12/16/19 Report - 3-D Interactive Shipwreck Site Models. Dueling In America. Maya Prisoner Bones. The Blog This Year.

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

3-D Interactive Model of 15377 Shipwreck.

Source: BOEM (See link below.)

BOEM, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, has a very nice site with an interactive Virtual Archaeology Museum.

Here is what BOEM says.

In the course of oil and gas exploration, BOEM has discovered many amazing shipwrecks. Each shipwreck tells a story of our shared history and provides a mystery to uncover. BOEM would like to share these mysteries with you by providing  access to new 3D modeling never before possible using video publicly available from NOAA's Office of Ocean Exploration and Research...

Freatured shipwrecks include the 15377, Monterey A, Monterey B, Monterey C and Blake Ridge shipwrecks.
The photo above shows one view of the interactive 3-D model of the 15377 shipwreck,.

https://www.boem.gov/environment/virtual-archaeology-museum

Thanks to DJ for the link.


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Dueling got an early start in colonial America.  On June 18, 1621, there was a duel at Plymouth Rock.

… two of Steven Hopkins' indentured servants got into an argument of unknown origins.  The duel resulted in both Edward Doty and Edward Leister wounded, which caused Hopkins to fear he could lose the labors of two good men.  To prevent future such behavior, the men  were "hog-tied," with their feet tied to their heads for 24 painful hours...

It appears that there was a duel at Jamestown in 1624.  

In 1996, archaeologists discovered the skeletal remains of a young European male who had been shot in the lower leg, causing severe damage leading to his death.  At the time, William Kelso, director of archaeological research at Jamestown Redicoversy, said it might be America's first unsolved murder...  But in 2013 Kelso's team discovered the victim was George Harrison, who was shot by Richard Stephens, a Jamestown merchant...

The two above quotes are from Dueling in Colonial America, by John T. Trussell as published in the Fall 2019 SAR Magazine.

Don't you think the comment about the "America's first unsolved murder" is a gross overgeneralization?  That would seem to suggest that the native Americans never committed a murder, or if they did, they always knew or found out who did it.

I almost expected the other party to the George Harrison duel to be Ringo Star.

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Researcher at the University of Bonn investigated bones from the 1,400-year-old Maya mass grave of Uxul

Several years ago, Maya archaeologists from the University of Bonn found the bones of about 20 people at the bottom of a water reservoir in the former Maya city of Uxul, in what is now Mexico. They had apparently been killed and dismembered about 1,400 years ago. Did these victims come from Uxul or other regions of the Maya Area? Dr. Nicolaus Seefeld, who heads the project that is funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation at the University of Bonn, is now one step further: A strontium isotope analysis by the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) showed that some of the dead grew up at least 95 miles (150 kilometers) from Uxul... 

The results of the isotope analysis show that most of the victims grew up at least 95 miles (150 kilometers) from Uxul in the southern lowlands, in what is now Guatemala. "However, at least one adult and also one infant were local residents from Uxul," says the researcher. They were apparently mostly people of high social status, as eight of the individuals had elaborate jade tooth jewelry or engravings in their incisors...

Here is the link for more about that.

https://www.uni-bonn.de/news/311-2019

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The years fly by.  I remember sitting down to my first post of 2019 and thinking about that.  It seemed like last week.  Now we are getting close to the end of the year.

As I look back at the most read posts of the year,  the numbers show what you would probably expect - detectorists pay a lot of attention to the weather and interest in Treasure Coast metal detecting rises and falls very much with changes in the weather.  The most read posts of 2019 were posted in January, February and September.

You might not remember now, but we had some good erosion back in January.  There were also some finds reported that stimulated a lot of interest back then.  One of those was as suspicious as some of the finds made on Oak Island.  You might remember what was reported as a find of an Incan funerary mask.  There seemed to be a lot of controversy about that one.  Click here to see that post.

I think you will all remember what happened in September.  Dorian was heading towards us, but after all of the panic and preparations, stayed well off-shore.  It looked for a while like we were going to get a direct hit by a major hurricane.  Despite the improvements in weather science, they missed it on Dorian, and the Treasure Coast missed getting hit by a very dangerous storm.

It isn't unusual for January and February to be good metal detecting months.   Other than after the occasional hurricane or tropical storm, November through February are often the best times for metal detecting on the Treasure Coast.  That, of course, is also when many of the snow birds are in town.

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Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

2/13/19 Report - If You Want To Find More, Try Sifting. More on the Melborne Artifact.

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

Finds Found by Sifting an Old Home Site

Finds and photo by Russ P. 

I received this photo of finds that were made by Russ P and his sons by sifting an old home site.  Here is what he said.

... I took my boys sifting this morning at a trashy old house site. The finds pictured are fairly typical, in variety and amount. One of my sons likes to collect the colorful ceramic shards.

The aspect of sifting I think I enjoy most is seeing everything.

There is a Buffalo nickel and a couple of wheats...

Thanks Russ.

Russ has conducted experiments in which he recorded finds from lots that were detected several times and the sifted.  His experiments show that metal detecting only results in a fraction of the coins that can be found at a site.

