Ship Bell Found

It did not say bells as ornaments were traded Bill.
I own a 37' sailboat and have on board a 8" bell that would be considered small compared to large ships bell. Here is the rule for bells on ships "Sound-producing Device (bell, horn, whistle, etc.) ... need not meet any particular specifications, as long as the vessel can produce signals required by the navigational rules." What are the rules?you may ask?...46 CFR § 169.815 - Emergency signals, and 33 CFR § 83.35 - Sound signals in restricted visibility (Rule 35) In fog, mist, or falling snow, whether by day or night, (1) The first alarm signal must be the continuous ringing of the general alarm bells for not less than 10 seconds at intervals of not more than one minute ring the bell rapidly.

International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREGS)
(a)These Rules shall apply to all vessels upon the high seas and in all waters ... (c) The term "sailing vessel" means any vessel under sail provided that ...... The whistle, bell, and gong shall comply with the specifications in Annex III

These rule have been Law since 1880, do you think that it was not practiced before then? Columbus's voyage was not a Military Expedition, so readers who expect to see the ringing of the bells in the log are wrong.

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_María_(barco)

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article215357945.html
 

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sailaway said:
It did not say bells as ornaments were traded Bill.
. . . .
Click to expand...
too much work to copy your image of someone's translation that contradicts your statement
". . . for other things that we gave them, such as glass beads and small bells."
if you wish to parse something, try to get it right

this is the bell to which I previously referred Blagovest Bells— 'Santa Maria bell' auction and seizure
there are a host of related links evaluating this bell (found off Portugal) and one of those mentioned that the Santa Maria did not have a ship's bell, nor either of the 2 smaller ships

sailaway, are you trying to assert that Columbus' ships had bells?
links please, not your speculation

Bill
 

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These rule have been Law since 1880, do you think that it was not practiced before then? Columbus's voyage was not a Military Expedition, so readers who expect to see the ringing of the bells in the log are wrong.
Click to expand...

The original use for a ships bell had nothing to do with warnings per navigation rules. One of the most common uses was for the telling of time on the ship. When the hourglass ran out, the bell was chimed to signal it had been turned.

Now, here we go. Timing was a relative new thing in the late 1400's, because time was used for distance calculations, and to really use this, you need to have a map.

There are records of ships bells all the way back to the Bronze Age.

Another use, somewhat lost, was the use as a ranging device. In inclement weather, especially fog, they would sound the bell would listen for the echo. No echo meant nothing out there.

If there was an echo, it meant there was some sort of obstacle out there. Counting the time to the echo game them a warning of the distance to the obstacle, closing on it or moving away from it.

Think of the ships bell as the old school predecessor to Sound Navigation and Ranging. (SONAR)

I can certainly see why a recovered bell would not be from the Santa maria, and there was ample time to recover that wreck and use the timbers, so nothing would have been left such as the bell, as a shipwreck artefact.

But the bell comments take me back. While there may not be the mention of the use of the ships bell for timekeeping, there are other recorded uses. Bells have been used for a long, long time for various reasons.

I recall reading that on the Columbus trip, the natives were amazed by the sound of the ships bell? Not to mention adding bells to themselves and the animals to scare the natives.

Why would the Columbus fleet not have bells?
 

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Wellllllllllll... I had to come back in to the thread on this...

BECAUSE... there IS a bell that eerily resembles THIS bell... one I have been scrutinizing / comparing to OP's bell for some time now...

AND allegedly / supposedly did come from a Columbus ship.

bel_fitted.jpg
 

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Anyway... this IS WHY I have been adamant about the OP posting the size.

Which I am kind of kicking myself on because it is normally a question I would ask an OP right away.
 

Just to give you an Idea of why I have knowledge of the Santa Maria, I was raised in Puerto de Santa María, Spain. This is where Columbus sailed from on his second voyage. So it is first hand knowledge not what I read that some over educated PHD had to say about what he read in a basement. I have also been to la Isabella in the Dominican Republic. Visited La Navidad in Haiti. Stood where Columbus was given permission to go west. Stood or anchored in all spots that he visited when he reached the New World. Stood on the Anchor he lost from the Santa Maria at Land Rail Point.
The reason we know the bell was aboard the Salvador is that it was listed in the ship’s cargo manifest, which survived the wreck and can be seen in a Spanish government archive today.
Click to expand...
Have given link to this previously.

WHERE IS THE BELL OF COLUMBUS?
Rodrigo de Triana was not hallucinating. Not this time. A few fathoms from La Nina, with the calm sea, the insistent tolling of a small bell tied to the deck of the Santa Maria, the flagship, startled the crew at dawn on October 12, 1492. It was the announcement of a new world. And that frantic metal peal, the first sound of Discovery.
Mazzara had fallen into the importance of the find months later of his immersion in Portuguese waters. The chemical and metallographic analyzes of the University of Zaragoza, the archives of Indias and that of Simancas and the documents that allude to the Casa de la Contratación del Rey (the government agency that controlled and registered, from 1503 until well into the 18th century, all maritime traffic between Spain and the Indies) attested to the origin of the bell. Everything seemed to fit. There was no doubt about the authenticity of this historic jewel.
Click to expand...
https://historiasdelahistoria.com/2008/09/08/¿donde-esta-la-campana-de-colon

experts believe that the bell was moved ashore from the Santa Maria and was part of the equipment of the Fort Christmas, which was built with the remains of the ship after running aground on the coasts of Haiti, in which 39 of the sailors were left who traveled with Columbus. The fort was destroyed, all its occupants were killed and the bell was sold years later, according to a document that appears in Puerto Rico where its purchase is registered for 32 pesos. The piece later embarked on the San Salvador ship , commanded by Gonzalo de Carvajal, to Spain, although it never reached its destination.
Click to expand...
https://elpais.com/cultura/2006/01/18/actualidad/1137538803_850215.html

