Sunken Ships with Gigantic Treasures

The seas are full of treasures - and many of them still wait for their discoverers. Gigantic treasures were lost around the globe in the course of history - in sunken cities and temples, on pirate islands and coral reefs, but most of all in average ships.

September 1641: The Spanish galley "Nuestra Señora de la Pura y Limpia Concepción" sets sails in Havana, Cuba. The galley is on its return journey to Spain, loaded with treasures from northern South America and the Orient. Eight days later, the ship happens upon a hurricane. Heavily damaged, the course is changed to have the ship repaired in Puerto Rico.

However, Puerto Rico was never reached. On November 2nd, 1641, the galley stranded on a coral reef approximately 70 miles north of the Dominican Republic and sank slowly. Three hundred passengers, the crew, treasures of the Orient, and an incredible amount of silver in bars and coins perished in the Atlantic and gave this reef its new name: The Silver Bank.

William Phips was born on February 2nd, 1651, in today's US state Maine. At the age of 18, he became a ship builder. He continued his work in Boston, married a rich widow, and built his own yacht. In 1684, he went treasure-hunting off shore of todays' Dominican Republic on the look out for a Spanish galley, the Nuestra Señora De la Pura y Limpia Concepción. After three years of intense search, he got lucky: Phips found the ship wreck and thirty-two tons of silver in total!

During the following centuries, much was salvaged from the wreck, but the majority of the treasure remained concealed in the depths of the Silver Bank. In 1993, captain Tracy Bowden acquired the recovery rights for the Spanish galley "Concepción" from the Dominican Republic. By application of high technology, he and his team developed a system for the precise location and recovery of the concealed treasure in the maze of the coral reef. Latest recovery technology and a modern ship enabled the crew to anchor more closely to the wreck than any treasure hunter before.

Their booty: coins in gold and silver, historical objects of utility of every kind, diamonds and jewels, Ming china dating from the 15th century, ceramic goods, as well as different other unique artifacts of the era.

The salvage operation still continues.