SOLD Joanna Shipwreck 4 Reales Pendant; Please Explore Our Spanish Shipwreck Pendants For Similar Items.

Description:

Salvagers certificate included. This is a genuine Spanish silver coin that was recovered from the British shipwreck, Joanna. The 550 ton English East Indiaman ship, commanded by Captain Robert Brown, was on her way from England to Surat on the west coast of India. On June 8, 1682, the Joanna became separated from her convoy of 4 other ships and sank in rough seas on a reef off the southernmost tip of South Africa, sending 24 people to their deaths. Eventually, 104 survivors reached the Dutch colony of Cape Town, from which a salvage party was soon dispatched. The Joanna’s cargo consisted of 70 chests of silver coins, of which the salvage party reported recovering only about 28,000 coins.
After the initial salvage operations of 1682, the Joanna shipwreck slowly faded from memory and the wreck site was lost and untouched for 300 years. However, in 1982 the wreck was re-discovered on the outer reefs of Die Dam by a group of South African divers led by Gavin Clackworthy. The divers recovered 44 iron cannons, many silver ingots and over 23,000 silver cob coins, most of them Spanish Mexican 4 and 8 reales of Charles II. After this salvage excavation, the Joanna shipwreck site was declared a protected area by the South African National Monuments Council Act.