6/1/20 Report - Manila Galleons and Archaeology. Porcelain. Beach Cusps or Scallops.

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

People find blue and white shards on the Treasure Coast 1715 wreck beaches and wonder if they might be Kang Xsi.  I get a lot of questions about that and in the past have posted some information about Kang Xsi, including  tips on identification.  Below are two intact Kang Xsi (various spellings) cups that sold in the recent Sedwick auction for $700 plus buyer's premium.  We usually just find shards on the beach, but they can be worth a little too, especially when attractively mounted.

Here is the Sedwick lot description for the two cups.

Intact blue-on-white Chinese porcelain cup with handle, Kangxi period, ex-HMS Winchester (1695), very rare provenance and condition. 72 grams, 2-1/2" tall and 2-1/8" in diameter. A lovely little piece with nothing missing (the handle manufactured separately and applied or possibly re-applied after glazing), the glaze worn away but with clear flowers in vase on balcony design on exterior, highly desirable as the only intact specimen found on this rare wreck. From the HMS Winchester (1695), with photo-certificate.


I found a good book with a lot of information on Chinese porcelain and the Manila galleons.  The title is Archaeology of Manila Galleon Seaports and Early Maritime Globalization, Part II.

That resource contains tons of photos, including the photo below of a wreck still containing a cargo of Chinese porcelain.

Source: Academia.edu link below.

That photo reminds me of the fellow who found a stack of plates recently exposed by new erosion to a wreck beach and didn't pay much attention to them. When he learned they could be valuable, he returned to find them, but couldn't.

During the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, the Spanish navigators established and operated the Manila Galleon maritime route which connected East Asia and New Spain in the American continent. The galleons sailed across the Pacific via the hub seaports and trade centers of Manila in the Philippines and Acapulco in Mexico, forming a prosperous sea route for more than 250 years. This pioneering navigation of pan-Pacific regions promoted early global maritime trade as a new maritime Silk Road between the East and the West...

The Spanish conquest of the Philippines began with the arrival of Ferdinand Magellan in March 1521 (Pigafetta 1969). When Magellan was killed in April 27, 1521 by a local chieftain in the island of Mactan by the name of Lapu-lapu, the remaining Spaniards hastily left and went back to Spain. It was not until exactly 44 years after the death of Magellan that another expedition arrived in the Philippines (Cebu) under the command of Miguel Lopez de Legaspi, with specific instructions from the King of Spain to find the return route from Manila to New Spain (present day Mexico). The discovery of the tornaviaje or the return journey from Manila to Acapulco by Fray Andres de Urdaneta, Legaspi’s pilot and navigator in 1565 completed the maritime route that was later utilized by the Manila-Acapulco Galleon Trade (Schurz 1985). The first few galleons left from Cebu until Legaspi transferred his capital to Manila, leaving Cebu in economic disarray (Fajardo 2018). The galleon trade represents one of the earliest manifestations of economic globalization where Asia, the Americas and Europe were linked together through maritime high ways. 

The Galleon trade fostered both economic and cultural exchanges between the Philippines and Mexico, which can be observed up to this day (INQUIRER.net US Bureau 2017). The Manila-Acapulco galleon trade route was operational for 250 years (1565–1815) where merchant ships traversed more than 18,000 km across the Pacific Ocean from Manila to Acapulco and vice versa. At the western terminus, Manila became the world’s premier entrepot during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that linked peoples, cultures and material goods between Asia and the Americas (Schurz 1985; Fish 2011)...

I highly recommend reading this lengthy document.

Here is the link.

https://www.academia.edu/41712660/The_Chinese_Porcelain_from_the_Port_of_San_Blas_Mexico?email_work_card=title

Not only did the Manila galleons distribute items that ended up on the 1715 Fleet and Treasure Coast beaches, but Spanish colonial items also ended up in the ports of Asia.

Source: See academia.edu link above. 

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In the past I received questions about how scallops or cusps are formed on the beach.  Here is an illustration that explains that.

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Gold has been doing well.


The stock market is up this morning, which is really a statement for all of the positive things going on with economy, space exploration and pharmaceutical industry.

The surf is small today but will increase tomorrow.  The wind has already changed.

Source: MagicSeaWeed.com.

TreasureGuide@comcast.net

3/17/19 Report - The Manila Galleons. Big Cash in The Sofa. New TV Treasure Shows. Big Surf.

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

A few days ago I wrote about the Kang His porcelain that you can find on the 1715 Fleet beaches.   Of course that pottery came from China.  The porcelain and other items from Asia and the Phillipines first crossed the Pacific on the Manila galleons before being loaded on the galleons that would cross the Atlantic.

