Nice Bell Found at Shipwreck Site...with pictures.

[ScubaFinder]

Nice work Lobo, I'll bring my camera with me to Santo Domingo and we can try out that super-zoom lens.

Sasnz - 18 cannon so far, and 7 large anchors. We are only working in about 12-15 feet of water, but we are right next to large reef and often the waves are crashing very hard right on top of the wreck site. Once the seas get over 4 feet we have to stay on the beach. I have several new permanent scars from being thrown into the reef by the surge, and one day myself and 2 other divers came extremely close to loosing our lives.

 

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[Voldbjerg]

Sasnz - 18 cannon so far, and 7 large anchors. We are only working in about 12-15 feet of water, but we are right next to large reef and often the waves are crashing very hard right on top of the wreck site. Once the seas get over 4 feet we have to stay on the beach. I have several new permanent scars from being thrown into the reef by the surge, and one day myself and 2 other divers came extremely close to loosing our lives.

I recall something about a rule that state how large a percentage of the ships weight should be anchors. That could help you narrow down the type or at least size of vessel.

Regarding the surge and reef - play it safe and good luck

/V

 

[Bobadilla]

Hello Laura,

Here is the picture of the bells on the Cathedral of Santo Domingo, the first one built in the New Wolrd, finished in 1529.
Hope you enjoy....

Best regards,
Lobo

 

[elle]

Oops...Lobo...the picture didn't process...

Jas...if you are headed to the States soon...I wish you and the crew much luck.
Hopefully the negotiations with the new investors will be quick so you can get back into the water.
I think I can speak for the rest of the world that we are anxiously awaiting more clues to your wreck!
We can't wait...
First thing when you get back...knock some of the encrustation off an anchor and see how the flukes are shaped.
Then tell me if the arms are straight or curved and if the shank is longer in relation to the flukes...
Put my curiousity to ease, ok?...LOL.

 

[gollum]

Scuba,

This is from the Catholic Dictionary:

On the erection of the Dioceses of Santo Domingo and Concepción de la Vega, in 1511, the whole island was divided between these bishoprics. In 1527 Concepción was suppressed, and its territory united to Santo Domingo, which was the only diocese until 1862. Many regular clergy came with the French into the French territory, especially the Dominicans and the Capuchins. The Dominicans devoted themselves especially to the mission in the western part of the colony, and were for a time supported therein by other orders and secular priests.

The Dominicans were also designated as missionaries to the southern part of the island. The Capuchins, who looked after the northern part of the island, and were likewise assisted by other orders and secular priests, soon were unable to supply enough missionaries. On that account they gave up this mission in 1704, and in their place came the Jesuits, who worked there until their expulsion at the end of 1763. Secular priests followed, but after five years they were superseded by Capuchins.

I include this quote because the Church at Concepcion de la Vega was one of only two on the island as you can see in this excerpt from a Nicholas Sanson Map of 1650.

Hey Elle, one little thing: on many of the maps I have, missions (Jesuit) are shown as both a cross over circle, as well as a small building with a cross on top. The larger the settlement, the larger the map icon (as well as showing a bigger Cross of Lorraine over Santo Domingo, which was the larger town.

Best-Mike

 

[lamar]

Dear gollum;
To assist with the map, the meanings of the map symbols are as follows:
The cross over the circle as depicted on the map depicts a mission settlement, however it was a very widely used icon during that era and it did not depict any particular Order.

The cross of Lorraine over Santo Domingo depicts the French influence on the island which was in hot dispute between the French and the Spanish until the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697, which effectively divided the island of Hispaniola in two, with two-thirds of the island being governed by the Spanish and the remaining third which the Spanish having been ceded to the French.

As Nicholas Sanson was French, this may be the reason why he chose to depict the settlement of Santo Domingo as being a French possession, when in fact it was in almost constant dispute between Spain and France until 1697. The cross of Lorraine is used exclusively to depict French possessions, as it is has been a symbol depicting the country of France even longer than the fleur-de-lis.

Strictly as a footnote, the French cartographer Nicholas Sanson was trained by the Jesuits.
Your friend;
LAMAR

 

[mariner]

Lamar,

I am very interested in whether the cross of Lorraine was also used by the Spanish in the 16th century.

