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Booty patrol
Booty patrol Charles Beeker is a man on a mission to save historic shipwrecks from professional treasure hunters
I
N THE mid-1500s, a merchant ship laden with wares set sail across the Atlantic headed for one of Spain’s Caribbean colonies. In its hull were hundreds upon hundreds of pewter cups, plates and flagons, silver coins, gold rings and at least one piggy bank. The ship crossed the ocean only to fall foul of shallow reefs off the eastern coast of what is now the Dominican Republic. As the wooden hull was ripped apart, its riches spilled out over the reef and sandy ocean floor. They remained there for 450 years, becoming dull and encrusted in hard calcium carbonate. For a time, they seemed destined to be permanently encased in the local reefs. Then, in 2010, a ship passing overhead registered a large magnetic disturbance on the sea floor. Divers working for a private company were sent down to hunt for metal objects, which they found in their thousands. The Punta Cana Pewter Wreck became one of the oldest known shipwrecks in the Americas. Its load remains the largest cache of pewter ever discovered. “This is one of the most interesting and important shipwrecks that I have ever seen,” says Charles Beeker of Indiana University’s Office of Underwater Science in Bloomington. Beeker, 63, is a formidable man with a no-nonsense mien and a workaholic’s approach to life. He has dedicated his career as a marine archaeologist to salvaging historic shipwrecks in the US and Caribbean. It’s a job that has repeatedly put him at loggerheads 40 | NewScientist | 11 June 2016
with another brand of shipwreck diver: the professional treasure hunter. Their relationship is ambivalent, to say the least. Beeker isn’t averse to collaborating with treasure hunters, but his goal is squarely in opposition to theirs. When Beeker works on a wreck, he seeks to leave it as undisturbed as possible – to study it underwater, then turn it into a submerged museum for divers. The treasure hunters are principally after its valuable contents, which they sell at auction.
An early calling Beeker’s fascination for submerged wrecks began early. As a child, he would visit family in the Florida Keys, where looting shipwrecks was legal, even glamorous. He started diving at a young age and was struck by the damage this was doing to wrecks. After a stint studying botany at Indiana University, he turned his attentions back to the oceans, eventually becoming director of the university’s academic diving programme. He obtained grants to excavate historic wrecks in Florida and the Great Lakes. In the mid-1980s, Beeker advised the federal government as it drafted the Abandoned Shipwrecks Act. Enacted in 1988, it declared wrecks found on the US sea floor the property of the state government, protecting them from treasure hunters and making it possible to turn them into museums. One way of doing this is to raise them from the deep and exhibit them on
National treasure... or just treasure? It depends who you ask
Courtney Michalik
PEOPLE
land. But this is neither easy nor cheap, especially for fragile wood and metal that have been submerged for centuries. As a result, Beeker and other archaeologists began advocating for bringing visitors to the wrecks instead. In 1989, Beeker helped turn this vision into reality at the San Pedro Underwater Archaeological Preserve, which lies 5 metres beneath the waves off the coast of Florida. Visitors can snorkel or dive on a Spanish wreck that was sunk by a hurricane in 1733, rediscovered in the 1960s and looted for its silver treasure before the state turned its remains into a museum, complete with replica cannons, an anchor and a commemorative plaque. On the back of this success, Beeker helped establish a dozen similar reserves in Florida and California. Faced with tricky US legislation, the professional treasure hunters headed to the Caribbean, where the wrecks were plentiful and many conservation laws more lax. Undeterred, Beeker followed, promoting underwater museums as a way for countries to reclaim their maritime heritage and still generate revenue. “As an archaeologist in America, I’m appalled that these American companies can own these foreign shipwrecks,” he says. “You can only sell a shipwreck once as a treasure hunt, but you can sell an underwater museum forever.” In fact, the “museums” don’t charge for admission. The idea is they generate profit for the region by boosting diving and snorkelling tourism. > 11 June 2016 | NewScientist | 41
Beeker soon found himself in the Dominican Republic, in waters that are rich in centuries-old wrecks. Many still hold goods that were either being brought back to Europe from the colonies, or, like the Punta Cana, carried overseas from the Old World. Anchor Research and Salvage, the company that discovered the Punta Cana in 2010, is a division of Floridabased Global Marine Exploration (GME). In a deal typical for the Dominican Republic, the firm obtained a government permit, excavated the wreck and took half the treasure. It sold more than 200 pewter plates and bowls at auction in 2013 for $400,000.
