code name given to this wreck by the Arqueonautas was IDM-002 (which stands for the second wreck site found at Ilha de Mocambique or Island of Mozambique) and was soon known within the team as the "Fort San Sebastian wreck," but they were not able to identify the name or year. By the study of the hull remains and the Ming porcelain found, they knew it was something from the second half of the 16th Century, but the reports in their possession from the archives of Portuguese ships lost in that area and period did not seem to match with the wreck. A study of the porcelain showed that some were inscribed with reign marks, for instance ming jiajing nian zao, "made in the Jiajing period of the great Ming dynasty." The Jiajing period lasted from 1522 to 1566, but this did not help them narrow our chronological parameters. The piece that helped them more was a beautifully painted dish with a white hare in the center and, on the exterior, a bird perched on the branch of a fruiting peach tree. Its rare cyclical date mark on the underside read gui chou nia zao, or "made in the gui chou year." The Chinese system of dating was based on cycles of sixty years. The cyclical calendar is believed to have started in 2637 BC, but the Ming era that interested them, that is to say the period of the Portuguese empire, began its cycles in 1444, 1504 and 1564. Each year within the cycle has its own name, and in their case it was gui chou. Gui, the first ideogram in the inscription, reading in the Chinese manner from top to bottom and left to right, is one of the so-called ten stems; it combines with chou, the second ideogram of our inscription, which is one of the six possible 'branch' characters that can go with gui. The combination of the two told them that it is the 50th year of the cycle. The question was, which cycle? Based on the historical artistic evidence (shape, style of painting, subject matter, motifs and subsidiary ornamentation), it could not have been from the cycle beginning in 1564, as its 50th year would give them 1613 and put them in the late Wanli period, by which time the artistry was entirely different. Also the cycle beginning 1444 was too early. The only cycle that fit the artistry was the cycle beginning in 1504, which gives us the year 1553, putting them in the third quarter of the sixteenth century - exactly where they thought they should be, based on historical artistic judgments. But this does not mean that this wreck sank in 1553. It would have taken time for the cargo to reach the market, and thence to Africa. At the time, Chinese porcelain was a very sought-after commodity for European merchants. With all of this in mind, the most likely date for the Fort San Sebastian wreck was the five-year period between 1554 and 1558. It could not have been earlier because the dated dish gave us a theoretical earliest date; it could, however, be later, but not by much.<br>Almost seven years after the discovery of the wreck, the uninterrupted archival research carried out by Arqueonautas and its team of specialists finally succeeded. In March 2007 two documents landed on the conference table of the office of Arqueonautas in Estoril, Portugal. One document reads as follows: The 'Nau' Espadarte, which went to India in 1554, while on return to Portugal, broke the mast in the Cape [of Good Hope], being forced to go back to Mozambique, where it stranded in the point of Nossa Senhora do Baluarte on a depth of 5 fathoms (9m).<br>**Original text in Portuguese**<br>Espadarte ser perdido em Mocambique vindo por capitao dele D. Alvaro da Silveira e o piloto Diogo Afonso se perdeu na Ponta de Nossa Senhora do Baluarte (...) entramos entre as 10 e as 11 horas dentro do canal e o menos fundo que nele se achou foram 5 bracas e achamos o Espadarte como acima digo alagado com o mastro quebrado o qual quebraram com tormenta que trazia vindo do Cabo para Mocambique [vinha da India para onde tinha ido em 1554].<br>**The History of Arqueonautas**<br>Arqueonautas was founded on May 19, 1994. Its primary mission is to protect world maritime heritage, which it pursues through partnership agreements with governments of different countries. In August of 1995 an exclusive concession contract was concluded with the government of Cape Verde covering the whole of the archipelago's territorial waters. During the seven years in which Arqueonautas pursued i