The world's greatest shipwrecks and their treasures

Incredible shipwreck discoveries

Courtesy of NOAA

As well as offering important historical insight, the world's most notable shipwreck discoveries have wowed us with unimaginable riches. Feast your eyes on 18 of the most sensational hauls ever, from the Tudor Mary Rose to the 'Holy Grail of shipwrecks' that was photographed earlier this month.

Mary Rose

PA Archive

King Henry VIII's magnificent wooden warship was rediscovered in 1971, languishing on the sea bed near the Isle of Wight in southern England. The Mary Rose was finally raised in 1982 in what turned out to be one of the most important – and expensive – salvage operations in history.

Mary Rose

Jonathan Brady/PA Archive

The UK's maritime find of the century, the splendid vessel, which was sunk in the Solent in 1545 after 33 years on the high seas, was packed with priceless artefacts that have provided an unparalleled snapshot of life in Tudor England. Among the objects recovered were 27 wooden tankards, an hourglass, and 82 nit combs – one of which was made from ivory.

Vasa

Matej Kastelic/Shutterstock

While England has the Mary Rose, Sweden boasts the spectacular Vasa warship. The richly decorated ship sank in Stockholm Harbour on 10 August 1628, shortly after embarking on its maiden voyage.

Vasa

Alexander Tolstykh/Shutterstock

Salvaged in 1961, the restored vessel, which contained numerous fascinating artefacts from clothing to coins, now resides in the Vasa Museum in central Stockholm and has become one of Sweden's premier tourist attractions.

Caesarea Treasure

Nir Alon/Zuma Press/PA

Israeli divers Ran Feinstein and Ofer Raanan made the discovery of their lives in April 2016 when they chanced upon a Roman shipwreck while diving in the Mediterranean Sea near the port of Caesarea.

Caesarea Treasure

Courtesy Israel Antiquities Authority

Considered the most important Roman shipwreck find of the 21st century, the 1,700-year-old vessel was salvaged by a team from Israel's Antiquities Authority, who recovered a wealth of antiquities including exquisite bronze statues, ornate pottery and thousands of ancient coins.

S.S. Central America

Library of Congress/Wikimedia Commons

Dubbed 'the Gold Ship', the S.S. Central America, which was laden with 480,000 ounces of the precious metal, met its end during a hurricane in September 1857. The vessel sank in the Atlantic off the coast of the Carolinas with the loss of 420 lives.

S.S. Central America

Bjoern Wylezich/Shutterstock

The ship was eventually rediscovered by the Columbus-America Discovery Group in 1988 and $150 million worth of gold was salvaged. That's the equivalent of $325 million (£268m) worth today. The Group's head honcho Tommy Gregory Thompson, who sold $52 million worth in 2000, was later sued by investors for not delivering on their returns.

Santa Margarita

Courtesy Mel Fisher's Treasures

Hundreds of years before the S.S. Central America sank, Spanish galleon Santa Margarita was lost in a hurricane somewhere off the Florida Keys. The ship contained a lavish cargo that included 9,000 ounces of gold, 550 silver ingots, and a plethora of fine jewellery and other valuables.

Santa Margarita

Courtesy Mel Fisher's Treasures

The ship was rediscovered in 1980, and a partnership was formed between salvage firms Blue Water Ventures and Mel Fisher's Treasures to recover the Santa Margarita's cargo. To date, an impressive $16 million (£13.2m) worth of treasure has been retrieved, including gold bars, chalices, and hundreds and thousands of rare pearls. However, most of the booty is yet to be found.

La Belle

La Salle's Expedition to Louisiana in 1684, 1844, Jean Antoine Théodore de Gudin/Wikimedia Commons

French explorer Robert de La Salle set off from the French port of La Rochelle on 24 July 1684, carrying essential supplies for La Salle's planned colony at the mouth of the Mississippi River.

La Belle

Courtesy Bullock Texas State History Museum

The ship never arrived at its destination. La Belle sank in January 1686, taking La Salle's plan for a French Mississippi River colony down with it. In 1995, the baroque vessel was found in Texas' Matagorda Bay. One of the state's most important archaeological finds, over a million artefacts dating from the late 17th century were recovered from the wreck.

