More treasure shipwreck news

The Florida-based treasure-hunting company, Odyssey Marine Exploration, announced its discovery of gold and silver - worth an estimated £250m - on Friday, but refused to cite the exact whereabouts of the wreck because of security concerns.

They said the coins were found in international waters, therefore outside the jurisdiction of any country and could legally be taken back to the United States.

But the Spanish government has said it thought the statement was "suspicious" after Odyssey sought permission to explore Spanish waters for the wreck of a British ship in January.

It sounds, however, as if Odyssey has its fingers in a lot of pies -- not all of them off Spain:

Experts initially thought it might be the English ship, The Merchant Royal, after a US judge signed an order granting Odyssey exclusive salvage rights to a site 40 miles off the south-west tip of the English coast.

Known as the "Eldorado of the seas", the vessel sank off the Isles of Scilly because of bad weather in 1641, laden with treasure from Mexico,

Dr Lane Bruner, a coin expert from the American Numismatic Association, said there were clues about the location in a statement given to a US federal court last autumn.

"They told a judge at that point that they had found the wreck of a 17th-century merchant ship in the Atlantic Ocean, just outside the English Channel.

From the Independent.

Posted by David on May 21, 2007 1:36 PM