Pinta ship wreck9/17/2023 ![]() ![]() Unesco called for more exploration in the area, which was subject to heavy shipping traffic for centuries, to try to find the Santa Maria and draw up an inventory of other major wrecks there. “The ship may also, however, have been slowly worn down by the waves, potentially leaving remains on a reef or sandbank in the bay,” it said, adding that Clifford had probably announced his discovery based on this second theory. The Unesco report said it was possible that, due to heavy sedimentation along the coast from rivers, the wreck had been buried over the past centuries. By the time he returned the next year, the fort had been burned down, and the crew left behind had died or disappeared. The Spaniards built a fort near where the ship went down and then Columbus headed back to Spain to report to Queen Isabella on his trip. On 12 October of that year, he is believed to have landed in Guanahani, which historians have identified as an island in the Bahamas, in what is popularly called the “Discovery of the Americas”.Ĭolumbus stopped in Cuba, and then Hispaniola – home to modern-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic – before the Santa Maria hit a reef and went down on 25 December 1492. They said an artefact recovered on site could be the remains of protective copper sheathing, and if it was, then “the ship could even not be dated to a time before the late 18th century”.Ĭolumbus set sail on 3 August 1492 from Palos de la Frontera in southern Spain, with the Santa Maria, La Niña and La Pinta, searching for a shortcut to Asia. “Furthermore, and even more conclusively, the fasteners found on the site indicate a technique of ship construction that dates the ship to the late 17th or 18th century rather than the 15th or 16th century.” “Although the site is located in the general area where one would expect to find the Santa Maria based on contemporary accounts of Columbus’s first voyage, it is further away from shore than one should expect,” experts said in a final report. “There is now indisputable proof that the wreck is that of a ship from a much later period,” Unesco said on Monday. "Ideally, if excavations go well and depending on the state of preservation of any buried timber, it may ultimately be possible to lift any surviving remains of the vessel, fully conserve them and then put them on permanent public exhibition in a museum in Haiti," he said, adding that "the wreck has the potential to play a major role in helping to further develop Haiti's tourism industry in the future.The UN cultural body Unesco dispatched a team of experts to the wreck, located off the town of Cap-Haitien, to examine the remains, which were found in the area where Columbus said the ship ran aground. "It would be very exciting but I remain skeptical because people make claims all the time."Ĭlifford said that if the shipwreck was indeed confirmed to be Columbus' Santa Maria, it should remain in Haiti. "If whoever finds the Santa Maria can confirm that it's the Santa Maria, that's kind of like the Holy Grail," Crisman said. The Santa Maria sank slowly in 1492 and the crew had time to remove valuable items, such as a cannon, that might have helped confirm the identity of the wreckage centuries later. However, there are reasons to be skeptical that this is indeed the Santa Maria, said Kevin Crisman, director of the Center for Maritime Archaeology and Conservation at Texas A&M University.Ĭrisman told the Associated Press that many Spanish ships sunk off Haiti and the neighboring Dominican Republic during that era. ![]() Replicas of Columbus' ships, the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria, sail past the Statue of Liberty June 26, 1992, to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Columbus' landing in the Americas. It will be a wonderful opportunity to work with the Haitian authorities to preserve the evidence and artifacts of the ship that changed the world," Clifford told The Independent. "We've informed the Haitian government of our discovery - and we are looking forward to working with them and other Haitian colleagues to ensure that the site is fully protected and preserved. Over the last several years, Clifford and his team investigated over 400 possible locations, narrowing down a tiny area where the shipwreck, which could be the Santa Maria, was found. Clifford then used the explorer's diary to try to determine where the location of the shipwreck could be, according to the British newspaper. Clifford's discovery was made possible by the work of other archaeologists, which suggested the probable location of Columbus' fort. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |