Battle over "Black Swan" treasure continues

Last May, the Florida-based Odyssey Marine Exploration announced that it had recovered 500,000 gold and silver coins weighing 17 tonnes from a wreck in international waters in the Atlantic and flown them back to the US from Gibraltar.

The company has refused to speculate on the identity - or nationality - of the vessel and has further ratcheted up the intrigue by referring to the find only as the Black Swan.

Despite the secrecy and Odyssey's unwillingness to confirm anything about its discovery, the Spanish government is convinced that the Black Swan is Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes. . .

After months of legal wrangling, Odyssey has agreed to reveal the wreck's location to Spain, hand over photographs and documents, and allow experts access to the artefacts it has recovered. . .

Since news of the find emerged last year, some Spanish newspapers have denounced treasure-hunting outfits as "the new pirates of this century" who are hell-bent on ransacking Spain's archaeological heritage for profit.

But Madrid and Odyssey are now facing growing calls from Peru for some, or all, of the Mercedes' cargo to be returned to the South American country.

Peruvian campaigners say that because the gold and silver coins were probably minted from metal taken without permission by the Spaniards, they belong to the modern-day country, not its former colonial master.

Posted by David on March 24, 2008 9:31 PM