These Gold Coins May Solve the Mystery of the ‘World’s Richest Shipwreck,’ Confirming Its Identity as a Legendary 18th-Century Galleon
Minted in Peru in 1707, the money bolsters the evidence that the wreck is the Spanish ship “San José,” which sank off the Colombian coast in 1708 with treasure worth billions on board
/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/accounts/headshot/aurora.png)
More than 300 years after the Spanish galleon San José sank off the coast of Colombia in 1708, a cluster of glittering gold coins from what’s often called the “world’s richest shipwreck” is helping archaeologists confirm the vessel’s final resting place.
In a study published in the journal Antiquity, researchers describe the “hand-struck, irregularly shaped” coins, which were found in the wreck’s stern, nearly 2,000 feet below the surface of the Caribbean Sea. Known as cobs or macuquinas, the money was minted in Lima, Peru, in 1707 and bears markings linking it to the Spanish Empire’s Tierra Firme fleet, which transported treasure from colonial South America to Europe between the mid-16th and late 18th centuries.
An international team led by the Colombian Navy and the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History (ICANH) discovered the wreck in 2015, but researchers have long struggled to find definitive evidence linking it to the San José.
That may now be changing. According to the study, the cobs’ presence strongly suggests the wreck was a ship traveling the Tierra Firme trade route in the early 18th century. “The San José galleon is the only ship that matches these characteristics,” lead author Daniela Vargas Ariza, an archaeologist at Colombia’s Naval Cadet School and ICANH, tells the London Times’ Rhys Blakely.
For the study, the team examined the coins with a remotely operated vehicle, which surveyed the wreck in low-light, high-pressure conditions. Using photogrammetry and digital mapping, the researchers then created a detailed 3D reconstruction of the site, which enabled them to analyze it without disturbing the seabed.
/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/09/eb/09eb26ad-37e3-44f2-ae24-2cd28ad5dc55/screenshot_2025-06-20_at_34114pm.png)
Though shifting seafloor conditions make it difficult to count the coins precisely, high-resolution imagery indicates that on average, they measure 32.5 millimeters in diameter and weigh about 27 grams. The currency features the letters “PVA,” short for “Plus Ultra,” a Latin phrase meaning “Further Beyond,” which serves as Spain’s national motto and once signaled the country’s imperial ambitions. The number eight marks the coins’ denomination (8 escudos, the highest at the time), while the letter “H” refers to Francisco de Hurtado, Lima’s chief assayer (the person responsible for analyzing the composition of a coin’s metals) in 1707.
On the reverse side of the cobs, the central design features the crowned Pillars of Hercules—promontories that rise above the entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar. “The design of the waves serves as an identifying element for coins of the Lima Mint,” the study notes.
In addition to the coins, the researchers identified Chinese porcelain from the Kangxi period, which spanned 1662 to 1722, and cannons marked with inscriptions from 1665. The new finds offer fresh insight into 18th-century maritime trade and bolster the growing body of evidence identifying the wreck as the legendary galleon.
Did you know? The Habsburg jaw
- Some members of the Habsburg dynasty—including Charles II—had a protruding jaw and a sunken midface.
- These features, now known as the “Habsburg jaw,” were likely the result of inbreeding among European royals.
The San José was a 150-foot-long, 64-gun ship that set sail for Spain in 1708, loaded with a cargo of gold, silver and emeralds and a crew of more than 500 men. Much of the treasure on board was extracted from Spain’s South American colonies; the wealth was intended to fund the War of the Spanish Succession. Fought from 1701 to 1714, the conflict centered on who would inherit the Spanish throne after the Habsburg king Charles II died without an heir. Great Britain, in alliance with the Dutch Republic and Habsburg Spain, opposed France’s efforts to install a Bourbon French prince, fearing a united Franco-Spanish empire.
After departing from Portobelo, Panama, the San José was ambushed near the Colombian coast by a small British fleet led by Commodore Charles Wager in June 1708. Contemporary sources suggested that cannon fire struck a stash of gunpowder aboard the San José, triggering a massive explosion that caused the ship to sink, but more recent research points to the galleon splitting open.
The San José remained missing for centuries. Since its probable rediscovery in 2015, several groups have asserted their competing claims to its cargo. Estimates of the treasure’s value vary widely, ranging from around $4 billion to $20 billion.
The Colombian government maintains control of the wreck site within its territorial waters. Spain has also sought ownership of the wreck, citing its historical ties to the San José. Members of Bolivia’s Indigenous Qhara Qhara nation argue that the treasure includes silver and gold taken from their ancestral lands by Spanish colonizers. Meanwhile, Sea Search Armada, a United States-based marine salvage company that claims to have first located the wreck in the early 1980s, continues to fight for a share of its treasure.
/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/ea/31/ea31038a-aa70-4634-b68d-41c59757654b/san_jose.jpeg)
“It’s a great mess, and I see no easy way out of this,” Carla Rahn Phillips, a historian and the author of The Treasure of the San José: Death at Sea in the War of the Spanish Succession, told BBC News’ Gideon Long in 2024. “The Spanish state, the Colombian government, the various Indigenous groups, the treasure hunters. I don’t think there’s any way that everyone can be satisfied.”
In May 2023, the Colombian government designated the shipwreck as a protected archaeological area. That designation, according to the Ministry of Culture, “guarantees the protection of heritage” through the ship’s long-term preservation and the development of research, conservation and valuation activities. Last year, the government announced plans to begin recovering artifacts from the wreck.
The new research venture “has been able to study the artifacts from the site like never before, as it has managed to link archaeological material with historical documents,” study co-author Jesús Alberto Aldana Mendoza tells CNN’s Jack Guy.
The researchers emphasize that the current phase of study is focused on noninvasive analysis. No excavation or recovery will take place until the entire site is thoroughly documented and assessed.
“This find presents a rare opportunity to explore an underwater archaeological site and deepen our understanding of colonial maritime trade and routes,” the study’s authors write. “However, it represents only the first step in a long-term project.”