I became interested because somebody claimed to have seen it on a silver bar supposedly found on the Oregon coast, which circumstantial evidence led me to believe had originated in Lima, and been taken by Thomas Cavendish from the Mexican port of Huatulco in 1587. In investigating this, I came across several contemporary illustrations that showed the Cross of Lorraine on Spanish banners.

I would appreciate your opinion on the use of this symbol by the Conquistadors.

Mariner (Old Xaverian)

 

[gollum]

Hey Lamar,

Here, I think that of all the different forms of both the Patriarchal and Lorraine Crosses, your explanation looks to be the most likely.

The two tiered cross at Santo Domingo doesn't strictly look like a Lorraine Cross (since both crossbars appear to be nearest the top). This could be due to it being a hand drawn map. If slight errors in drawing are believeable, then it is also possible for it to be a Patriarchal Cross with the upper crossbar drawn a tad to long.

The two-tiered Cross signified higher authority, Metropolitanical and Patriarchal. Since most of my research centers in Sonora and Pimeria Alta, I will have to aver to people more knowledgeable of that specific locale. One would have to look and see if there was an Archbishop or Cardinal assigned to Santo Domingo, as a Cross Lorraine is also the symbol of a Cardinal, and Patriarchal Cross denotes an Archbishop.

Best-Mike

 

[ScubaFinder]

Laura, sorry for the delay, in regards to your anchor question: I'll post a pic of the fluke shape in a bit. The arms are definitely curved, and the shank is definitely long for the fluke span. In an interesting note, all 7 anchors have the shanks broken off....but they are right near the cannon and other artifacts. If they were offshore a ways this wouldn't be strange to me, but they are with the wreck itself. they had 14 ft. shanks, but the span between the flukes was just under 6 feet, so they were definitely tall and skinny compared to other anchors i've seen.

What does this tell you?

I'm enjoying the other conversations too, keep them going. I'm learning tons about the Jesuits, missions, etc. I'll be online more now when I'm not in meetings with investors.

Jason

 

[ScubaFinder]

Here are a few pictures of the anchors. I know I have some better ones of the flukes somewhere in my thousands of DR pics, but these were easy to find.

 

[graybar-hotel]

Very Interesting read.

For everyone's information, there is a Jesuit order here in Tampa, on Himes Street.

During my time there, some priest were asked for guidence with the historical aspects of the movie " The Mission"

To clarify, I was there for school not as a priest.

Graybar-hotel.

 

[ivan salis]

tall and skinny --short "gap" fluke design means older style type anchors -- as a old merchant seaman -- I know that anchor designs under went several periods of "major" design change -- and that by understanding that information --by knowing what type and design of anchor you have --- often the wreck can be "rough dated" time frame wize from it . ( sometimes even the nationality can be figgered out as well since differant groups used differant designs and styles)

 

[elle]

Looks like an early wreck you have...14 foot shanks...with 6 foot flukes...
shank very long in relation to the flukes as Ivan said earlier!

I see the flukes seem more triangle-shaped which can definately indicate an older ship too...till they changed in mid-1700's.
I'm just bewildered why you said the arms are curved ...
unless this wreck dates within a couple of decades of when the arm shape began to loose its straightness.

Let me know if any of those cannons had dolphin handles, ok?

Gollum...thanks for sharing that map you posted!

 

[ScubaFinder]

No dolphins or handles on any of the cannon Laura. I suppose the arms could be angled as opposed to curved, hard to say with all the encrustation. the last pic they certainly look curved to me though, and that is how i remember them. I'll look through some videos we shot of them and see if I can make a better determination. Thanks for all the help everyone, we are closing the gap and hope to be working full force again within just a few weeks.

 

[elle]

Question you will need to investigate when you get back to the DR is if your site is virtually intact with remnants of only one ship.
It is quite common for one wreck to lay atop another and I assume the DR is filled with this type of scenario.