Unfinished business Beeker examined the site in 2014. From the anchors and cannons he concluded that the ship dates from the first half of the 16th century, one of just 10 wrecks of this era to have been found in the Americas. He sees it as a prime candidate for an underwater museum. “This site is begging to be protected,” he says. Aside from pewter wares, ceramics, mortars and pestles used to grind medicines and foods, medical equipment, early firearms and crossbows were also found. Beeker says they are important witnesses to the colonisation of the Americas. But GME says it has unfinished business at the wreck. In 2013, the Dominican Republic stopped giving it access to the area, which GME’s CEO Robert Pritchett claims is a breach of their agreement. As a result, in 2014, his firm filed a lawsuit against the government. The case is on-going. Pritchett says GME will not shy away 42 | NewScientist | 11 June 2016
Sam Haskell, Indiana University
Can you see it? At Punta Cana in May, Beeker spotted five anchors inluding this one
from what it sees as its legal right. About Beeker’s desires to preserve the wreck as an underwater museum, he says: “I have warned Charlie Beeker once about this issue, as well as the university he works for.” If Beeker carries out work on GME shipwrecks, Pritchett told New Scientist, GME will sue him and the University of Indiana. Beeker seems unfazed by the threat. It’s not the first time he’s tangled with treasure hunters. Some of the skirmishes have even got physical. In 2007, a snorkeller came across a pile of cannons in about 3 metres of water off the Dominican Republic’s south-east coast. Government officials asked Beeker if he could have a look. He and his colleagues eventually located 26 cannons, three anchor crowns, a section of the lower hull of a boat and other items, all of which helped them conclude these were the sought-after remains of the Quedagh Merchant – Captain Kidd’s ship, which had gone under in about 1698. The site was officially declared an underwater museum on 23 May 2011, the 310th anniversary of Kidd’s hanging in London for piracy. This
Thar she lies! The waters around the Caribbean have become the final resting place for many historic ships. Some shipwreck sites are now preserved as underwater museums FLORIDA
TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS San Pedro preserve
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
FLORIDA KEYS CUBA
Punta Cana wreck
HAITI 1724 Guadalupe preserve Nuestra Señora de Begoña
CAYMAN ISLANDS
Caribbean Sea
Quedagh Merchant underwater museum
500 km
didn’t sit well with treasure hunters, who had been searching for Captain Kidd’s swag for years. Beeker was having a drink with colleagues at his favourite restaurant in the Dominican Republic one day, when an inebriated man staggered over, pointed to their Indiana University shirts and asked if
C
Identifying centuries-old wrecks is never straightforward. In 2014, Charles Beeker, a marine archaeologist at Indiana University in Bloomington, was called on by underwater explorer Barry Clifford. Clifford had found a wreck off the north coast of Haiti, and thought it was none other than Christopher Columbus’s flagship vessel, the Santa Maria, which sank in 1492. He had a permit to investigate it and sought out Beeker’s help to confirm its identity. On first examination, Beeker said Clifford could be right. He proposed to the Haitian government that Indiana University carry out the studies. Instead, in October the same year, a team assembled by UNESCO did their own examination at the government’s request, and concluded that the ship hadn’t been part of Columbus’s fleet. Among other things, the team found fasteners typical of 17th- and 18th-century vessels, which suggests the wreck was too young. Beeker dismisses the UNESCO study as inconclusive, and says it didn’t
analyse the wreck’s wood, ballast or datable ceramics. According to Beeker, politics were behind the decision to reject his proposal. He claims UNESCO wouldn’t let him back on the wreck if he was working with Clifford. UNESCO denies the decision was political. In an email written shortly after the organisation reached its conclusion, Ulrike Guérin, responsible for underwater cultural heritage matters at UNESCO, acknowledged that the organisation frowned on Clifford’s presence because of his “commercial exploitation contract with the preceding government of Haiti”. But she said that didn’t influence their investigation. “I understand that Mr. Beeker and Mr. Clifford are frustrated that their find is not the Santa Maria,” wrote Guerin, “but our work in this matter was absolutely neutral and purely in response of the Haitian government’s request. If the site would have been the Santa Maria, we would have said so, please be assured of this.”
they were the archaeologists who stole Captain Kidd’s shipwreck from him. The man “started getting a little rowdy”, Beeker recalls. There was pushing and shoving, overturned tables and broken glass. “The guy had spent his savings and lost his marriage, and I guess he blamed me,” says Beeker. Despite the quarrels, he is willing to work with treasure hunters. Some of
“They concluded these were the remains of Captain Kidd’s ship” his peers flatly refuse to do this on ethical grounds, but Beeker believes archaeologists shouldn’t confine themselves to their ivory towers and may benefit from a carefully managed collaboration. In 2010, he invited treasure hunter Burt Webber to join his investigation of artefacts from the Nuestra Señora de Begoña, an 18thcentury Spanish ship in Dominican Republic waters. Beeker’s application for a government permit had been approved, but Webber’s was not.
ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty
Chasing the Saint
Columbus’s Santa Maria ran aground off Haiti
Beeker suggested they join forces. The union was short-lived. In a letter to Beeker, Webber accused him of being a “plagiariser and exploiter of other people’s work”. Webber says he found the Begoña in 2009. Beeker responds that only artefacts were discovered. “Webber is upset I never announced the discovery of the shipwreck, which he wanted credit for,” he says. “How can he be credited for finding a ship that has not been found?” For Beeker, such clashes are just part of the job. There are signs that his campaign for museums may have had some traction. “Charlie Beeker’s research provides an alternative to excavating and selling shipwreck artefacts,” says Francis Soto, technical director of the Dominican Republic’s underwater heritage office. “My government has not given new permits, and I hope we will instead look to make more parks to protect our maritime heritage.” One of the Dominican Republic’s museums, the 1724 Guadalupe Underwater Archaeological Preserve, is among the most visited shipwrecks in the country. “Not only has this provided tremendous economic benefits
through tourism, but it also helps tell the maritime history of my country and the importance of the Caribbean in the 15th to 18th centuries,” says Soto. Beeker is also trying to persuade officials from Haiti, Turks and Caicos, and Colombia to embrace underwater museums. He visited the Punta Cana site last month to take stock of its condition. He says the scene looks like a war zone, with excavated objects lying about, including five large anchors, cannons and horse shoes. Beeker was most excited to find pieces of the wooden hull. Very little is known about how the ships of the time were built and what kind of technology they had on board. “[There is] tremendous potential to gain new insight into the construction and lives of early 16th century colonisation of the Americas less than 50 years [after] the Columbus voyages of discovery,” says Beeker. The threat of a lawsuit doesn’t deter him. “I’ve been sued before,” he says. “I’ll take the heat.” n Michael Bawaya is the editor of the American Archaeology magazine 11 June 2016 | NewScientist | 43
I
N THE mid-1500s, a merchant ship laden with wares set sail across the Atlantic headed for one of Spain’s Caribbean colonies. In its hull were hundreds upon hundreds of pewter cups, plates and flagons, silver coins, gold rings and at least one piggy bank. The ship crossed the ocean only to fall foul of shallow reefs off the eastern coast of what is now the Dominican Republic. As the wooden hull was ripped apart, its riches spilled out over the reef and sandy ocean floor. They remained there for 450 years, becoming dull and encrusted in hard calcium carbonate. For a time, they seemed destined to be permanently encased in the local reefs. Then, in 2010, a ship passing overhead registered a large magnetic disturbance on the sea floor. Divers working for a private company were sent down to hunt for metal objects, which they found in their thousands. The Punta Cana Pewter Wreck became one of the oldest known shipwrecks in the Americas. Its load remains the largest cache of pewter ever discovered. “This is one of the most interesting and important shipwrecks that I have ever seen,” says Charles Beeker of Indiana University’s Office of Underwater Science in Bloomington. Beeker, 63, is a formidable man with a no-nonsense mien and a workaholic’s approach to life. He has dedicated his career as a marine archaeologist to salvaging historic shipwrecks in the US and Caribbean. It’s a job that has repeatedly put him at loggerheads 40 | NewScientist | 11 June 2016
with another brand of shipwreck diver: the professional treasure hunter. Their relationship is ambivalent, to say the least. Beeker isn’t averse to collaborating with treasure hunters, but his goal is squarely in opposition to theirs. When Beeker works on a wreck, he seeks to leave it as undisturbed as possible – to study it underwater, then turn it into a submerged museum for divers. The treasure hunters are principally after its valuable contents, which they sell at auction.
