| Summary: | No wreckage yet found. Divers recently recovered over 400 gold coins, ingots and jewellery (earrings & pendants) as well as fragments of Delft pottery, pewter & lead weights. The coins & jewellery have all been identified as Moroccan; the coins struck by the Sa'did Sharifs, who ruled from mid 16C to mid 17C. The date of the wreck can be narrowed to a 15 year period around the 1630's or 1640's. The latest coins so far identified date to the reign of Al-Walid, who ruled 1631-1636. Pot & pewter are also thought to date up to c1640. The only non-Islamic coins are 2 copper specimens, of which the only identifiable with certainty was struck in Friezland in 1627. In 1585 the Barbary Company was established to facilitate trade between England & Morocco, which was ruled by Ahmad Al-Mansur (reigned 1578-1603), who was known as 'The Golden One'. He had excellent relations with Queen Elizabeth I. Over 100 of the coins from the wreck were struck by this ruler, and another 100 by his son Mawlay Zaydan (1608-27). The rest are mostly coins of other members of the family down to the 1630s. The fact that much of the jewellery is in pieces suggests that it was obtained as bullion to be melted down. |
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