Colombia to Start Recovery of San José Shipwreck Treasure— but Many Complications Remain

Late last year, the Colombian government announced that group led by different state agencies will investigate, in the depths of the sea, the secrets of one of the most important treasures in the world: wreckage of the Spanish San José galleon.

The location of the galleon, which sank in 1708 near Cartagena, is a state secret and the value of the treasure on board has been estimated to be worth billions today.

Colombian Culture Minister Juan David Correa communicated the intentions of the Colombian government “once we treat those materials they will have to go to a laboratory at the Navy headquarters … between March, April, and May,” said Correa. “Ad I say those three months, because the behavior of the sea is very important in this process, and that has been explained to me by the Navy.”

The cross-institution group will be formed by the Ministry of Culture, Art, and Knowledge; the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History (ICANH); the General Maritime Directorate; the Colombian Navy; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; and the National Agency for the Legal Defense of the State (ADJE).

According to the Ministry of Culture, it will represent high-level scientific and archeological research “following international parameters in the matter that guarantees the production of knowledge and its value as an asset of cultural interest.”

But the debate still continues. A letter, published in its entirety by the newspaper El Espectador, signed by several academics, calls for ongoing dialogue regarding research. And Correa has agreed with them.

The most important request made calls for “the establishment of a public/private alliance to materialize the extraction of the pieces that are part of the archaeological context of the San José galleon is extremely inconvenient for the protection and better knowledge of the submerged cultural heritage of the country. With the legal and administrative figure of the public/private partnership, typical of the development of road infrastructures by concession, it is intended to deal with an absolutely different matter, such as the research, conservation, preservation and management of the nation’s cultural heritage.” 

On December 27, Francisco Hernando Muñoz Atuesta, general director of the Veeduría Nacional del Patrimonio Cultural Sumergido de Colombia (VNPCS), asked President Gustavo Petro in a letter to not  advance any exploration in the San José galleon due to a “presumed looting of the archaeological context,” which requires “the judicial inspection of the place of the facts” to be carried out before the expedition.

The fear of the VNPCS is that the scientific investigation may alter a scene of a presumed criminal act. “Therefore, it is imperative that the government refrains from any intervention in the archaeological context of the San José galleon before the corresponding judicial inspection is carried out,” said the organization’s director. “Any prior action could not only alter the scene of an alleged crime, but could also be interpreted as an attempt to cover up for those involved.”

As can be seen in the painting “Action off Cartagena,” an oil painting by English painter Samuel Scott (1702-1772) depicting the battle in which the Spanish galleon San José was sunk by English pirate ships on June 8, 1708, the galleon represents an important part of history — with a large sum of treasure onboard.

To all this is added another problem. In mid-December 2023 began the high-level tribunal that will define whether the State must pay a large sum to the US treasure hunter Sea Search, which claims that in 1982 it found the San José galleon and that up to 50% of its treasures belong to it.