Beeswax Wreck - PBS History Detectives

[modrian]

Don't know if people saw this on PBS last night, no real new info, but I have never seen that chunk of beeswax. Had some interesting markings and wanted to hear peoples thoughts on them outside the show. Mariner, know you follow this one and would love to hear what you think.

Modrian

 

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[mariner]

Modrian,

The show was a bit shallow, as most of these TV shows are, but quite interesting. I do not know why they said more than once that the beeswax cannot be dated, and said that you cannot date things within 300 years. Pieces of the Nehalem wax have been dated on more than one occasion, and they eve extracted pollen samples from one piece that they used to determine the source of the bees that produced it.

There is a little booklet, by Garry Gitzen I think, that shows most of the known beeswax samples. If you want, I could send you a copy of it.

Mariner

 

[ivan salis]

beeswax was shipped from the phillipines to make "tapers" or candles for the catholic church -- a spanish galleon ( francisco xavier 1707) carrying it (along with other "church religious items" --likely to be made of gold or silver ) from manila enroute to mexico's west coast for transhipment overland to mexico's east coast to the east coast treasure fleet --then onward to spain --- often due to storms or other reasons the manila vessels wrecked along the upper north west coast (the currents --caused them to use a route that took the up along the northern west coast once they found land however they came down along the west coast --- dead reckoning type navagation -- using known "landmarks" on a sea chart ) --- it is this vessel that I highly suspect is the "beeswax wreck" --

 

[mariner]

Modrian,

I recently attended a presentation by Scott Williams, who appeared on the program, and others giving an update on their project to find and identify the Beeswax ship at Nehalem. The analysis they have done of the porcelain sherds is pretty convincing, and places them right around the end of the 17th century. That is why they think it is the San Francis Xavier (1707) or the Santo Christo de Burgos (1696). The interest thing is that between these two dates the great earthquake and tsunami of 1700 occured. This will probably be a significant factor in identifying which of the two wrecks carried the porcelain sherds. It is most unlkely that they both wrecked there. I have not seen the manifest for the Burgos, though I think that the team has it. It was the SFX that was carrying the 150 (?) tonnes of beeswax quoted on the TV show, but the team's latest thinking is that the wreck is the Burgos.

In earlier analyses, Alison Stenger and Herb Beal had identified some of the pottery samples as 16th century (Wan Li), suggesting an earlier date or a different source, but these appear to have been lost. Also some of the beeswax dates were late 16th century. The carbon date attributed to a ship's block that they found at Nehalem a couple of years ago placed it at the end of the 16th century or early in the 17th. There was also an English shilling from 15690 that was found on Nehalem spit after the Columbus Day storm of 1962. I think that it is quite likely that there is more than one wreck there, the Burgos or SFX and a ship from about a century earlier. There are a couple of early Manila Galleons that are still unaccounted for, a small Spanish ship that Drake left behind in 1579, and the Content, a ship belonging to Thomas Cavendish that went missing in 1587. Any of these could possibly have also wrecked at Nehalem, and referring to the thread about the San Agustin, could have been the ship that Vizcaino heard about wrecking on Santa Catalina. Its like a big old jigsaw puzzle, or perhaps two or three with the pieces all mixed together.

Just out of interest, at the time that Bee expert from OSU was examining the Nehalem Wax, he was also examining for me samples of another wax block that was found last year further south along the Oregon coast, at Gold Beach. It turned out to be some kind of paraffin wax, rather than beeswax, though I don't know how it got its amber color, or where it came from. Some of the shells clinging to it were apparently identified as not being native to Oregon. I am attaching a photograph of this block, just out of interest. I suspect it was used for sealing the stitching on sails or protecting ropes on a sailing ship, but so far we haven't thought it worth the cost of carbon dating to determine its age.

Mariner

Great fun.

 

[cuzcosquirrel]

There is a passage in S. A. Clarke's Pioneer Days of Oregon that talks about the marks on the wax in more detail. The marks appear to be shipping marks of some kind. I think they described a number 8 with a font mark above it and IHS:

"As I was coming to the Pioneer Reunion at Portland I bought
a large piece of beeswax, with the letters "I. H. S." on its face"

"Our host was In a reminiscent frame of mind that night,
and as we sat before the cheerful fire, he
told story after story of the beeswax ship, whose strange cargo lies
under the shifting sands of the Nehalem spit. Many of these wax
cakes, so he said, bore inscriptions identical to those told about in
Mr. Clarke's beeswax articles in the Native Son. This wax, Mr.
Lovell informed us, is found as far north as False Tillamook Head,
and as far south as Cape Meares. The main bulk, however, being
unearthed from the sands near the former locality."

