ARQUA shows off the treasure of Nuestra Señora de la Mercedes in Cartagena

Some of the 600,000 coins recovered from Odyssey have gone on public display

On Thursday the ARQUA museum re-opened for public visits with a new attraction: part of the 600,000 coins recovered from the wreckage of Nuestra Señora de la Mercedes which was sunk by the British in 1804.

It’s taken 210 years for the coins to make the journey from the mints of South America to the Spanish mainland, their voyage plagued with controversy and true adventure on the high seas, first wrecked on the seabed, then the subject of an acrimonious court battle between the Spanish government and American recovery company, Odyssey, who are alleged to have deliberately concealed the true identity of the vessel they had discovered, claiming that the coins had been recovered from the “Black Swan, the Cisne Negra” instead.

However, the Spanish obsession for paperwork was as common a trait in the 18th century as it is today, and the original loading documents were recovered from an archive, matched up with the coinage recovered, as well as telltale evidence from other artifacts found on the wreck, to prove unequivocally that the coinage had come from the Mercedes.

The coinage was finally recovered from Odyssey and delivered to the ARQUA in Cartagena, which not only includes the public area in the form of the National Subaquatic Archaeology museum, but also has separate extensive laboratory and restoration facilities through which this vast collection of recovered artifacts could be cleaned and restored.

Restorers have been working since the beginning of 2013 to restore and conserve the 574,553 pieces of gold and silver coinage, weighing 14.5 tons,much of which is fused together in the shape of the sacks in which it was stored when a British squadron attacked the frigate close to the Cape St Mary on the Portugese coast and sank the vessel, unaware of the richness of her cargo.

Over 30,000 coins have been separated and taken to Madrid where they will form a temporary display in the national archaeological museum, the Museo Arqueológico Nacional (MAN) and a smaller display in the Naval Museum in Madrid.

8,000 have been selected for this display in Cartagena, the remainder still awaiting the painstaking conservation work required to conserve them for future generations.

Although the coinage forms the central focus of this display, the core message in the museum is about respect for the national heritage which lies scattered across the seabed, as yet undiscovered. The greatest enemy of the subaquatic archaeologists who work on excavations beneath the water is treasure hunters, as their motivation is principally to recover artifacts for onward sale or private collections, and although archaeological practices are respected to some degree, a vast amount of valuable evidence about the sites and vessels themselves is lost in the process, and of course, there are many sports divers who recover artifacts from the seabed with little concept of the damage they are causing to these sites and the historical evidence they are destroying in their attempts to extract trophies.

The Spanish government are especially proud of having recovered this coinage from the Mercedes as it is the first time a government has legally proven that a vessel belonging to the state has been illegally removed by treasure hunters and the artifacts recovered for the nation.

For this reason, a significant number of dignitaries, including the Secretary of State for Culture, José María Lassalle, along with the Mayoress of Cartagena, Government Delegate to the region of Murcia and regional minister for culture, attended the official inauguration on Thursday as the museum re-opened for public visits.
To celebrate the inauguration of this new exhibition, the ARQUA is opening free of charge until the 8th June.

To see a more detailed report about the exhibition itself and the wreck of the Mercedes, click Nuestra Señora de la Mercedes in the ARQUA

For information about visiting the ARQUA, Cartagena, Click ARQUA Cartagena