There are wrecks of the Manila galleons that have been investigated.  You can find them described in The Archaeology of the Manila Galleons, by Robert Junco.  Here is the introduction.

This paper presents a brief recount of the Manila Galleon sites investigated to date. It also proposes, some ideas of what the archaeology of Manila Galleons could consider in its research objectives. The Manila Galleons, loaded with their rich cargos of oriental goods are still a great mystery to researchers, especially those belonging to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Furthermore, studies of Asian ceramics and other products of exchange in New Spain and beyond are scarce. While the work of historians and art historians has contributed significantly to the topic, archaeological studies are rare given the few sites located. In this paper, I shall mention the Manila Galleon sites that have come to my attention, and then present some ideas that I deem relevant in the pursuit of what can be termed the archaeology of Manila Galleons.

And here is the link if you want to read the rest of that article.

http://www.themua.org/collections/files/original/61b274c68e00272c5e50f0af53f5b140.pdf

I think you'll find a lot of interesting information if you read that study.  It summarizes seven different wreck sites and has an extensive bibliography that you might also find useful.

Another study of the Manila Galleons is The Arrival of The Spanish Galleons in Manila from the Pacific Ocean and Their Departure Along the Kuroshio Stream, by Jose Eugenio Borao Mateo.  This one is historical rather than archaeological.

Here is the abstract from that one.

The aim of this paper is to revisit some well-known features of the seasonal conditions and geographical incidences of (1) the yearly arrival in Manila of the galleons coming from Acapulco and (2) the first stage of their return voyage along the Kuroshio stream. It will be based on existing published data, like the well-known Blair&Robertson (BRPI), the less known Navas&Pastells (CDF), the collection of Spanish Documents of Taiwan (SIT) published by the author, and other documents from Spanish Archives. The paper will try to present the routine of these trips, and some of the nautical conditions (specially the monsoons and typhoons contingencies) as explained by sailors like Cevicos, and to revisit some particular well-known cases of shipwrecks like the ones of the Spanish galleons San Felipe (1597) and San Francisco (1609) in Japan, and Nuestra Señora de la Concepción (1638) in Marianas Islands. Finally, some conclusive ideas will focus on Taiwan as one of the last ramifications of the Acapulco-Manila route; and the fact that for the sailors was much more important the winds than the currents, which—as it seems—their knowledge was not yet totally clear.

And here is the link.

http://homepage.ntu.edu.tw/~borao/2Profesores/Kuroshio.pdf

Again, you will find a useful biography with references from some unusual sources.

There haven't been many books on the Manila galleons since the one written in the 1930s, but here is one you can preview online.  It is The Manila-Acapulco Galleons: The Treasure Ships of the Pacific, by Shirley Fish.

You might want to get it at your local library.  If they don't have it, ask for an interlibrary loan.

Click here to preview that book.

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You might like this story about how three students found $40,000 cash hidden in a sofa they purchased at a thrift store.  Good story how it turned out.

https://people.com/celebrity/cash-couch-students-return-40000-found-stuffed-in-thrift-store-sofa/

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There are some new treasure hunting TV shows this season.  I ran into one the other day.  It is Lost Gold.  I think it was on the Discovery channel.   I didn't find it very exciting.  The best thing about it for me, in the short time I saw it, is that they talked about some famous treasures and early treasure hunters and detectorists, such as Frank Fish.

You can read more about Frank Fish in this issue of The Tombstone News.

It begins...

In April 1963 death came to one of the most famous and successful of the treasure hunters, Frank Fish. To all appearances and evidence he died by his own hand. But did he? Frank was my close and personal friend; my family and I spent many hours in his Gold Rush Museum listening to him spin yarns of lost and buried treasures. To say the least, it is my honest opinion that Frank Fish was not the suicidal type. He loved his museum and its thousands of relics too well. In addition he was close on the track of a large treasure cache for which he had searched many years...

I also saw advertisements to a program on Civil War gold and a Japanese treasure in the Philippines.

I'm a little over most of the TV treasure shows.  They have generally been disappointing.  Too much foolish hype and showmanship, and not totally trustworthy.  It is better to go out and do it for yourself anyhow.  Still, we all have a little downtime for foolishness.

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The Treasure Coast surf forecast has changed a little.

Source: MagicSeaWeed.com.

It looks like the peak of about seven feet will be Tuesday.  It doesn't look like it will be as sustained as forecast earlier.   Still a pretty good size, along with some good tides.  And still a couple days for things to shape up.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net