An early calling Beeker’s fascination for submerged wrecks began early. As a child, he would visit family in the Florida Keys, where looting shipwrecks was legal, even glamorous. He started diving at a young age and was struck by the damage this was doing to wrecks. After a stint studying botany at Indiana University, he turned his attentions back to the oceans, eventually becoming director of the university’s academic diving programme. He obtained grants to excavate historic wrecks in Florida and the Great Lakes. In the mid-1980s, Beeker advised the federal government as it drafted the Abandoned Shipwrecks Act. Enacted in 1988, it declared wrecks found on the US sea floor the property of the state government, protecting them from treasure hunters and making it possible to turn them into museums. One way of doing this is to raise them from the deep and exhibit them on
National treasure... or just treasure? It depends who you ask
Courtney Michalik
PEOPLE
land. But this is neither easy nor cheap, especially for fragile wood and metal that have been submerged for centuries. As a result, Beeker and other archaeologists began advocating for bringing visitors to the wrecks instead. In 1989, Beeker helped turn this vision into reality at the San Pedro Underwater Archaeological Preserve, which lies 5 metres beneath the waves off the coast of Florida. Visitors can snorkel or dive on a Spanish wreck that was sunk by a hurricane in 1733, rediscovered in the 1960s and looted for its silver treasure before the state turned its remains into a museum, complete with replica cannons, an anchor and a commemorative plaque. On the back of this success, Beeker helped establish a dozen similar reserves in Florida and California. Faced with tricky US legislation, the professional treasure hunters headed to the Caribbean, where the wrecks were plentiful and many conservation laws more lax. Undeterred, Beeker followed, promoting underwater museums as a way for countries to reclaim their maritime heritage and still generate revenue. “As an archaeologist in America, I’m appalled that these American companies can own these foreign shipwrecks,” he says. “You can only sell a shipwreck once as a treasure hunt, but you can sell an underwater museum forever.” In fact, the “museums” don’t charge for admission. The idea is they generate profit for the region by boosting diving and snorkelling tourism. > 11 June 2016 | NewScientist | 41
Beeker soon found himself in the Dominican Republic, in waters that are rich in centuries-old wrecks. Many still hold goods that were either being brought back to Europe from the colonies, or, like the Punta Cana, carried overseas from the Old World. Anchor Research and Salvage, the company that discovered the Punta Cana in 2010, is a division of Floridabased Global Marine Exploration (GME). In a deal typical for the Dominican Republic, the firm obtained a government permit, excavated the wreck and took half the treasure. It sold more than 200 pewter plates and bowls at auction in 2013 for $400,000.
Unfinished business Beeker examined the site in 2014. From the anchors and cannons he concluded that the ship dates from the first half of the 16th century, one of just 10 wrecks of this era to have been found in the Americas. He sees it as a prime candidate for an underwater museum. “This site is begging to be protected,” he says. Aside from pewter wares, ceramics, mortars and pestles used to grind medicines and foods, medical equipment, early firearms and crossbows were also found. Beeker says they are important witnesses to the colonisation of the Americas. But GME says it has unfinished business at the wreck. In 2013, the Dominican Republic stopped giving it access to the area, which GME’s CEO Robert Pritchett claims is a breach of their agreement. As a result, in 2014, his firm filed a lawsuit against the government. The case is on-going. Pritchett says GME will not shy away 42 | NewScientist | 11 June 2016
Sam Haskell, Indiana University
Can you see it? At Punta Cana in May, Beeker spotted five anchors inluding this one
from what it sees as its legal right. About Beeker’s desires to preserve the wreck as an underwater museum, he says: “I have warned Charlie Beeker once about this issue, as well as the university he works for.” If Beeker carries out work on GME shipwrecks, Pritchett told New Scientist, GME will sue him and the University of Indiana. Beeker seems unfazed by the threat. It’s not the first time he’s tangled with treasure hunters. Some of the skirmishes have even got physical. In 2007, a snorkeller came across a pile of cannons in about 3 metres of water off the Dominican Republic’s south-east coast. Government officials asked Beeker if he could have a look. He and his colleagues eventually located 26 cannons, three anchor crowns, a section of the lower hull of a boat and other items, all of which helped them conclude these were the sought-after remains of the Quedagh Merchant – Captain Kidd’s ship, which had gone under in about 1698. The site was officially declared an underwater museum on 23 May 2011, the 310th anniversary of Kidd’s hanging in London for piracy. This
Thar she lies! The waters around the Caribbean have become the final resting place for many historic ships. Some shipwreck sites are now preserved as underwater museums FLORIDA
TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS San Pedro preserve
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
FLORIDA KEYS CUBA
Punta Cana wreck