I am aware you are probably not giving out classified info at this point because indication is lending the truth that this indeed could have been a "TREASURE GALLEON." Based on observation, though, since you said quite a number of anchors...I believe you said 7...had the shanks broken off...that tells me they were all from the same doomed vessel.
Otherwise I would contemplate on maybe another vessel from perhaps the 1700's in the vicinity with those curved arms.
I hope they are just angled... ...let me know...I'm rooting for a ship of the 17th century!

What is so exciting is the idea of what lies below those cannon and anchors. Yes...we are all hoping chests of gold and silver coins with dates...
but there are so many other ways to date your discovery. I know you have an archaeologist working with you who will lend a hand...but if you could expose the keelson (if not completely destroyed) and focus on the direction of the main axis...so much could be determined as to the ship's identity.

Hey...is it still ok if I use a video segment from North Caribbean's Research for my current project?

 

[piratediver]

On the subject of anchors, I checked my research file and found two good pubs: 1. "The Anchor" by J.W. van Nouhuys, The Mariner's Mirror, Vol. 37, No. 1, January 1951. and 2. " The History and Evolution of Anchors" by James R. Moriarty and Neil F. Marshall; published by The San Diego Science Foundation in 1965.

You might also consider the possibility that the anchors, if from the same vessel may have been carried as ballast particularly if they were already damaged when loaded on the ship. It was also not uncommon that damaged cannon were used as ballast. On the WHYDAH, we have found far too many cannon then would normally be used on a ship her size and thus are considering the possibility that some were merely ballast.

The Mariner's Mirror is an excellent resource and is found in most major libraries. Bob Marx did a short but informative article in the "Proceedings of the 16th Conference on Underwater Archaeology", 1985, P. 51-53.


Good luck,


Pirate Diver

 

[ScubaFinder]

Laura, this stretch of reef is one of the worst I've ever seen, and we are certain of at least 4 wrecks in the immediate area (say a 1 square mile box). We have two newer anchors about 200 meters offshore from the cannon pile, definitely not the same as the 7 on the site. We have two ballast piles, one right next to the 18 cannon, and another about 75 meters to the West. The two ballast piles have different types of stone, and definitely do not match. Then we have another cannon that is nothing like the 18 on the site, it's about 1 kilometer to the west and sitting all by itself. Near the single cannon, we brought up tons of pottery, bronze fittings of all sorts, but never saw any timbers or large debris. All four sites are from different time periods, nationalities, etc. For the record, all of the items found near the 18 cannon site lend themselves to Spainish origin.

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

Good morning Scuba: sigh, nice clean, labor of love, my friend. Beats riding a mule in a deep canyon with the temp around 140 F, no breeze, face, eyes and mouth full of lil sweat flies, soaking wet, smelling more like the mule, than the mule itself. Ellie love knows what I am talking of.

Don Jose de La Mancha

p.s. now that I think of it, do you suppose that smelling like my lovely mule was the reason that most of the interesting females that I met at the various ranches weren't interested in me??

p.p.s coral cuts soon heal, saddle sores and bruised ego ?

 

[ivan salis]

while its true that damaged cannon could be used as ballast -- often large numbers of cannon were often carried by pirate ships -- its well known pirate common sense that they would seldom if ever use hull breeching type shot in battle with valuible "merchant" prize vessels and of course they tried to avoid battle with men o war whenever possible (no real profiet in it -- very risky and dangerous to boot ) --since they can not "rob" or take over and own sunken vessels rather than use large hull breeching type shot --- their object was to either force them to surrender out of fear or kill off the crew and take over the vessel and loot it or keep it if better suited to their needs than their own past vessel was (to that end a lot of cannons with "scrap" type small shot to be used when up close as "deck cleaners" was very desirable)--since if they had many cannons -- they could be "preloaded" and held in reserve as they closed -- thus freeing up the men that would normally used as "loaders" if they had to "reload" less number of cannons to be used as boarding party as well .

 

[Smithbrown]

The guns which have been recoved from pirate ships- the Whydah and Queen Ann's Revenge- have all been small calibres- 3, 4, 6 Pounders, or swivels- too small to sink a ship with. However they can disable a ship by attacking the rigging as well as the crew. And the number of guns must be dependent on how many gunports or deck space you have, as well as gunners to fire them.
Smithbrown