Minjiang Treasure

Courtesy CFP

According to an age-old legend from China's Sichuan Province, thousands of ships loaded with crates of treasure accumulated by Chinese peasant leader Zhang Xianzhong sank in the Minjiang River back in 1646.

Minjiang Treasure

Courtesy CFP

Fiction became fact in March 2017 when archaeologists found the mythical treasure, though rumours suggest illegal antiquities dealers may have got there first. A colossal trove of sumptuous jewels, gold, and silver, the treasure consisted of more than 10,000 individual items worth hundreds of millions of dollars in total.

S.S. Gairsoppa

Courtesy Odyssey

This British merchant ship was carrying a staggering seven million ounces of silver when it was torpedoed by a German U-boat in February 1941 off the southwestern coast of Ireland, with the loss of 85 lives.

S.S. Gairsoppa

Courtesy Royal Mint

The so-called British Treasury Ship rested on the Atlantic Ocean bed until 2011, when the British government awarded a salvage contract to US firm Odyssey Marine Exploration. The company, which has recovered more than 1.4 million ounces of silver, gets to keep 80% of the booty, with a 20% cut going to the UK government.

Queen Anne's Revenge

Everett Historical/Shutterstock

The flagship of Blackbeard, the infamous pirate, Queen Anne's Revenge flew the skull and crossbones flag for eight years until one fateful day in May 1718 when it ran aground near Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina.

Queen Anne's Revenge

Joseph Nichols/Wikimedia Commons

Private marine exploration company Intersal discovered the wreck in November 1996, and have spent years salvaging the notorious pirate's booty. The retrieved treasures include a wine glass stem decorated with diamonds and tiny gold crowns, an ornate sword guard, and coins depicting Queen Anne.

America's greatest treasures waiting to be found

Whydah Gally

Jjsala/Flickr CC

Staying with buccaneer ships, grisly slave ship-turned-pirate vessel Whydah Gally was the flagship of Samuel 'Black Sam' Bellamy, the richest pirate of them all. The ship had a considerably shorter life span than Blackbeard's flagship. Launched in early 1716, it went down in a storm less than a year later.

Whydah Gally

Theodore Scott/Wikimedia Commons

In 1984, underwater archaeological explorer Barry Clifford found the wreck off Cape Cod using a 1717 treasure map. All in all, a total of 200,000 artefacts have been salvaged from the ill-fated ship. The Whydah Gally's booty ranges from thousands of silver Spanish coins to hundreds of pieces of rare African gold jewellery.

Antikythera Treasure

Andreas Neumeier/DPA/PA

As shipwrecks go, this Roman-era wreck discovered off the coast of Antikythera in Greece is one of the most intriguing. Fished from the depths back in 1900, the 1st century BC ship was found to contain the world's oldest-known computer.

Antikythera Treasure

Shutterstock

The Antikythera mechanism, as the ancient PC is known, is an analogue device that was used to predict astronomical positions and eclipses. Other priceless artefacts recovered from the wreck include marble statues of Greeks gods, several pieces of fine glasswork, and a bronze lyre.

Uluburun Treasure

Martin Bahmann/Wikimedia Commons

One of the most ancient shipwrecks ever found, the Uluburn Treasure dates way back to the late 14th century BC. The Bronze Age wreck was located in 1982 off the coast of southwestern Turkey by a local sponge diver.

Uluburun Treasure

Zaferkizilkaya/Shutterstock

The discovery has been of invaluable importance to Bronze Age experts as the ship's diverse cargo, which features products made by nine or ten distinct cultures from Cypriot pottery to Baltic amber, offers a vital insight into Bronze Age trade.

Nuestra Señora de Atocha

PD-1923 Ancient Origins

Along with the aforementioned Santa Margarita, the Nuestra Señora de Atocha was part of the fleet of Spanish ships that sank in 1622 during a hurricane in the Florida Keys, while weighed down with a gargantuan cargo of treasures including jewels, gold, and silver.

