SerpApi.Org
More than three centuries after the San José sank in the Caribbean, Colombian scientists have finally brought pieces of it back to the surface. In November 2025, a state-led expedition retrieved the first physical objects ever recovered from the wreck: a bronze cannon bearing the inscription “Sevilla,” a porcelain cup, and three hand-struck gold coins known as macuquinas. The operation ran November 16 to 18, using underwater robotic vehicles to reach a site nearly 2,000 feet below sea level off the coast of Cartagena.
The San José is widely regarded as the most valuable shipwreck ever located. It went down in 1708 carrying gold, silver, and emeralds from Spanish colonies in Latin America, bound for King Philip V of Spain, after a battle with the British Royal Navy during the War of the Spanish Succession. The cargo is estimated at around $20 billion in today’s money, turning a centuries-old maritime disaster into a contested prize for governments, salvagers, and legal tribunals.
A Fleet Ship Sunk in a Colonial War
Historical records show the San José was part of the Flota de Tierra Firme, a Spanish fleet that departed Peru in 1707 carrying royal cargo. The ship never reached Spain. British forces intercepted it off Cartagena the following year, sinking it with an estimated 11 million gold and silver coins on board, along with emeralds destined for the Spanish crown.
The Colombian Navy, working with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), located the wreck in November 2015, and Colombia’s president announced the finding the following month. WHOI disclosed in 2018 that its autonomous underwater vehicle had confirmed the galleon’s identity through distinguishing features, including its cannon design. The government designated the area a protected archaeological site, with formal recovery plans not announced until March 2024.
In May 2025, researchers published a study in the journal Antiquity using photogrammetry to produce three-dimensional reconstructions of coins imaged in situ. The analysis revealed a Jerusalem cross, heraldic symbols of the crowns of Castile and León, and mint markings showing the coins were produced in Lima, Peru, in 1707. That confirmed the ship’s identity and that the sinking occurred after that date.
What the First Recovery Brought Up
The five recovered objects consist of the bronze cannon inscribed “Sevilla,” a porcelain cup, three macuquinas, and two porcelain fragments. The operation was carried out jointly by the Colombian Navy, the Ministry of Culture, ICANH, and the Maritime Directorate (DIMAR). The artifacts were presented in Cartagena on November 19, 2025, marking the launch of the second phase of the project titled “Towards the Heart of the San José Galleon.”
Culture Minister Yannai Kadamani Fonrodona described the recovery as a “historic event” demonstrating Colombia’s capacity to protect its underwater cultural heritage. ICANH director Alhena Caicedo Fernández added that the objects open a path for citizens to engage with the galleon’s history through physical evidence. Conservation work is now underway, with the items dedicated to archaeological research.
A 2024 remotely operated vehicle survey had mapped additional material at the site, including anchors, glass bottles, ceramic jugs, and gold objects scattered across the wreckage. The Colombian government has indicated plans to display recovered artifacts in a proposed museum of shipwrecks in Cartagena. President Petro’s administration has consistently described the expedition as a scientific mission, not a salvage operation.
A Legal Dispute Worth $10 Billion
The recovery is unfolding against an unresolved international legal contest. US-based salvaging company Sea Search Armada (SSA), formerly known as Glocca Morra, claims to have identified the wreck as far back as 1982 and is demanding approximately $10 billion, roughly half the estimated treasure value, at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. Arbitration began in December 2022 and remains pending.
SSA’s claim rests on investor protections under the U.S.–Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement, not on cultural rights. The company argues Colombia denied it financial benefits under that agreement by refusing to recognize its earlier discovery. Colombia disputes the claim, asserting the wreck falls within its territorial waters, constitutes part of its underwater cultural heritage, and that it was Colombia, working with international scientists, that officially located the galleon in 2015.
Colombia is not a signatory to UNESCO’s 2001 Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage, a treaty that might have framed the dispute around shared heritage rather than financial entitlement. Without that framework, the case rests on the arbitration panel’s reading of the bilateral trade agreement. The outcome could shape how international law handles similar commercial claims over historically significant wrecks.
Colombia’s Claim to History and Heritage
Spain has at various points expressed interest in the San José, given that the ship flew its flag and carried cargo bound for the Spanish crown. Colombia’s position ties the wreck to national identity and colonial history, noting that the wealth on board was extracted from Latin American territories. Recovering those objects within Colombian waters carries a different weight than returning them to Spain or settling through commercial arbitration.
ICANH researcher Daniela Vargas Ariza, who led the coin-imaging study, described the Tierra Firme Fleet as holding the exclusive monopoly on transporting royal treasures between South America and the Iberian Peninsula. The macuquinas recovered from the site, hand-struck and irregularly shaped, circulated through the Americas as primary currency for more than two centuries. Their physical recovery adds a dimension that image surveys alone could not provide.
The artifacts now in Colombian hands are a fraction of what the ship is believed to still contain. The second phase of the research project is underway, and its scope will depend on what the Permanent Court of Arbitration ultimately decides.
