Archaeologists Finally Unlock Secrets of $1B Shipwreck

Three hundred years after sinking with up to eight tons of gold aboard, one of history's richest shipwrecks is finally giving up its secrets.

The San José, a Spanish galleon discovered off Colombia's coast in 2015, rests nearly 2,000 feet below the Caribbean Sea. The ship went down in 1708 during a battle with English warships, taking roughly 600 souls and a payload worth 7 to 12 million pesos to the ocean floor.

Finding the San José took Cuban American archaeologist Roger Dooley three decades of obsessive research. Starting in Spain's archives in 1984, Dooley pieced together clues about the ship's final moments during the War of the Spanish Succession.

The galleon was more than a treasure chest. Launched in 1698, it served as the flagship for Spain's Tierra Firme fleet, the first to sail for the Americas in over a decade. The precious cargo aboard was meant to fund Spain's war effort back in Europe.

When English Royal Navy Commodore Charles Wager's 70-gun warship Expedition caught up with the San José off Cartagena, the ensuing battle ended catastrophically. The galleon sank on June 8, 1708, taking nearly everyone aboard with it.

Why This Inspires

The San José represents the final chapter of the great age of Spanish galleons that transformed global trade. As author Julian Sancton explains in his new book about the discovery, the ship was "the last representative of this trans-Atlantic system, a major vector of globalization."

Beyond the billion-dollar treasure, the wreck offers archaeologists an untouched time capsule. The site preserves artifacts, ship design, and daily life details from an era when Europe and the Americas were forging connections that would reshape the world.

After years of legal disputes over ownership, researchers are now beginning to study what the Colombian government calls "the biggest treasure in the history of humanity." Each artifact recovered tells a story bigger than gold.

The San José reminds us that our greatest discoveries often require decades of dedication, and that history's most valuable treasures aren't always measured in coins.