A Black Swan Dive: "Whose Pieces of Eight Are They, Anyway?"

"Is there anything more fun than buried treasure", asks my numismatist cousin Tigerhawk, to which one of his regular commenters, DEC , dryly replies; "Yes.  Unburied treasure."

There is little that compares with the prospect of claiming a lost treasure hoard to set the pale flame of avarice alight. So when the publicly-traded treasure hunting firm Odyssey Marine Exploration announced on May 18th that it had discovered a sunken colonial-era ship somewhere in the Atlantic with 17 tons of gold and silver coins aboard worth $500 million, it captured the attention of more than just coin collectors.  On May 29th  the government of Spain has filed a lawsuit asserting its right to any treasure taken from a Spanish ship or from Spanish territorial waters.  CNN reports:

'"Odyssey Marine Exploration has been requested in a letter to provide information concerning the identity of the ship and the material recovered, and has not responded with the details we were asking for," said Susana Tello, Culture Ministry spokeswoman.

"Spain has decided to go to (the) courts to claim its right in case the discovery is Spanish," she added.'

Odyssey Marine has code-named this shipwreck "Black Swan", which I'm certain they are aware is the name of a fictional pirate ship in a novel by Raphael Sabatini, and also a grand swashbuckler film from 1942.  They say only that it lies in international waters about 40 miles of the SW tip of England where they need to be very secretive to maintain control of the site.  If the vessel turns out to be Spanish, however, Spain has been successful defending its interests in treasure recovered from two other vessels lost in international waters.  It sounds like the question of whether it is within England or France's territorial waters is less at issue than whether the vessel was Spanish, though under French law any wreck within its territorial waters must be reported to authorities and any artifacts are protected.

In announcing their find, Odyssey said:

"Because the shipwreck was found in a lane where many colonial-era vessels went down, there is still some uncertainty about its nationality, size and age", (Odyssey co-chairman Greg) Stemm said, although evidence points to a specific known shipwreck..."We have treated this site with kid gloves and the archaeological work done by our team out there is unsurpassed," Odyssey CEO John Morris said. "We are thoroughly documenting and recording the site, which we believe will have immense historical significance."

The laws of salvage and abandoned property are beyond my scope of expertise so the following is idle speculation on my part, but one does wonder how you recover 17 tons of treasure from the ocean floor with kid gloves (on robot arms, presumably).  The historian in me worries that the archaeological value of the wreck may be compromised by the salvage activity, particularly if positive identification of the wreck is more in the interest of the plaintiff in the suit than the salvage company.  If the approximate location of the wreck has been reported accurately, it also seems to me that it would not be terribly difficult for a private investigator in a light plane to shadow the treasure hunters and determine its precise location, though Odyssey reports it has already recovered the entire hoard of coins so the time for that has probably passed.

In any case, there are high stakes involved, largely pecuniary but also archaeological, and I should perhaps practice what I preach.  As a conservationist involved in preserving land I am willing to concede that there is such thing as a conservation development and that private investment dollars could be able accomplish what philanthropic dollars cannot in some instances.  Why then, do I resist the notion that a for-profit treasure hunting outfit could do excellent and appropriate archeology and finance its work through the sale of treasure and certain artifacts?   One reason is its raison d'etre.  Archeology is secondary to salvage in this business model.  Once the identify of the wreck is determined - or perhaps it is determined that it cannot be definitively proved - what further incentive is there to do world-class archeology amid the pieces of eight?  Academic archaeologists do not routinely glean everything of value from their finds.  They leave many things in situ and much of their study area undisturbed.  There is too much extraction here for my taste, too much Indiana Jones.

That's the mature, responsible adult in me speaking.  The kid in me, however, agrees with my cousin; " There is nothing more fun than buried treasure...unless it's unburied treasure."

More: Odyssey's position on claims made by other individuals or entities:

"If we are able to confirm that some other entity has a legitimate legal claim to this shipwreck when - and if - the identity is confirmed, we intend to provide legal notice to any and all potential claimants. Even if another entity is able to prove that it has an ownership interest in the shipwreck and/or cargo and that they had not legally abandoned the shipwreck, Odyssey would apply for a salvage award from the Admiralty Court. In cases such as this, salvors are typically awarded up to 90% of the recovery.

