ATOCHA SPANISH SILVER

AIRED: Season 5, Episode 4
THE DETECTIVE: Tukufu Zuberi
THE PLACE: Key West, Florida

THE CASE:

In 1985, one of the greatest treasure discoveries was made off the Florida Keys, when the wreck of the Spanish ship Atocha was found. On board were some forty tons of silver and gold, which in 1622 had been heading from the New World to the Spanish treasury as the means to fund the Thirty Years’ War.

 A man from Cedartown, GA was a diver on that legendary find, and received two silver bars as compensation for his efforts. He's long been mystified by a strange mark that appears on one of the bars -- but the mark is mysteriously absent from the other bar.

History Detectives translates 300-year-old documents from the archives of the Spanish treasury in Seville to crack a unique code of communication among ship captains of that era.

Atocha Spanish Silver (PDF File 170K)
(requires Adobe Acrobat Reader)

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