The identity of a 17th-century shipwreck containing hundreds of gold coins has been revealed, three decades after its discovery.
The wreck, which lies at a depth of c.18m in Salcombe Bay, off the south coast of England, was discovered in the 1990s by the South West Maritime Archaeological Group. Subsequent underwater archaeological investigations determined that the ship itself had almost completely deteriorated, but the remains of its cargo were recovered, as well as other everyday items. The British Museum quickly acquired the assemblage and set about analysing the finds to learn more about the wreck’s story.
It was only recently, however, that research in the National Archive finally identified the vessel as the Dutch trading ship Dom van Keulen, which was on its way from Safi in Morocco to the Netherlands when it sank near the Devon coast in autumn 1633. Records document 9,000 Barbary ducats (gold Moroccan coins), 150 bags of gum arabic, 64 bags of saltpetre, and 320 goat skins among its original cargo. Most of the cargo was thought to have been salvaged at the time, but more than 400 gold coins were recovered in 1995.
Excavating the CA archive