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WET & HOT NEWS ! > Dominican Republic
Treasures from Capt. Kidd
The 17 Mar. 2010 at 05:53Museum news
By Cathy Kightlinger - IndyStar.com
Visitors today at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis got their first glimpse of one of three "treasures" after a large crate was opened, unveiling remnants from Captain Kidd's 17th-century ship.
The ship's cannon and other artifacts will be on display during "Treasures of the Earth," a collaborative exhibition between the museum and National Geographic. It will open in 2011 at the museum.
In December 2007, an underwater archaeology team from Indiana University -- led by Charles Beeker, IU's director for Underwater Science, announced the discovery of remnants from Captain Kidd's ship, which was made 70 feet off the coast of Catalina Island in the Dominican Republic. The cannon has been submerged underwater at IU, where it will remain until it moves to the museum.
"I could have it squirreled away at my laboratory at IU," Beeker said about the cannon. "But by bringing it to the Children's Museum, we're going to have a very broad audience of people that can come see this."
The cannon will be submerged in a tank of water inside the exhibit, allowing visitors to watch the process used to slowly clean encrusted materials off of it, said Jennifer Pace Robinson, vice president of experience development and family learning at the museum.
"We really want families to come in and feel the thrill of discovery, but (also) that they are part of the archaeological process," said Pace Robinson, who is in the Dominican Republic this week getting ideas on how to replicate excavation activities for the exhibit, and learning how to care for the cannon.
"Kids will have some of the excitement of being at a pirate shipwreck site, and we'll be able to replicate that in the exhibit for people who aren't able to come down to the Dominican Republic and see it first hand," Pace Robinson said.IU underwater researchers unveil 17th-century Captain Kidd cannon
The 01 Feb. 2010 at 06:32Underwater Archeology
By Jake New - Indiana Daily Student
The only pirate cannon ever recovered from the Caribbean has made its way to IU.
The centuries-old, chloride and coral-covered cannon that once belonged to the infamous Captain William Kidd was unveiled Thursday in the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation.
One of 26 cannons beneath the clear waters just 70 feet off of Catalina Island in the Dominican Republic, it was first examined by Archeologist and IU’s Office of Underwater Science Director Charlie Beeker and his team in 2007.
The 17th-century cannon is believed to have come from the Cara Merchant, a ship commandeered by Kidd, which he then abandoned in 1699 shortly before he was tried and hanged for piracy. The ship had been missing ever since.
“When we first looked at it, we knew that the Captain Kidd wreck was being hunted for by treasure hunters in this area,” Beeker said. “As an archeologist, it just looked like the right time period. We read through all of his testimonials from his trial, and it just seemed like it was matching. So we wrote a report to the government saying, ‘We’re going to do more research, but this could be Captain Kidd’s shipwreck.’”
With funding provided by a partnership between IU and the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, the cannon has been carefully transported to HPER’s underwater research lab for a five-year study.
The 300-year-old weapon will undergo a series of tests and experiments in its stay, but Beeker said the primary concern is conservation.Captain Kidd's pirate cannon from the Caribbean comes to Indiana University
The 29 Jan. 2010 at 05:05Underwater Archeology
From the Indiana University
The first pirate's cannon recovered in the Caribbean is resting in a Hoosier underwater science lab at Indiana University Bloomington under the watchful eye of archaeologist Charles Beeker and other researchers and students.The Children's Museum of Indianapolis, the world's largest children's museum, announces its partnership with IU to provide funding for the transport of the 17th century relic.
Beeker, director of the Office of Underwater Science in IU Bloomington's School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, has been authorized by Dominican Republic authorities to bring the cannon to his lab for five years of study and conservation.
"This is a great opportunity for Indiana University faculty and students to obtain hands-on experience during the conservation of this unique artifact that has created such international interest," said Beeker, who traveled to the Dominican Republic recently to oversee the shipping.
Sunken treasure hunt yields fabulous baubles off Dominican coast
The 25 Nov. 2009 at 10:45Treasure Hunting / recovery
From Dominican Today
The expedition headed by the renown treasure hunter Burt Webber to recover artifacts from the sunken Spanish ship "Solo Dios Gloria" has after almost one month begun to coax fine gold baubles and detailed silver items off the Atlantic Ocean floor, as the Hispaniola Venture salvage boat struggles to remain anchored in the season swells.
He said the name of the sunken ship was determined from its bronze bell dated 1694, which he previously recovered, and noted that his joint venture partner in the salvage operation is Marine Explorations, Inc.
In the emailed statement, Webber details the latest find of artifacts recovered from the bottom of a not-always calm ocean just north of the Dominican Republic, whose swells, “come rolling continuously over the site.”
