Kristin Romey’s Depiction of The Exploration Period as Illustrated by Wreckage from Vasco Da Gama's Convoy

The mid 15th and 17th centuries are known as The Age of Exploration. European countries such as England, Portugal, and Spain, contained a massive desire for exploration and trade. At this point in time, spices were in high demand, particularly the spices that are originally from India and Asia. Such demands fueled the needs to drop anchor at the spice markets of the Indian subcontinent. The spice markets in the time period of the 15th century, were controlled by the Muslim rulers of Egypt located by the Red Sea.

In 1502, the king of Portugal, Dom Manuel I, reelected Vasco Da Gama as Captain-Major of Portugal’s fourth voyage to India. Dom Manuel I gave Vasco Da Gama a fleet of 20 heavily armed ships. Since this is Gama’s second time traveling to India, he is well aware of the hostile Muslim merchants. At this point in time, this voyage is the world’s longest sea route. Along for the ride was Gama’s maternal uncle, Vincente Sodré. Soldré was the commander of the Esmeralda in Gama’s fleet, and later he led a five-ship squadron to protect the Portuguese factories along the Southwest coast of India.

In 1503, Vasco Da Gama returned from India with spices and other treasures to Portugal as planned. But on the other hand, Gama’s uncle had other intentions. Sodré, his brother Brås, and the rest of the squadron left the southwest coast of India and sailed to the Gulf of Aden, located between the Arabrian Peninsula and Africa. There, the brothers captured and pillaged Arab ships. Later in that same year, Sodré and his crew took off for Al Hallaniyah, southern Oman today, where he ignored locals’ warnings of an oncoming storm. Sodré and his crew of the Esmeralda were taken into deeper waters off shore and vanished.

Recently, a shipwreck has been discovered off the coast of Oman, and is believed to be the oldest shipwreck from Europe’s Golden Age of Exploration to be discovered and excavated. In fact, the shipwreck is believed to be Vasco Da Gama’s uncle’s ship, the Esmeralda. The wreckage was first discovered in 1998 but excavation only began in 2013. The Oman Ministry of Heritage and Culture and the shipwreck recovery Bluewater Recoveries Ltd., directed by David Mearns, are responsible for this remarkable excavation. The two teams snorkeled around the discovery and soon realized that the sea at this location has high-energy wave surges, which gave this location its nickname as the “washing machine”. Because is the high-energy wave surges, most artifacts were forced deep into the sand.

All in all, the archaeologists were able to rescue and restore 2,800 artifacts. An artifact that gave away that this finding was a part of Gama’s fleet were 12 gold Portuguese cruzado coins from the reign of Joao II and Dom Manuel I. A silver coin called an ìndio was discovered. This silver coin is especially special because Dom Manuel I produced 1499 these specifically for trade in India, and only one other than this one has ever been found through excavation before. Stone cannonballs with the letters “VS” engraved in them, assuming they stand for Vincente Sodré, were found in the Esmeralda along with hundreds of lead shots that match the mines in Portugal, Spain, and England. A copper-alloy ship’s bell was found under a huge rock at the excavation site. This remarkable discovery is the earliest ship’s bell that has ever been discovered so far. After a CT scan, ‘498’ and a letter ‘M’ were found on the bell. Scholars and researches believe that the ‘498’ was originally ‘1498’, which places the finding in the perfect time period to finalize that this ship wreckage is the Esmeralda.

Kristin Romey’s article, Shipwreck Discovered from Explorer Vasco Da Gama’s Fleet, caught my attention just by the title. As a little girl, my grandfather would tell me stories of the great and extraordinary explorers of Portugal. Vasco Da Gama was a name I heard many times before, but not just in the classroom, but from the stories that my grandpa told me. He’d tell me about their journeys to India and how hard traveling by sea was back in the 15th century, not that he’d really know by experience. But he did not tell me these stories specifically about Portuguese explorers for fun and games, but because he was born and raised and Portugal himself. He has such pride in his country and the famous persons whom explored before his existence. So reading this article brought back fond childhood memories and made me remember where my family is from and how we got here. I hope to find the museums where the artifacts are so maybe I can take my grandfather with me. He would love to see the coins, especially, because he has many coin collections.

Kristin Romey’s article, Shipwreck Discovered from Explorer Vasco Da Gama’s Fleet, is extremely important in the world of anthropology because it is news of an extraordinary discovery of one of the earliest shipwrecks we’ve found so far. The anthropologists working on the site exercised underwater archaeology because they had to dive down to their excavation site to uncover artifacts of the Esmeralda. Historic archeology was used in this discovery, for the Portuguese had a written language during the time period in which the Esmeralda sunk in 1502. Professors or high school teachers should introduce this article to students because it most definitely creates a spark and a lasting impression about this field. This article, specifically, is exciting because what could be more exciting than finding the earliest shipwreck ever discovered?