Treasure Galleon La Nuestra Señora de Atocha, 1620

[davos522]

Model of the Treasure Galleon “La Nuestra Señora de Atocha”, 1620 in the Archives of the Indies in Seville, Spain. No date or scale available—unfortunately my photo of the placard was unreadable—although it looked to be about 1:48. This is the galleon that foundered in a hurricane off the Florida Keys 400 years ago this September, and was found in 1985. The estimated value of her cargo, including gold, silver, and Columbian emeralds, was USD $500,000,000.

Give or take…

[ccoyle]

Okay, call me silly, but I had expected that a "treasure galleon" would look a bit more flashy. But then, it probably wasn't a great idea to attract attention while carrying a fortune aboard.

[Shotlocker]

Outstanding meticulous workmanship. Way above my pay grade!

[allanyed]

She is indeed a beautiful piece!  I was of the understanding that she carried 24 to 28 cannon and the model shows only 8. The Fisher team recovered 20 bronze cannon but I am not 100% sure they are all from the the Nuestra Senora.  Maybe time to take a ride to the Mel Fisher Museum in Key West for more details.   The model looks like a modern day piece so I wonder when the model was built, and on what design/information it is based? 

Allan

[tarbrush]

just beautiful, thanks for posting these pictures!

[davos522]

Thank you all. It was a beautiful model indeed, and seemed new. Looked like a lot of dubloons went into all that Swiss pear... Artesania Latina is located just outside Seville; I wonder whether they were involved at all?
 

And Allan, if I read the exhibit signage aright (my Spanish is woefully inadequate) then the Señora was also carrying guns as cargo, which might explain at least part of the discrepancy; and the Wikipedia article contains the following:

 

The Atocha alone carried cargo whose estimates range between $250 and $500 million, including silver from Bolivia, Peru and Mexico, gold and emeralds from Colombia, and pearls from Venezuela, as well as more common goods including worked silverware, tobacco, and bronze cannons.

 

Be interesting to know how accurate the model really is, do they have one at the Fisher museum I wonder?

 

Dave

[uss frolick]

Here's a very lengthy archeological pdf paper on the wreck site from the Fisher Museum. Very technical. But there is a model shown on page 104 and it looks completely different. Several interesting drawings of the guns, midship section, etc, follow that.

 

https://www.melfisher.com/Research_Archives/AtochaMargarita2016-2018PermitRenewalReportv2019-01-14_Redacted.pdf

 

 

 

 

[allanyed]

Great read for anyone interested, thanks for posting this.   Definitely need to make plans to drive over for a visit to the museum, the many bars, and maybe do a little fishing as well.😀

 

[davos522]

Frolick, ¡muchas gracias for posting the link to that PDF! Great stuff… much of the exhibit at the Archives of the Indies in Sevilla had to do with the wreck and recovery, and featured some relics and even one of the original underwater search “drones”. One of the recovered cannons can just be glimpsed in the background of my pic of the stern (which somehow got rotated 90° when I uploaded it). 
 

If I’m not mistaken the photo of the model on p 104 is a promo shot from Artesania Latina of their model of the galleon San Francisco II, rather than Nuestra Señora; the authors were apparently just using it to illustrate what a bumpkin/boomkin looked like. But the bottom line is that there were never any contemporary pictures of her, so educated  guesswork is going to figure largely in any reconstruction anyway. 
 

Allan, I hope when you do make it over to Key West you’ll take lots of photos. 
 

Dave

(PS - while you’re there can you cat-nap me one of Hemmingway’s six-toed felines? Always wanted to add one to the menagerie :-))

 

 

[davos522]

A better pic of the recovered cannon. Whether this was part of the ship’s battery, or cargo I don’t know; wish I’d taken a photo of the placard.