We do believe that most shipwrecks that we recover, including the " Black Swan ", will likely result in claims by other parties. Many will be spurious claims, but we anticipate that there might be some legitimate ones as well. In the case of the " Black Swan ", it is the opinion of our legal counsel that even if a claim is deemed to be legitimate by the courts, Odyssey should still receive title to a significant majority of the recovered goods."

More still:  According to an article in Lakeland Florida's The Ledger on-line:

"Spain thinks the wreck may be that of the Merchant Royal, a British ship that Spanish authorities think was operating under contract with the King of Spain before its sinking in 1641."

Curiouser and Curiouser: (7/11/2007) : If it's the Merchant Royal, a 17th century vessel, how come the edges of the coins are expertly milled? 

"To mask the origin of the treasure, pictures released by Odyssey of the coins have the imprint on them digitally obscured to prevent identification, although the edges are expertly milled. Spanish coins began being produced in such a way only by the middle of the 18th century, 100 years after the Merchant Royal sank."

Comments

[j.Barker]

These treasures came from History. And with many a tale of pain and despair in the making. Finds like these, robbed from the dead, should, with all people involved in the find and cost reasonanly compensated, be given to the genuinely needy of this world. To quarrel over gold, while clean drinking water still remains our biggest killer in the world is absurd. This tresure should become part of a new international fund. The people indiginous to the origins of this treasure are spread globally. If only to look back on this time and see what history was made.

j.barker

[Mathias]

As an archaeologist (Ok, student of archaeology) I'm outraged at the behaviour of treasure hunting firms like Odyssey. It is obvious that they have no interest whatsoever in the historical value of the wrecks they find, claiming to do archaeological work only for publicity reasons. The main problem, I think, is the fact that they are publicly traded. This puts an immense pressure on them to suceed in finding "profitable" sites, to "excavate" them as quickly as possible and remove anything that's potentially valuable. Publishing their results and research only adds cost after the treasure is removed and is therefore kept to a minimum. To increase their profits they sell those items on open antiquity auctions, a place where museums and scientific institutions can't compete financially with wealthy private collectors and where associated finds are sold seperately and strewn all over the world.

I know that, especially in fields like deep-sea archaeology, academic institutions cannot provide the necessary research due to lack of funding which means commercial archaeology is neded.

I think a profitable archaeology firm operating under strict (albeit self-imposed) rules would still be possible. The rules would have to look like this:

- The firm is not publicly traded, reducing the pressure for fast and spectacular discoveries.
- in case of discovery commercial archaeologists invite their academic colleagues to collaborate (reducing labour-costs and increasing quality of research)
- everything (including "treasure") is properly recorded before it is removed
- the finds and research are published thoroughly and in time (which means 5 to ten years :)
- when the artifacts are sold a right of preemption is granted to museums which are allowed to buy them at a lower price than potential private collectors

The problem with this approach is that a huige amount of money would be needed to found the company which means that either government subsidies or a trust are needed to establish one.

[Clyde]

Everyone else here has already beaten me to the punch, because I had exactly the same thoughts. The Spanish are saying "It's ours because we stole it fair and square!"

I don't see Spain down there at the bottom of the ocean trying to get the treasure up. In a case like this, it oughta be "finders keepers, losers weepers." Period.

[coki]

and who made legal the "ill-gotten gains".

[Ricardo Buenrostro]

If the treasure is gold or silver probably was stolen by the Spanish (Gachupines) from Mexico, so it would be Mexico that should claim it, not Spain.

[Paul]

If Spain has a claim on treasure, do the native american tribes that the treasure was stolen from by Spain have any legal rights here?

[Joe Garcia]

If Spain has a claim then maybe whoever they stole it from has a claim too.

[GreenmanTim]

Rosseti, from a moral perspective you are undoubtedly right. From a legal perspective it has no standing as far as I am aware, and in any case it would be impossible to repatriate gold and silver coins to the heirs of the people who originally possessed the raw materials, however ill-gotten the gains may have been. Unless you are talking about reparations, in which case there is a very long line.

When funereal remains are repatriated to native North American and Native Hawaiian communities under US law, there is a rigorous standard for proving whether the claimants are indeed decendants of the individuals whose remains and effects are in Museum collections. Assuming there was a legal basis for doing so, could you do the same for those living in South America who are truly descendants of those who were living in the lands where this gold and silver was plundered at the time it was taken? You can't give it to individual nations on those grounds, nor to descendants of Europeans.

[rosseti]

that treasure belong not to spain,in all case belong to the country were that gold and silver was looted..... south america