2/12/19 Report - 1715 Fleet Site In Melborne. Shipwreck Dispersion and Scatter. Muckelroy Model.

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

Here is the Executive Summary and Conclusion of an article that you might enjoy reading.   It is by
Dr. Robert H. Baer, Professional Archaeologist, Seafarer Exploration Corp.

Executive Summary This paper provides evidence that the Melbourne Beach shipwreck scatter is derived from one of the missing Spanish 1715 Plate Fleet shipwrecks, the Santisima Trinidad y Nuestra Señora de la Concepción.

Conclusion From the evidence, it is concluded that the diagnostic artifacts – the Monteros Platter and the Ramirez Flintlock Pistol recovered at the Melbourne Beach site approxiamately 14 miles north of the 1715 shipwreck sites is undoubtedly cargo from a missing 1715 shipwreck. It is believed that the vessel scatter at the site is that of the Santisima Trinidad y Nuestra Señora de la Concepcieon, the vessel that transported the consigned box of presents including the Monteros Platter from Veracruz to Havana and from Havana to the Florida Treasure Coast where it was recovered almost 300 years later. 

Here is the link if you want to read the entire article.

http://seafarerexplorationcorp.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Dr.-Robert-Baer-Melbourne-Beach.pdf

Among other things you will find photos of artifacts, including but not limited to the pistol and silver plate.

Thanks to Dale J. for sending me that link.

The above article refers to the Muckelroy model, which describes the dispersion or scatter of shipwreck artifacts and materials.  I thought I once posted a flow chart of the Muckelroy model in this blog, but for some reason I can not find it now.  You might enjoy looking it up if you can find it somewhere in this blog or elsewhere.

If you are interested in looking into shipwreck dispersion processes or the Muckelroy model, here is a link that will help you get started.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeology_of_shipwrecks#Muckelroy's_model

Here is a part of that article referring to a paper by Martin Gibbs (2006) that describes some of the human activities that affect a shipwreck site.

A paper by Martin Gibbs in 2006,^[11] expands Muckelroy's model to consider human behaviour at the time of the disaster and the long term relationship between people and shipwrecks. This model uses studies of humans involved in disasters to characterise the human activity into phases around the time of the wrecking. This model considers:

• Pre-impact threat phase, in which humans considering the risk may take avoiding action which results in there being no wreck, or may take unsuccessful action to mitigate the perceived threat, for example the wreck location may be the result of attempting to avoid some perceived greater threat. Stowage of cargo may also indicate consideration of threat.
• Pre-impact warning phase, in which humans may take drastic action to avoid catastrophe, for example, running a vessel ashore, jettisoning cargo or running out anchors.
• Impact, in which the decision is made to abandon ship or remain aboard, and, for example, attempt to refloat.
• Post impact, where survivors regroup and, for example, salvage their own goods or make repairs.
• Rescue and Post-disaster where the vessel is abandoned and in which third parties may be involved in salvage or in removing remains that present a hazard to navigation.

In addition to human activities there are the impacts of storms and other things that can affect the scatter hundreds of years later.  That is something I've talked about good bit.

I've wondered about some of these things, such as why there appears to be more smaller cobs found on the beach (especially some beaches) compared to the larger proportion of larger cobs found on the shipwreck site found by salvagers.  I've considered a number of possible reasons for that including both natural and human but won't get into that now.

Anyway, I think you'll find the above sources interesting reading.

You might also want to take a look at this one.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Evolution-of-a-shipwreck-Muckelroy-1978_fig3_264469355

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191 mph wind and 60-foot waves on Maui?  That is what it says.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2019/02/10/hawaii-storm-brings-60-foot-waves-power-outages/2832866002/

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MagicSeaWeed is predicting a two to four-foot surf for the next few days.

Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net

5/27/15 Report - A Mexican Four Reales. Wreck of the Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion. Survivor Camp Dagger.

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

Same Four Reale

Coin To Be Auctioned By
Public Lands For The People.
Photos by Jerry S.

A few days ago I mentioned that Public Lands for the People, an organization that works to preserve outdoor recreational activities such as prospecting and mining on public lands, was going to auction a treasure coin.

The coin had been donated to the organization.

Here are two photos of that coin, which is nicely mounted in a gold bezel.

It is a 4 reale from the Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion.

Its always nice to see a good treasure coin.

I like having them displayed in this manner rather than being stored away unseen somewhere.

It also comes with the certificate of authenticity shown below signed by Burt Webber.































You might know the story of the Concepcion and Burt Webber.  Here is a little of that story as printed in the Ocala Star-Banner in 1979.

Click here if you want to read the entire newspaper article.

Here is a short history on the wreck of the Concepcion as presented on the Sedwickcoins.com web site.

Concepcion sunk in 1641 off the northeast coast of Hispaniola

The Concepcion was one of the most significant Spanish wrecks of all time, serving the Spanish with a loss of over 100 tons of silver and gold treasure. The almirata of a 21-ship fleet, the Concepcion was already in poor repair when the Europe-bound fleet encountered a storm in September, leaving her disabled and navigating under makeshift sails amid disagreement among its pilots about their location. Weeks later, she grounded on a reef in an area now named the Silver Shoals, just to the east of another shoal known as the Abrojos, which the pilots were trying to avoid. After another storm hit the wrecked ship and the admiral and officers left in the ship’s only longboat, the remaining crew resorted to building rafts from the ship’s timbers. Survivors’ accounts pointed to drowning, starvation and even sharks for the loss of around 300 casualties. In the fallout that ensued, none of the survivors could report the wreck’s location with accuracy, so it sat undisturbed until New England’s William Phipps found it in 1687 and brought home tons of silver and some gold, to the delight of his English backers.

The Concepcion was found again in 1978 by Burt Webber, Jr., whose divers recovered some 60,000 silver cobs, mostly Mexican 8 and 4 reales but also some Potosi and rare Colombian cobs (including more from the Cartagena mint than had been found on any other shipwreck). Unlike the Maravillas of just 15 years later, however,  the Concepcion did not give up any gold cobs in our time, and any significant artifacts found were retained by the government of the Dominican Republic, who oversaw the salvage. The bulk of the silver cobs found on the Concepcion were heavily promoted, even in department stores! The site is still being worked from time to time with limited success.

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Here is an interesting item shown online shown at http://www.nelsonshipwreckpirate.com/NauticalAntiquities.html

It says it was found in a Spanish salvor's camp in southern Brevard County.

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The next day or two on the Treasure Coast we'll have something like a two to four foot surf.  Just a touch higher later in the week.

Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net