Take a look at the following link and some of my other posts on sifting as compared to metal detecting.

https://treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com/2018/03/33018-report-more-on-sifting-compared.html

I highly recommend sifting if you want to get more of what a site holds.

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Here is more on the artifact that was originally erroneously referred to as an "Incan" funerary mask.  This article is by Rick Neale of Florida Today.

MELBOURNE BEACH — An undersea treasure hunter has discovered a possible ancient Peruvian artifact near Melbourne Beach that may have been transported by the doomed 1715 Spanish Plate Fleet.

"I thought it was scrap. I thought it was a NASA scrap, honestly. I thought it was a piece of an aircraft," said Mike Torres, chief technology officer of Seafarer Exploration. He found the item Jan. 14 in pre-dawn darkness.

Measuring about 10 inches across, bordered with intricate patterns, the circular copper relic features an image of a bird-like figure. John de Bry, director of the Center for Historical Archaeology in Melbourne Beach, said the object may have once been gold-plated...

Here is the link to read the entire article.

https://www.tcpalm.com/story/news/local/florida/2019/01/22/treasure-hunter-discovers-possible-ancient-artifact-near-melbourne-beach/2648527002/

It seems that some of the inaccuracies that were in earlier reporting have been cleaned up.

For one thing, the artifact is no longer referred to as "Incan" but rather a Peruvian artifact.  As I posted in this blog before, the determined age of the item did not match with the period of the Incan civilization.

You can find what I've previously posted concerning this artifact by going back a few days in this blog.  There were many questions about the find.

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X-ray fluorescence reveals exact origin of porcelain recovered from the ocean floor. 

Here is the link for that article.

https://cosmosmagazne.com/archaeology/scientists-crack-mystery-of-ancient-chinese-pottery-found-in-shipwreck

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Looks like we'll have a little increase in the surf later Wednesday and Thursday.  I don't think I'll get a chance to check it out.

Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net

1/24/19 Report - Found on Florida Beach by Metal Detector: Inca Funerary Mask Made of Space Metals Thought To Be From La Conception.

Written by the Treasure Guide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

Ancient Metal Death Mask Reportedly Found on Florida Beach by Metal Detector.
Source: FoxNews.

Archaeologists have discovered a rare death mask dating back thousands of years on a beach in Florida, a sign that more treasures may be nearby.

A team of researchers with Seafarer Exploration Corporation found the artifact made of precious metal on Melbourne Beach and believe it served as part of a funeral headpiece from a pre-Incan civilization in Peru, Fox 35 reported...

“This is some of the earliest evidence of man’s ability to metal-work and to use iridium,” Dr. Michael Torres, who found the mask, told Fox35.  "That changes things, and may change the way we perceive ancient Peruvian cultures."

Torres is working with a team to discover artifacts from the 1715 shipwreck of the La Concepcion. Researchers believe the mask was taken by Spanish tomb raiders and washed up after the wreck.

The discovery of the mask hints that more precious items could be nearby.

Torres told Fox 35 that he hopes to give the mask to a museum as a gift.

Thanks to Tony S., who sent me the following FoxNews link containing the above information.

https://www.foxnews.com/science/ancient-funeral-mask-uncovered-at-florida-coast

That is all the information provided by the link so I tried to find out more about it.  I did find some sites with information on the find.  The most helpful being the immediatley following link.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/archaeology/ancient-death-mask-may-point-to-billiondollar-florida-treasure-haul/news-story/6e5561eb696dfd022ea08f3d76f96768

Putting what I read together, and it doesn't all seem to stick together very well.  It sounds like Seafarer Exploration Corporation found the mask on a Florida beach with a metal detector.  The mask  is thought to be an Incan funerary mask made of space metals (iridium was mentioned somewhere), looted by Spanish and transported on La Conception, which wrecked, leaving a debris trail, which included the mask.  The mask was said to be paper thin. (See photo above.)

Iridium is a very hard, brittle, silvery-white transition metal of the platinum group. It is the second-densest metal.  Being so brittle and dense, I'm surprised that if it washed up on the beach and was covered by sand that it was as whole as it was.

It is not clear to me why Seafarer Exploration Corporation, a public traded company, was searching the beach with a metal detector, or why they concluded that the mask was part of the cargo of the La Conception.  Maybe beach detecting is part of their operation.  And maybe the artifact was found in the general area where they expect to find La Conception.  That is all possible, but the connections are not strong in my opinion.  Of course, I only have a very little information about it all.

I'd like to get more information on all of this.  I'm not confident that it is all correct, but that seems to be what has been reported.

I looked up Seafarer Exploration Corporation and found their web page (link below).  One of the things I found is that after eleven years of searching, in Oct. 2018 they received their first revenue.  It was not anything to do with salvage, but a dividend check for $1,500 which they received from a company they bought.

Here is that link.

http://seafarerexplorationcorp.com/

The stock symbol of the company is SFRX.  The stock price at the close of 1/24/19 was a small fraction of one cent per share.

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I was out of town yesterday and haven't been to the beach in a couple of days so that is all I have for today.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net