5/6/16 Report - The Guale Uprising of 1597. PARES Portal to Spanish Archives. Atocha Silver Bar. Smooth Surf and Big Tides.

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

Illustration from Murder and Martyrdom in Spanish Florida Don Juan and the Guale Uprising of 1597.

Here is a lot of great information on the missions in Spanish Florida and relations with the natives, including many pages of detailed information on the murder of missionaries and the following investigations. The title of the article is Murder and Martyrdom in Spanish Florida Don Juan and the Guale Uprising of 1597.

Here is the abstract.

In the late fall of 1597, Guale Indians murdered five Franciscan friars stationed in their territory and razed their missions to the ground. The 1597 Guale Uprising, or Juanillo’s Revolt as it is often called, brought the missionization of Guale to an abrupt end and threatened Florida’s new governor with the most significant crisis of his term. To date, interpretations of the uprising emphasize the primacy of a young Indian from Tolomato named Juanillo, the heir to Guale’s paramount chieftaincy. According to most versions of the uprising story, Tolomato’s resident friar publicly reprimanded Juanillo for practicing polygamy. In his anger, Juanillo gathered his forces and launched a series of violent assaults on all five of Guale territory’s Franciscan missions, leaving all but one of the province’s friars dead. Through a series of newly translated primary sources, many of which have never appeared in print, this volume presents the most comprehensive examination of the 1597 uprising and its aftermath. It seeks to move beyond the two central questions that have dominated the historiography of the uprising, namely who killed the five friars and why, neither of which can be answered with any certainty. Instead, this work aims to use the episode as the background for a detailed examination of Spanish Florida at the turn of the 17th century. Viewed collectively, these sources not only challenge current representations of the uprising, they also shed light on the complex nature of Spanish-Indian relations in early colonial Florida.

Really a lot of good reading.  And here is the link.

http://digitallibrary.amnh.org/bitstream/handle/2246/6123/AP95.pdf?sequence=1

---

PARES is the portal to the Spanish archives.  This is for the serious researcher who is fluent in Spanish.  You can get some really good research material through the PARES.

Here is that link.

http://pares.mcu.es/

---

Silver Bar in Sedwick Auction.
Lot number 300.

About two more weeks are left for the current Sedwick Coins auction. Many lots already have starting bids.

The 85 pound silver bar shown above has an bid of over $35,000.  That bar has a lot of nice markings.  No wonder it is getting so much interest. It is from the Atocha.

The auction will be concluded live on the internet May 18 and 19.  Until then you can bid online.

http://www.sedwickcoins.com/ta19/catalog.htm

---

We're having some smooth surf.  Expect at least a couple of days of one-foot surf.  That is good for getting in the water.  Also we're having some nice big tides with good negative tides.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

4/7/16 Report - Odyssey Marine Exploration Business. Important Artifacts From Tortugas Shipwreck.

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

Source: http://www.shipwreck.net/documents/OMEPapers37.pdf

I haven't mentioned Odyssey Marine Explorations for some time.  They went through a period when they had a lot of financial losses and the price of their common stock plummeted.  That changed. OMEX stock recently went from around $3 per share to over $9 per share.  You don't often see moves like that.  I won't go into a complete analysis, but here is what they say about the shipwreck part of their business.  They are also into deep-sea mineral exploration and mining.  The following summary is from http://www.odysseymarine.com.


In the fourth quarter of 2015, a third-party company contracted Odyssey to recover cargo from a shipwreck located in the Mediterranean Sea. Odyssey recognized $3.0 million of revenue in 2015 for these services. The recovered cargo is the property of the contracting party and was not part of the Monaco transaction summarized below.