“Hello Jorge........Writing to tell you that I appreciate the follow up story you did on our activities along with correcting the inaccuracies. As I write this E-mail, we're anchored over the wreck site of the "Solo Dios Gloria" off of Laguna Grande where we have now put in 26 days of intensive survey and excavation.Treasure hunter denies search off Dominican coast is halted
The 11 Nov. 2009 at 20:49Treasure Hunting / recoveryFrom Dominican Today
The famed treasure salvage expert Burt Webber Jr refutes reports that his current project within Dominican territorial waters has encountered friction with the Government in his ongoing operation in the Silver Banks protected area, as Dominican Today published recently.
The treasure hunter also specifies that his current venture seeks to recover artifacts on the sunken Spanish galleon "Solo Dios Gloria" and not the French "Scipion" as the article states.
Webber, who contacted DT just days after the article "Doubts surface as treasure hunter hits it big off Dominican Republic” was published, notes that he’s been conducting salvage operations in the country for 32 years, during which he has “had no problem with any Dominican governmental agency.”
In that regard, the Culture Ministry’s Sub-aquatic Patrimony Office director Wilfredo Feliz on Tuesday confirmed Webber’s assertion that the salvage work continues, and that the agreement to search for the artifacts is in effect. “There’s a contract between the Dominican Government and Webber’s venture which is in effect, he has the concession for his operations to go about his work.”Who Went With Columbus? Dental Studies Give Clues
The 19 May. 2009 at 08:50General Maritime HistoryBy Kari Lydersen - the Washington Post
The first planned colonial town in the New World was founded in 1494, when about 1,200 of Christopher Columbus's crew members from the 17 ships that made up his second journey to the Americas settled on the north coast of what is now the Dominican Republic.
Beset by mutiny, mismanagement, hurricanes and disease, the settlement of La Isabela lasted only a few years. The ruins remained largely intact until the 1950s, when a local official reportedly misunderstood the order from dictator Rafael Trujillo to clean up the site in preparation for visiting dignitaries, and had them mostly bulldozed into the sea. Little remained but the skeletons below ground in the church cemetery, which lay undisturbed until excavations began in 1983.
In the past few years, sophisticated chemical studies of the skeletons, especially their teeth, have begun to yield new insights into the lives and origins of Columbus's crew. The studies hint that, among other things, crew members may have included free black Africans who arrived in the New World about a decade before the slave trade began.
La Isabela was not the first settlement established by Columbus. When the Santa Maria ran aground off Hispaniola on Christmas Eve, 1492, during his first voyage, the 39 stranded sailors built a fort they christened La Navidad. When Columbus returned the next year, the fort had been burned and the crew massacred.
The study of the La Isabela skeletons grew out of a project in Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, where in 2000 researchers were surprised to find the remains of West Africans among those buried in a mid-16th-century church cemetery in Campeche. Vera Tiesler and Andrea Cucina from the Autonomous University of Yucatan invited T. Douglas Price, director of the Laboratory for Archaeological Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, to do isotopic analysis of those skeletons' teeth.Dominican Government, sunken treasure hunters mum on deals (Update)
The 06 Feb. 2009 at 03:05Treasure Hunting / recoveryFrom Dominican Today
The salvage company Deep Blue Marine has been diving after wrecks for treasures, including the French Scipion, an 18th century ship that sank off the Dominican Republic northern coast, although the Caribbean nation’s government has kept mum on this operation and another similar venture by the company Marine Exploration.
Utah-based newspaper sltrib.com reports that Deep Blue Marine is bringing up cannons, guns, plates and other artifacts. “That's what it does normally, look for treasure in the world's oceans. As with all treasure divers, we all hope to find gold and silver," said Allan Baird, Deep Blue Marine's project manager.
Baird, quoted by sltrib.com, said the company based in Midvale, Utah will be splitting the booty from its current salvage operation with the Dominican Government, and taking some of the artifacts to make jewelry to sell to museums and collectors. "We're getting ready to go on out with some of our things, including one of our huge, huge cannons that we have on site."Gulf treasure hunters went looking for gold, found lost military plane
The 21 Jul. 2008 at 08:36Treasure Hunting / recovery
From NaplesNews.com
They sound like treasure hunters. HammerHead. Fiberglass Bob. Caucasian Tim. And they talk like them, too. The grizzled salts and the young ones, too.
“I believe the gold’s out there,” said Jake Wicburg, the 14-year-old son of Capt. Tim (not Caucasian Tim) Wicburg.
And is he going to be the one who finds it ? “Oh yeah,” he says.
“The plane’s there and the gold’s there,” the elder Wicburg said. “I’ll be looking for it for the rest of my life.”
When a young Timmie Wicburg snagged a piece of an airplane on a fish hook in 1990, he had heard the stories. So had his dad, the late Capt. Jim Wicburg.
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