400 gold coins help crack a centuries-old shipwreck mystery

Researchers have officially solved a shipwreck mystery that has plagued historians for nearly 30 years, the identity of a ship discovered off the southern coast of England in 1995. The ship is the ill-fated Dutch trading ship Dom van Keulen, which left Morocco for the Netherlands in the fall of 1633 with a hefty cargo that included more than 9,000 gold coins. But just before reaching home, the ship sank off the coast of England. The ship’s identity and its legacy are detailed in a new book From Morocco to the Coast of England: The Story of the Dom van Keulen and its Remarkable Cargo.

Historian Ian Friel uncovered documents chronicling the Dom van Keulen’s final voyage in the United Kingdom’s National Archives. The crew “met with much tempestuous weather,” and the ship eventually sprang a leak. The large ship wrecked near the coastal town of Salcombe, 30 miles southwest of Plymouth.

Luckily, all of the crew survived, and most of the cargo was likely salvaged shortly after the sinking. According to Dave Parham, a marine archeologist at Bournemouth University who helped edit the new book, the ship was loaded with 150 bags of gum arabic (a tree gum used in thickening), 64 bags of saltpeter (used in gunpowder), 320 goat skins, and 9,000 Barbary ducats and other gold Moroccan coins.

These coins and goods originated from the Barbary Coast (present-day Morocco). In the 16th and 17th centuries, Dutch merchants actively traded manufactured goods for pure West African gold from the Sa’dian Sharifs. This Arab Sharifian dynasty ruled Morocco between 1549 and 1659. Around the same time, the Netherlands had a large maritime industry and a global trading empire that spanned five continents. Dutch officials melted down the West African gold to make their own coins, which became one of the most widely accepted trade currencies in the world.

A diver above the wreck site with cannons below on the sea bed. Image: Maritime Archaeology Sea Trust (MAST).

400 of the ship’s gold coins remained embedded in the seabed until 1995, when a team from the South West Maritime Archaeology Group discovered the wreck.

The coins themselves provide “important context for the wealth and architecture of the Sa‘dian Sharifs, the trade in African gold, and tangible evidence of the flourishing 17th-century maritime trade linking Morocco, the Low Countries, and Britain,” Parham added in a statement.

Other recovered artifacts include: a pewter bowl and spoon, a ceramic sounding weight shaped as a pilchard, stamp seal, and finger nugget. Image: British Museum.

According to the team, very little is known about theDom van Keulen’s size and appearance, and no known paintings of the ship exist. The wreck site itself is about 98 feet-long and is about 60 feet below the surface. The wreck site is still littered with cannons, anchors, and other small items of cargo. The British Museum owns several items from the wreck, including a pewter bowl and spoon, gold jewelry, a weight in the shape of a fish, a stamp seal, and pottery.

In 1995, “the discovery of African gold from under the sea off the coast of Devon was an amazing discovery that raised so many questions about how it came to be there,” added Jeremy D. Hill, the head of research at the British Museum.

Now, we finally know the exact ship that carried the gold-laden cargo. “The story can now be told of how a Dutch ship carrying North African gold was wrecked off the English coast, making this a discovery of international importance,” said Hill. “It reminds us how much there is still to be found under our seas.”

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