On December 10, 2015, Odyssey sold certain intangible and tangible assets primarily related to its shipwreck business to Monaco Financial, LLC and affiliated entities for aggregate consideration of approximately $21.0 million. The company's shipwreck database and research library was acquired by Magellan Offshore Services, Ltd. ("Magellan"). However, Odyssey retained its vessel, equipment, tools, and specialized offshore team members. As part of the Monaco transaction, Magellan agreed to exclusively hire Odyssey on a "cost plus" basis for any shipwreck search and recovery projects conducted in the next five years. In turn, Odyssey agreed not to compete with Magellan in the shipwreck search and recovery business. Odyssey is also entitled to receive 21.25% of the net proceeds from any monetization of recovered cargo. As part of the Monaco transaction, Odyssey retained four pre-existing projects, including the HMS Victory 1744 and HMS Sussex projects. Magellan may participate in funding the recovery costs of these projects in the future, and will have the right to receive up to 50% of Odyssey's net proceeds, if any.

Monaco Financial, LLC acquired all of Odyssey's remaining coins, ingots and bars from the SS Republic, "Tortugas," and SS Gairsoppa shipwrecks, as well as an interest in the proceeds payable to Odyssey under the Master Services Agreement for the SS Central America project. Monaco Financial also purchased Odyssey's headquarters building and leased office space back to Odyssey.

Seascape Artifact Exhibits acquired Odyssey's artifact collection, exhibits, and all of Odyssey's shipwreck intellectual property and copyrights, including video, photos and publications.

---

Odyssey Marine is a company that produces a lot ov very good research.  One paper examines a couple of plates found on the Tortugas shipwreck.  At the top of the page is a photo of one of those plates.  Here are two paragraphs from a paper about those plates produced by Odyssey.

Given the Tortugas plates’ specific imagery and chronological context, it is plausible that their presence on the Buen Jesús merchant vessel in early September 1622 archaeologically reflects the presence of administrators or missionaries of the Sacred Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith returning to Seville on this Tierra Firme fleet ship. In this historical hypothesis their personal belongings stowed on an Americas-bound vessel earlier in the year would have included two plates freshly thrown under papal commission. Of humble service, albeit highly appointed, one might imagine that a single plate would have sufficed per individual. 

The two examples recovered from the Tortugas wreck could suggest the presence of two such missionaries gracing the ship’s deck. Within this context it is relevant to recall the other select religious artifacts found on the wreck, which included rosary beads, a Virgin Mary clay figurine, a brass medallion dedicated to St. Catherine of Sienna, and two Seville Blue on White bowls painted with ecclesiastic inscriptions, of which only the letters ‘CAR’ written above ‘MO’ are preserved on their interior roundels (Stemm et al., 2013: 82-3, 96).
 

This is a great example of how much an artifact can tell if it provides some clues and thorough research is done.

Here is the link to the paper if you want to read more.

http://www.shipwreck.net/documents/OMEPapers37.pdf

 I do highly recommend reading this excellent paper.  You will learn more about the markings, symbolism and the history of the times.

---

The weather is beautiful today for anyone who wants to visit the beach.  I'm not expecting any improvement in beach detecting conditions though.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

11/5/15 Report - More On The Heart-Shaped Cobs and The Sacred Heart In The Old and New Worlds.

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

Source: See link below.

I shouldn't try this today.  It isn't refined yet, and it is something that really should be done well.   Nonetheless, I'll go ahead and give it a shot.  Maybe some day in the future I'll take another shot at it when it is more ready.  Here goes.

A lot of people  found the heart-shaped cobs interesting.  I'm one of those.  They suggest some interesting questions - questions that might lead to some good answers.

I've read several different thoughts about why the heart-shaped cobs were made and how they might have been used.  Sewall Menzel suggested that they were presented as awards to those in religious positions. Laura Strolia thinks that perhaps they were used as images to help evangelize the native populations.  Someone else (I forget who) wrote that they were used as votive offerings, but somewhere else I read that the archaeological evidence doesn't back that up.  At this point it seems no one really knows.



Katleen Deagan in Vol. 2 her book Artifacts of the Spanish Colonies of Florida and the Caribbean, 1500 - 1800 says, "The profound influence of the Catholic Church in shaping both daily life and public policy in the Spanish colonies can not be overemphasized."  She devotes an entire chapter to religious artifacts and includes a table showing the number of religious artifacts shipped to the colonies from 1511 to 1613.  Her sources show that 5246 rosaries were shipped in that time period.  11,671 crosses, medallions and other images were shipped in that time period.  The vast majority of those, 11,512, were shipped in one year - 1603.  Obviously there was a purpose for that shipment.

