Spain awarded shipwreck treasure

The law in France says 50% for the finder 50% for the owner. I don't know about other countries. Gold is often found here in old mansions. Last week the equivalent of 700.000 euros was found in a ceiling in a Champagne owner's house. The workers should get half of it.



Un trésor de 700.000

 

I agree with you. As for reviewing the files ... I 'm a Spanish citizen, no criminal record, not let me through the Hall of the Archives of the Indies the last time I was in Seville ... We face the same kind of mentality that made ​​it easier to smuggle from Portsmouth than to trade legally from any city in Spain.

The cooperation with Odyssey is almost impossible:, it was assumed they were looking for the Black Swan ... an Indiaman sunk near the Spanish coast. In fact the
The Guardia Civil (police) stated in report submitted to the Court of La Linea (num 3) that Odyssey looted 16 bronze cannons from HMS Sussex ... looted two ancient shipwrecks , Phoenician and Punic ...

Odissey? this is any kind of joke. Wasn´t it? Do you touch any thing with a "vacuum cleaner" or a dredger?

PS: the court tha give the coins to the spaniards were the court of TAMPA...

 

Which laws apply here? International, U.S. or Spanish?

 

If I've understand any thing it´s a matter of INTERNATIONAL LAW. As "La Mercedes" was a war ship the Spanish State retain the property... a link took from the "Black Swan project" Humm... it means our cort will have to call G.B. .... for the 16 Bronze cannons of the HMS Sussex.
[h=1]Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act[/h]

 

I ran across an interesting article in the PopMech online site, just thought some might enjoy reading it.

Goto:

What's the Total Value of the World's Sunken Treasure? - Popular Mechanics

 

I ve read articles like this before , In an Ideal world It would be great if all wrecks were left to be excavated and salvaged only by a team of professional underwater archaeologists, but we do not live in an ideal world. Government funds for something like marine archaeology is way down on their lists espically now , so some co operation with private funding would be an answer. But like anything else if you are investing your money into a project you'll expect some kind of return , which means recovering coins , gold or other valueables. Making all treasure hunting illegal will only drive it underground than nothing is learned and I believe like the illegal drug trade police and governments will only catch a small precentage of the salvagers.. So the best solution is for the two sides marine archaeologists and the treasure hunter to try to work together it isn't perfect but some knowledge however incomplete is better than nothing...

 

Well since the US is a signator to that particular "international law" that makes it a US law as well (the same goes for Spain I believe). Their only real hope of keeping this treasure was to stay under the radar. Once Spain got wind of it they were pretty much "hosed".

Just because they knew where the wreck was didn't mean they were under any obligation to salvage it. Under international law it was theres and could reasonably be considered a grave site as well.

If the salvagers wanted to make sure they got part of the treasure they should have entered an agreement with the Spanish government as others have suggested. Would have cut into their potential proffits though as not only would they have had to share they would probably have been required to inflict as minimal damage on the wreck as possible.

 

Saw something on this as far as British law goes a few years ago. There it depends (or at least used to depend) on how the treasure got where it was. If the intent was to hide it and recover it later it's distributed one way if it was simply lost it's distributed another. Maybe Historian has the details.

 

Here, We see the Odyssey Robot extracting a treasure, plunder, no archeology. And now they are in the Eastern Med.

[video]http://screen.yahoo.com/el-inventario-del-tesoro-de-las-mercedes-28400980.html[/video]