These gold coins haven’t glittered in more than 300 years. At 600 meters down, sunlight never reaches the seabed. Here, in the cold black stillness off Colombia’s coast, history lingers in silence. But a robotic vehicle, guided by human eyes from the surface, drifts over the wreckage. After so much time away from humans’ greedy sight, this forgotten gold glittered under the light of the remotely operated submersible — this time shining as clues. Clues that have now confirmed a story that sounds like something out of an adventure novel — of a Spanish galleon, a violent explosion, and a treasure swallowed by the sea.
This is the San José.
In their new study, a team of archaeologists, historians, and naval officers pieced together the identity of a ship long considered the richest wreck in the world.
Laden with gold, silver, and precious stones worth as much as $17 billion today, the San José’s demise has captivated treasure hunters, historians, and governments alike. But more than a tale of lost riches, the discovery offers a rare archaeological window into the Spanish Empire’s vast maritime trade network — and into the economic engine that helped shape the modern world.
A Ship of Empire
The San José was no ordinary ship. In 1708, she was the flagship of the Tierra Firme Fleet, the Spanish Crown’s monopoly transport system linking the Viceroyalty of Peru with Europe. She carried goods and royal treasure gathered from across South America, funneled to the Caribbean through the port of Portobello, Panama. From there, her convoy — 18 ships in all — set sail toward Cartagena and eventually to Spain.
But they never reached their destination. On June 8, during the War of the Spanish Succession, the fleet was ambushed by five British warships. The San José returned fire, but a sudden explosion in her powder magazine split the galleon in two. She sank with most of her 600 crew — and with nearly 200 tons of treasure in her hold.
For over 300 years, the ship’s fate remained a mystery. Then, in 2015, Colombia’s government announced it had found the wreck off the coast near Cartagena. What followed was a series of non-intrusive investigations led by researchers from Colombia’s navy and cultural heritage institutes.
Using a Lynx Saab Seaeye remotely operated vehicle, the team conducted four deep-sea surveys in 2021 and 2022. They documented the distribution of artifacts — cannons, porcelain, personal items — and most intriguingly, dozens of gold coins.
Minted in Lima, Buried at Sea
These coins would prove key in identifying the San José.
Researchers used high-resolution underwater photography and photogrammetry to create three-dimensional reconstructions of the cobs — irregular, hand-struck coins known in Spanish as macuquinas. These were the standard currency of the Spanish colonies for more than 200 years.
The obverse sides bore a Jerusalem cross surrounded by castles and lions — the heraldic emblems of Castile and León. The reverse showed the “Crowned Pillars of Hercules above the waves of the sea,” flanked by letters marking their origin.
Among the most telling clues: an “L” for Lima, the location of the mint; an “8” indicating their denomination in escudos; and an “H” identifying Francisco de Hurtado, the chief assayer at the Lima Mint in 1707. “One coin,” the authors note, “displays a small pellet next to the ‘8’, which is a mark of distinction of the cobs of this assayer.”
The presence of these symbols, alongside the mint date of 1707, provides “a temporal framework,” said lead author Daniela Vargas Ariza, a maritime archaeologist with the Colombian Navy and the country’s Institute of Anthropology and History. This means the ship must have sunk after that year.
This precise dating, combined with the known fate of the San José and the historical cargo manifests of the Tierra Firme Fleet, offers strong evidence that the wreck is indeed the fabled galleon.
A Flash of History in the Deep
The study also connects the coins to a broader historical moment. After years of delays that irked management back in Spain, the Viceroyalty of Peru was eager to dispatch taxes and wealth accumulated over a decade. In 1706, the new Viceroy, Marqués de Castelldosrius, arrived in Lima to revive the Portobello fair and push the overdue treasure eastward.
The gold likely originated from mines in Puno and Huamanga, in what is now southern Peru. Once smelted and minted in Lima, the coins were ferried up the Pacific to Panama, then carried overland to Portobello. There, they were loaded aboard the San José for shipment to Europe. But history had other plans.
“This case study highlights the value of coins as key chronological markers in the identification of shipwrecks,” Vargas Ariza said. The analysis not only confirms the ship’s identity, but also provides rare insights into how Spain’s colonial economy functioned at the very peak of its imperial reach.
Who Owns The Treasure Now?
The identification may close one historical chapter, but it opens another — one filled with legal and diplomatic tension.
Spain claims that, under international maritime law, the wreck remains its property as a Spanish naval vessel. The United States-based salvage company Sea Search Armada, which claims to have first located the wreck in the early 1980s, also lays partial claim to the treasure. Meanwhile, Colombia asserts its sovereignty over the site and plans to build a museum to house recovered artifacts — though it hasn’t ruled out selling part of the trove to fund further exploration.
Yet for now, there are no plans to raise the coins. “This is only the first step in a long-term project,” Vargas Ariza and her colleagues wrote. Their aim is to fully characterize the site before any recovery. This non-invasive approach, they argue, allows for careful, multidisciplinary study for preserving the site’s historical integrity.
The findings appeared in the journal Antiquity.