It is tempting to believe that the Sacred Heart devotion was brought from Europe to the New World. Laura  Strolia, however, pointed me to an article that suggests that the devotion may have started in Mexico and then eventually made its way to Europe (See link below).  Here is an excerpt.

Late in the seventeenth century, a French nun of the Visitandine Order, Marguerite-Marie Alacoque (1647-1690), in the Monastery of Paray-le-Monial in Burgundy, had visions in which Christ appeared to her holding out his heart. She narrated these experiences in writing. In June 1674, she described one of her visions: “the divine Heart was represented to me in a throne of fire and flame, shining on all sides, more brilliant than the sun, and transparent as crystal. The wound that he received on the Cross was visible. There was a crown of thorns around this Sacred Heart and a cross above …”2 To this vivid description was added the admonition of a French Jesuit, Joseph de Galliffet, who in 1726 published a book about the mystical experience of the visionary nun, and gravely pointed out that many pious persons “find more devotion in honoring the Heart of Jesus Christ as it really is in the sacred chest of the divine Savior.” 

Notice the dates in the above paragraph.  In 1674 the vision was described.  Not knowing if that was the first time or if was the time that led to the adoption and spread of the devotion, it provides a rough marker.  

Although I've read that the heart-shaped cobs were first produced in Potosi around 1640, all those in the recent auction, as I recall, were produced after 1700.

Here is another excerpt from the same article.

Thus, hearts pierced, bleeding, intact, and miraculously resplendent, were a common religious symbol in Mexico a century before Marie-Marguerite had her visions in a French monastery cell. Direct evidence between Mexican sacred hearts and the European devotion to a realistically depicted Sacred Heart, says Kehoe, “must be buried in some archive or priestly memorabilia.” But enough circumstantial evidence exists to propose that, consciously or subliminally, the minds of the foremost religious leaders were influenced by what theologians were doing in Mexico and reporting in a flood of written works that the European priests certainly read. The cult of the realistically drawn flaming heart of Jesus started in Europe and coincided with the peak of those publications. In sum, Kehoe marshals sundry arguments to show that, by a process technically known as “stimulus diffusion,” the inspiration to make the flaming heart of Jesus “an embodiment of the new humanistic Catholicism” may have actually originated in Mexico, and extended from there to France.

My thinking on the subject is just beginning to develop.

Here is a paragraph from Wikipedia.

During the pre-Coumbian era human sacrifice in Maya culture was the ritual offering of nourishment to the gods. Blood was viewed as a potent source of nourishment for the Maya deities, and the sacrifice of a living creature was a powerful blood offering.  By extension, the sacrifice of a human life was the ultimate offering of blood to the gods, and the most important Maya rituals culminated in human sacrifice...

Heart, blood, and sacrifice are words and symbols central to both Christianity and the Mayan and Aztec religions.  You can find Mayan images of a priest holding a beating heart and offering blood sacrifices.  Those archetypal images are central to both Christianity and Mayan cultures, if not the psyche of all mankind.

I feel certain that the Spanish missionaries would use those symbols to communicate with the native populations.  Those images, already invested with meaning and feeling, would be used to convey Christianity in a way similar to how pagan holidays in Europe were modified and assimilated into Christianity.

I don't have any idea whether it was Europe or Mexico that originated or most influenced the Sacred Heart devotion. What I do feel confident about now is that there is a common experience in the core of all mankind that transcends time and place.

Every human has a heart.  The heart beats from a time before birth and is associated with life.  And once it stops, so does life.  That is a common core experience for all mankind - just one of many.

Similarly, a sense of the sacred is universal.  Men worlds apart feel it.  Men worlds apart know it.  The few that don't feel it fight it, try to explain it away or just wonder about it.

I have to cut this short.  I know that I didn't do the topic justice.  I couldn't possibly do it justice in a post.

But one thing I want to leave you with is that the things you find often have a message.  It might be easy to see or hidden.  It might be simple or deep.  In either case, it can lead you on a journey.

Here is the link I mentioned above.

http://www.hektoeninternational.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8

That is all for now.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net