Nuestra Señora de Atocha

Courtesy Mel Fisher's Treasures

Salvage firm Mel Fisher's Treasures led the search for the ship and oversaw the recovery of its spectacular cargo. Estimated to be worth an eye-watering $450 million (£372m), the 'Atocha Motherlode' comprises 40 tonnes of gold and silver, hundreds of thousands of silver coins, and some of the finest emeralds ever mined.

Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes

Four Frigates Capturing Spanish Treasure Ship, 1804, Francis Sartorius/Wikimedia Commons

Spanish Navy frigate Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes was sunk by the British off the coast of southern Portugal in 1804. The ship was transporting huge quantities of quinoa, cinnamon, and vicuna, not to mention massive amounts of gold and silver coins.

Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes

Jacinta lluch Valero/Wikimedia Commons

In 2007, leading salvage firm Odyssey Marine Exploration used metal detectors to find a hefty $500 million (£414m) worth of gold and silver coins. The treasure was eventually claimed by the Spanish government, which sued Odyssey in the US courts to get its hands on the cargo.

San José

Explosion of San José, 1708, Samuel Scott/Wikimedia Commons

This Spanish shipwreck may well turn out to be most valuable of them all. In 1708, the San José galleon was sunk off the coast of Cartagena, Colombia, during the Battle of Barú, taking its enormous cargo of gold, silver and emeralds with it.

San José

Myotis/Shutterstock

Regarded as 'the Holy Grail of shipwrecks', the location of the vessel was finally pinpointed in 2015 by the Colombian Navy, and a salvage operation was announced in July 2018. The mission was halted following several legal issues, including the question of whether recovered treasures could pay for the search operation. But in June this year, researchers hailed their latest success as new underwater images revealed the extent of the treasure on board...

Experts believe that between $1 billion (£827m) and $20 billion (£16.5bn) worth of gold, silver, and emeralds could potentially be recovered from the wreck. The images have shown that items of historical significance are also waiting to be recovered, including Chinese dinner sets, cannons, and coins.

The wreck is currently being preserved with a view to being fully recovered in the future. But it's likely the Colombian rescuers could face legal challenges from Spain, as well as Bolivia's indigenous Qhara Qhara nation, due to conflicting claims over the treasure trove.

RMS Titanic

FGO Stewart

We can't forget about the most famous shipwreck of all time, the RMS Titanic. The luxury cruise liner was built at a cost of $7.5 million in 1912, which is the equivalent of around $221.4 million (£184m) today. But the ship hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage and sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912 on its way to New York City. The ship is known for the tragic loss of over 1,500 passengers and many valuable items were also lost during the disaster.

RMS Titanic

Courtesy of NOAA

The ship sat at the bottom of the ocean for seven decades until it was discovered in 1985 by a joint American-French expedition. Over the past 25 years excavators have uncovered around 5,000 artefacts from the wreckage. Lost valuables range from more than $300 million (£248m) worth of diamonds to a priceless manuscript by writer Joseph Conrad, as well as five grand pianos worth thousands of dollars each.

Incredible treasures discovered in 2018

RMS Republic

Conklinj CC BY-SA 4.0

The Titanic's sister ship, the RMS Republic, also faced disaster just three years before the Titanic's iconic tragedy, colliding with the SS Florida (pictured) during its maiden voyage in January 1909. The Republic flooded with water after crashing and sank off the coast of Nantucket, causing six casualties in total, three from each of the ships.

RMS Republic

Titanic White Starships

It's estimated that the valuables that went down with the ship were worth over $1 billion (£828.6m), including a U.S Navy Payroll worth around $60,000 and a secret shipment of American Eagle gold coins worth over $3 million, allegedly intended for the Czar of Russia, that would be worth $84.5 million (£69.8m) in today's money.

Igara wreck

Youtube/ Richard Runyon

The Igara sank off the coast of Indonesia in March 1973. The cargo ship, which was carrying over 127 thousand tonnes of Brazillian iron ore, struck a rock in the South China sea and later plunged to the bottom of the 40-metre deep waters.

Igara wreck

Stephen Edwards

The ship was valued at over $25 million (£20.7m), making it the largest ever single marine insurance loss in history at the time. The entire rear section of the ship was later salvaged and used to build a new ship in Japan.

20 of the world's most valuable stolen treasures