A mysterious shipwreck off England’s southern coast near Salcombe, Devon, has finally been identified by researchers who believe they have uncovered its origins and destination.
Researchers with Bournemouth University (BU) said the site was discovered in the mid-1990s but apart from that no one was able to determine much about it except there were hundreds of gold coins, cannons, and anchors on the sea floor, Fox News noted on Friday.
It has since been identified as a Dutch trading vessel, the Dom van Keulen, from 1633.
For nearly 30 years, researchers have been trying to find out more about the ship, which encountered bad weather during its voyage, according to BU.
The university stated in June:
Independent Historian Ian Friel, who helped identify the ship, has uncovered documents in the National Archive relating to its voyage from Morocco to the Netherlands during which the crew ‘met with much tempestuous weather’. The ship sprang a leak and sank close to the coastal town of Salcombe, Devon off the south coast of England. All the crew survived.
BU Professor of Maritime Archeology Dave Parham described what the ship had been holding.
“Among its cargo were 150 bags of gum arabic, 64 bags of saltpetre, 320 goat skins and 9,000 Barbary ducats, gold Moroccan coins,” he said. “It is thought that most of the cargo was salvaged at the time, but more than 400 coins remained on the seabed until they were discovered by the South West Maritime Archaeology Group in 1995.”
A photo showed what appeared to be some of the items found at the site:
There are an estimated 37,000 shipwrecks near the British Isles, according to Sky History.
The Dom van Keulan shipwreck is a protected site overseen by Historic England and “Diving is restricted to licence-holders and the site monitored by the nearby National Coastwatch Institution’s Prawle Point station,” per Divernet.
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