Aside from the salvors, their investors, and the maritime archaeologists who serve as expert witnesses, the battles sweep in local and international governments and organizations like UNESCO that work to protect underwater heritage. This kind of clash inevitably takes place on a grand scale. Salvors feel they do the hard grunt work of searching for ships for months and years, only to have them stolen out from under them when discovered. Archaeologists regard themselves as protectors of history and the human story, and they see salvors as careless destroyers. The big question: who should have dominion over these Golcondas of the seas? High-stakes fights over shipwrecks pit archaeologists against treasure hunters in a vicious cycle of accusations. But of late, when salvors have found vessels, their rights have been challenged in court. The naked eye might see a pile of rocks, centuries of concretions, crusts of coral, decayed and worm-eaten wood, oxidized metal-but technology can reveal the precious artifacts that lie hidden full fathom five on the ocean floor.Īs technology renders the seabed more accessible, the hunt for treasure-laden ships has drawn a fresh tide of salvors and their investors-as well as marine archaeologists wanting to exhume the lost relics. In recent years, advances in radar, sonar, scuba diving, detection equipment, computers, and GPS have transformed the hunt. They were vessels built for war and commerce, traversing the globe carrying everything from coins to ornate cannons, boxes of silver and gold ingots, chests of emeralds and porcelain, and pearls from the Caribbean-the stuff of legends.Ĭape Canaveral contains one of the greatest concentrations of colonial shipwrecks in the world, though the majority of them have never been found. Over the centuries, dozens of stately Old World galleons smashed, splintered, and sank on this irregular stretch of windy Florida coast. Yet some of Cape Canaveral’s most storied attractions lie unseen, wedged under the sea’s surface in mud and sand, for this part of the world has a reputation as a deadly ship trap. And then there’s the draw of relics like Turtle Mound, a vast hill containing 27,000 cubic meters of oyster shells left by Indigenous tribes several thousand years ago. Nearly 64 kilometers of undeveloped beach and 648 square kilometers of protected refuge fan out from the cape’s sandy shores. Nearly 1.5 million visitors flock here every year to watch rockets, spacecraft, and satellites blast off into the solar system from Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, reminding us of the restless reach of our species. It’s home to the second-busiest cruise ship port in the world and is a gateway to the cosmos. Most visitors come to Cape Canaveral, on the northeast coast of Florida, for the tourist attractions. Listen now, download, or subscribe to “Hakai Magazine Audio Edition” through your favorite podcast app. This article is also available in audio format. Stream or download audio For this article Janu| 5,900 words, about 29 minutes Share this article Illustration by Chad Lewis Treasure Fever The discovery of a legendary, lost shipwreck in North America has pitted treasure hunters and archaeologists against each other, raising questions about who should control sunken riches.
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