The Sinking of The Nuestra Señora de las Maravillas
The Nuestra Señora de las Maravillas (Our Lady of Wonders) was a two-deck Spanish galleon armed with 36 bronze cannons.
It was carrying ‘treasure’ to Seville, both as royal tax and private property.
Near midnight on 4th January 1656, Maravillas and her flagship, Nuestra Señora de la Concepción, collided.
In under 30 minutes after the collision, the Maravillas violently struck a reef and sank.
The majority of the 650 people on the galleon grabbed hold of floating debris, and drifted away, never to be seen again.
Some survivors still clinging to parts of the galleon, died from exposure during the night, or were eaten by sharks.
Overall, only 45 people survived and around 600 people were lost.
The wreck was quickly relocated after sinking, and by July 1658, Spanish records show that the wreck was completely buried under sand.
The majority of its treasure, an estimated 3.5 million pieces of eight, were salvaged between 1656 and the early 1990s.
Recent efforts using modern technology have uncovered artefacts on the ship, that have never been touched since the sinking.
In 2019, after the Bahamian government granted it a license to explore the wreck, Allen Exploration used a vast network of 8,800 magnetometers to map the location of the untouched artefacts.
The ship’s debris trail spans a whopping eight miles, although Allen Exploration is not releasing information about its exact position, to protect the site.
Divers were employed to recover the artifacts, and bring them back to land for the first time in 350 years.
Included in the hoard are Spanish olive jars, Chinese porcelain, iron rigging, gold and silver coins, as well as a silver sword handle that belonged to the soldier Don Martin de Aranda y Gusmán.
One of the stunning discoveries is an 887-gram gold filigree chain, about 70 inches long, made up of 80 alternating circular flat and tubular links, decorated with rosette motifs.
It was likely intended for a wealthy aristocrat, or even royalty.
The artifacts are exhibited at a new museum in the Bahamas.