Mazzara says he offered the bell to Portugal, as the law says, but the government doubted its authenticity. The expert took it to the Technological Institute of Aragon, where they analyzed remains of sand coinciding with those of the American lands. It was also corroborated that the corrosion of the metal indicates that it was under water between 400 and 500 years, and that it was subjected to extreme temperatures, as it could have suffered during the fire of the Fort Christmas. "It can be without a doubt from the 15th century," says the report signed by Dr. Josefina Pérez Arantegui, from the University of Zaragoza, after having carried out a chemical analysis of the Bell.
Click to expand...
https://www.clarin.com/ediciones-an...a-toco-colon-llegar-america_0_Hy2Wc310Fl.html
 

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sail and ARC: do you guys want to start a thread on Columbus' bells? We will trash this one otherwise.

ARC: remember your post as you may be pennyless.

sail; interesting background, multilingual is helpful
I have read your links, and others. You might choose to post also those papers/comments not positive to your narrative, such as the linguistic commentary on the ship's inventory of 50 years later that uses a word presently interpreted as 'bell' (vocino, sorry I have it in Italian - my background). As I understand the situation, nowhere else is the usage known. True or False?
I have a similar reservation to that of ARC, I distrust "professionals" as that is the world I lived in and when a different opinion is needed - find another expert is often the solution (by attorneys). But I remain most sensitive to non-compliant info, the bits that don't/won't fit. And at some point the "believers" have to be addressed which is often the end of the discussion.

There are many issues with the so-called Santa Maria bell which can be addressed, or ignored.
Agreed that the subject bell is 15th cent or so.

Bill
 

Like I said in the deleted post... I got my last dollar ready

There is NO doubt CC's ships had bells.

No ship of any consequence sailed without them.

This would be like sailing without a rudder. heh
 

ARC and sail - a conundrum for you guys (don't both answer at once)

If we are to presume that the bell found in Portugal is that of the Santa Maria, note that it is plain and ~10"
So if the found bell in the Caribbean is of that voyage, it would have been on one of the smaller boats.
The bells and ships seem quite reversed.
The narrative is impossible.

Bill
 

I am not suggesting that THIS bell is related to any other bell.

BUT I do think the OP's bell would be FROM that period.

At least this is my "instinct" from first sight of the Op's bell.
 

The thing I find interesting is that this bell of topic of this thread, in my list of bells lost, there is one ship that matches the Santa Maria's size. The ship should be a NAO exactly like the Santa Maria, from same time period.

SAN ESTEVAN
 

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AARC said:
. . . .
There is NO doubt CC's ships had bells.
No ship of any consequence sailed without them.
. . . .
Click to expand...

Arc, you will be busy today

when, and where, did the use of bells on boats start?
when were bells commonly used on the Iberian peninsula?
at what size/circumstance did a boat warrant a bell?
did the production of bells equal the production of boats?
where did the (missing ?) bells come from?
what was the value of a plain ship's bell?
what was the premium for a fancy bell?

note ARC that I am not soliciting your opinion, need links (perhaps even the search term if very productive)
good hunting (and I would bet that the Portugal bell is merely an old plain smaller bell, Occam's razor)

Bill
 

From the moment I laid eyes on the OP's bell... (hmm that sounds funny)... :/

Anyway... from first sight... I knew / know... this is no "normal" / "typical" ships bell.

I refrained from acting any certain way at first due to the possibility of being "off" on any theory I initially had... and awaited more info... which I am still awaiting.

Anyway... like I stated to the op early on in this quest...

This is "special"... and IMO... REALLY special.
 

BillA said:
Arc, you will be busy today

when, and where, did the use of bells on boats start?
when were bells commonly used on the Iberian peninsula?
at what size/circumstance did a boat warrant a bell?
did the production of bells equal the production of boats?
where did the (missing ?) bells come from?
what was the value of a plain ship's bell?
what was the premium for a fancy bell?

note ARC that I am not soliciting your opinion, need links (perhaps even the search term if very productive)
good hunting (and I would bet that the Portugal bell is merely an old plain smaller bell, Occam's razor)

Bill
Click to expand...

lol... The earliest ship's bell was recovered from the wreck-site of a Portuguese armada ship off the coast of Oman. The bell was dated 1498.

SO FAR !
 

as interested as you fellows are in the bell, I really do want to see a metallurgical analysis of both/any bells from that period
bronze is made with tin, whose source can be identified; arsenic could also be used as a hardener for copper, how did the casters get the desired tone? (cutting?)
obviously related to the bell's tone are its dimensions, what is known about how the bell dimensions were selected? (different ratios in different areas?)
many questions

Bill
 

AARC said:
lol... The earliest ship's bell was recovered from the wreck-site of a Portuguese armada ship off the coast of Oman. The bell was dated 1498.

SO FAR !
Click to expand...
yes, we know of this also -> so what?
bigger boat -ck, bigger bell -ck, more ornate -ck, and . . . . . . .

Bill
 

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