Cape Disappointment is also known as False Tillamook Head.

The show was not what I thought it would be and focused mainly on wax production in the Phillipines. It was still pretty interesting. I found a rough slab of wax from the San Augustin last year on the beach.

There has been some wax recovered from the San Feliepe wreck near Ensenada. There is an exhibiit this month by the San Diego Maratime Museum of new artifacts recovered from the San Feliepe.

 

[ivan salis]

IHS -- the catholic jesuits orders "trade mark" look at their orders seal and normally used ownership "markings" -- thus it was being carried for the religious order.

 

[mariner]

Ivan,

Those of us both lucky and unlucky enough to have been educated by Jesuits have the letters burned into our brain, and if the J's had had their way, we would have had it burned into our backsides. I went to St. Francis Xavier School and College, in Liverpool, and understand just what the Spanish Inquisition must have been like!

There were a variety of signs, symbols, letters and numbers on the Nehalem Beeswax, and I think that the Catholic Church would have been a major, but not the sole, recipient of the beeswax. Somebody told me once that the Spanish used beeswax candles to provide the minimal light needed in their mines, among other uses. I don't know if it is true, but I suspect that it is. There is quite a variety in the appearance of the beesax that has been found at Nehalem and it strikes me that it would be useful to take samples of the wax found at Drake's Bay (from 1595) and from the wreck of the San Felipe (1576) and compare this older wax with various pieces from Nehalem, to determine if there are two distinctive sets of wax at Nehalem. Here is a picture of one of the unmarked pieces from Nehalem that seems to have a somewhat different appearance from the main pieces.

Also, I have photographs of a very unusual carved wooden object that was in the possession of an Indian family who got it from the shipwreck, and eventually sold it to the family of the present owner. It is about 13 inches high, 10 inches diameter and an inch thick. It is domed, like the glass cases that are used to cover statues, but has a handle on top that is somehow inserted into the top of the dome. I have never seen anything like it, so I will dg out the photographs, digitize and post them in case anybody can identify what it is.

Mariner


Mariner

 

[ivan salis]

funny thing --the vessels name ---san francisco xavier * --is the same as the jesuits --founding order "preist" -- odd that no one has seemed to connected the name of the vessel with the "jesuit order" and the wax's Jesuits "IHS" markings and "founding fathers name" of the order being the vessels name. * thats too mant things that link together be a "accident"

#1 "IHS" is the jesuits order 's "mark"
#2 saint francis xavier is the jesuit orders ---"founder"
#3 the vessels name was "San Francisco Xavier"
#4 beeswax was used alot by the catholic church orders in the old days for "tapers" or candles. (even to this very day --one donates a bit of money in the candle fund box and lights a candle in the memory of their loved ones (their not made of beewax there days however )--- its a very very old catholic tradition)

 

[cuzcosquirrel]

The Spanish routinely named places and things for the saint whose feast day it was discovered on, completed, or founded.

 

[ivan salis]

vessels normally were named for the owners "patron saint" for their religious name -- spanish vessels normally had at least 2 names --the religious one --and the "offical" one ---as well as often having a "nick name" -- like say some of the 1715 fleet vessel were called ---if it was a captured vessel --say the "french prize" or the type of vessel it was like "La Galara"--- its still very odd thing ---I wonder could the jesuit order have been a part or full "owner" of the vessel . could there be "more" to it than mere chance . --very possible in my veiw.

 

[Cappy Z.]

I happened to watch this show. History's Mysteries. It was very entertaining, yet informative. I believe it's target audience was the general public with an interest in history of course. I do not believe this episode was made to be some sort of in depth scholastic analysis. It would be great if more shows like this were available.

My two reales.

 

[throbbingbewildered]

Don't know if people saw this on PBS last night, no real new info, but I have never seen that chunk of beeswax. Had some interesting markings and wanted to hear peoples thoughts on them outside the show. Mariner, know you follow this one and would love to hear what you think.

Modrian

wow, that is one huge beeswax. I've never seen something like that before.

 

[skibum2]

Kind of an interesting thread...As a youngster living in Nehalem we were beachcombing and I too found a piece of beeswax..Kept it all these years..about 4-5" in diameter.. interesting history lesson.

 

[Red James Cash]

Bees wax trivia.

Way back when,archers use to put little balls of bees wax on the tips of their armor piercing arrows.It helped the arrow penetrate the armor.