MARITIME TREASURES

We all have an image in our minds of ships from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries heavily laden with bullion, usually in the form of coins and more often than not in the form of silver coins. We are dealing with a time, the early modern period, when coins were widely used and were produced in large quantities by European countries. They serviced domestic economies but also international trade and consequently they were regularly shipped in huge numbers by sea.

When a voyage was successful, it formed part of the routine of maritime business but when something went wrong, and a ship sank for whatever reason, its cargo becomes part of the archaeological record. Looked at this way, a hold full of coins shifts its significance. In many instances the identity of a ship, what it was carrying and the date it went down will be recorded in considerable detail but this is not always the case and in such instances coins found on board provide a means through which the wreck itself can be dated. More than this, coins found at sea can reveal something about the nature of how they circulated or