HAITI 1724 Guadalupe preserve Nuestra Señora de Begoña
CAYMAN ISLANDS
Caribbean Sea
Quedagh Merchant underwater museum
500 km
didn’t sit well with treasure hunters, who had been searching for Captain Kidd’s swag for years. Beeker was having a drink with colleagues at his favourite restaurant in the Dominican Republic one day, when an inebriated man staggered over, pointed to their Indiana University shirts and asked if
C
Identifying centuries-old wrecks is never straightforward. In 2014, Charles Beeker, a marine archaeologist at Indiana University in Bloomington, was called on by underwater explorer Barry Clifford. Clifford had found a wreck off the north coast of Haiti, and thought it was none other than Christopher Columbus’s flagship vessel, the Santa Maria, which sank in 1492. He had a permit to investigate it and sought out Beeker’s help to confirm its identity. On first examination, Beeker said Clifford could be right. He proposed to the Haitian government that Indiana University carry out the studies. Instead, in October the same year, a team assembled by UNESCO did their own examination at the government’s request, and concluded that the ship hadn’t been part of Columbus’s fleet. Among other things, the team found fasteners typical of 17th- and 18th-century vessels, which suggests the wreck was too young. Beeker dismisses the UNESCO study as inconclusive, and says it didn’t
analyse the wreck’s wood, ballast or datable ceramics. According to Beeker, politics were behind the decision to reject his proposal. He claims UNESCO wouldn’t let him back on the wreck if he was working with Clifford. UNESCO denies the decision was political. In an email written shortly after the organisation reached its conclusion, Ulrike Guérin, responsible for underwater cultural heritage matters at UNESCO, acknowledged that the organisation frowned on Clifford’s presence because of his “commercial exploitation contract with the preceding government of Haiti”. But she said that didn’t influence their investigation. “I understand that Mr. Beeker and Mr. Clifford are frustrated that their find is not the Santa Maria,” wrote Guerin, “but our work in this matter was absolutely neutral and purely in response of the Haitian government’s request. If the site would have been the Santa Maria, we would have said so, please be assured of this.”
they were the archaeologists who stole Captain Kidd’s shipwreck from him. The man “started getting a little rowdy”, Beeker recalls. There was pushing and shoving, overturned tables and broken glass. “The guy had spent his savings and lost his marriage, and I guess he blamed me,” says Beeker. Despite the quarrels, he is willing to work with treasure hunters. Some of
“They concluded these were the remains of Captain Kidd’s ship” his peers flatly refuse to do this on ethical grounds, but Beeker believes archaeologists shouldn’t confine themselves to their ivory towers and may benefit from a carefully managed collaboration. In 2010, he invited treasure hunter Burt Webber to join his investigation of artefacts from the Nuestra Señora de Begoña, an 18thcentury Spanish ship in Dominican Republic waters. Beeker’s application for a government permit had been approved, but Webber’s was not.
ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty
Chasing the Saint
Columbus’s Santa Maria ran aground off Haiti
Beeker suggested they join forces. The union was short-lived. In a letter to Beeker, Webber accused him of being a “plagiariser and exploiter of other people’s work”. Webber says he found the Begoña in 2009. Beeker responds that only artefacts were discovered. “Webber is upset I never announced the discovery of the shipwreck, which he wanted credit for,” he says. “How can he be credited for finding a ship that has not been found?” For Beeker, such clashes are just part of the job. There are signs that his campaign for museums may have had some traction. “Charlie Beeker’s research provides an alternative to excavating and selling shipwreck artefacts,” says Francis Soto, technical director of the Dominican Republic’s underwater heritage office. “My government has not given new permits, and I hope we will instead look to make more parks to protect our maritime heritage.” One of the Dominican Republic’s museums, the 1724 Guadalupe Underwater Archaeological Preserve, is among the most visited shipwrecks in the country. “Not only has this provided tremendous economic benefits
through tourism, but it also helps tell the maritime history of my country and the importance of the Caribbean in the 15th to 18th centuries,” says Soto. Beeker is also trying to persuade officials from Haiti, Turks and Caicos, and Colombia to embrace underwater museums. He visited the Punta Cana site last month to take stock of its condition. He says the scene looks like a war zone, with excavated objects lying about, including five large anchors, cannons and horse shoes. Beeker was most excited to find pieces of the wooden hull. Very little is known about how the ships of the time were built and what kind of technology they had on board. “[There is] tremendous potential to gain new insight into the construction and lives of early 16th century colonisation of the Americas less than 50 years [after] the Columbus voyages of discovery,” says Beeker. The threat of a lawsuit doesn’t deter him. “I’ve been sued before,” he says. “I’ll take the heat.” n Michael Bawaya is the editor of the American Archaeology magazine 11 June 2016 | NewScientist | 43