1681 Spanish shipwreck holds intrigue for Texas researchers

Underwater archaeologist Fritz Hanselmann maps a section of the Encarnacion. The white scale marker is 12 inches. (Photo: Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, Texas State University) Underwater archaeologist Fritz Hanselmann maps a section of the Encarnacion. The white scale marker is 12 inches. (Photo: Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, Texas State University) Photo: Fritz Hanselmann Photo: Fritz Hanselmann Image 1 of / 77 Caption Close 1681 Spanish shipwreck holds intrigue for Texas researchers 1 / 77 Back to Gallery

Sword blades, scissors and mule shoes are a few of the myriad artifacts from a colonial Spanish shipwreck being studied by Texas researchers.

The Spanish merchant ship, which sank in 1681 off the Caribbean coast of Panama, is a rare find, according to underwater archaeologists at the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Texas State University in San Marcos.

Dug out of sand in July 2011, the ship, known as a nao, has recently been identified through painstaking analysis as Nuestra Senora de Encarnacion, which was built in Veracruz, Mexico, for Spain. The identification was accomplished partly through archival research in Seville, Spain, by project historian Jose Espinosa of the Universidad del Norte.

The 334-year-old wreck is extremely well preserved because it was buried in up to 3 feet of muddy sand and silt, said Fritz Hanselmann, head of the research team.

"The amount of hull that's still there is really unique for the Caribbean and any warm saltwater locale," he said. "Very few Spanish merchant naos have ever been found, making this one an extraordinarily significant find because it is so well preserved."

The entire lower portion of the ship's hull is still there, along with the cargo in the hold, including wooden barrels, more than 100 wooden boxes with sword blades, scissors, mule shoes, nails, ceramics and other items.

About 20 artifacts have been removed from the ship, in dives during 2012 and 2014, Hanselmann said. Among them are lead seals, devices that looked like coins and were attached to strings around items such as bales of cloth, to mark ownership. While the cloth has long since disintegrated, the lead seals remain.

The mule shoes suggest a direct link to the overland trade routes used by Spain to carry goods and money from places such as Peru through Panama to be loaded onto ships, project archaeologist Christopher Horrell, a Texas State alumnus, said in a statement.

The artifacts belong to Panama and will become part of a database about shipwrecks from the area at the confluence of the Chagres River and the Caribbean Sea.

The area has a rich, 500-year maritime history and holds 30-some shipwrecks, said Hanselmann, who has also worked on three unidentified shipwrecks discovered in 2011 in about 4,300 feet of water, some 150 miles off Galveston.

Hanselmann described the Chagres River as "mother nature's Panama Canal," which was previously used as one of two routes across the Isthmus of Panama, to get from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.

The Chagres feeds the modern Panama Canal and remains a crucial factor in today's maritime economy, Hanselmann said.

The Encarnacion was found during an overall study of the region and the continuing search for five ships that Capt. Henry Morgan, a Welsh privateer, lost in 1671, on his way to sacking Panama City.

"The Chagres has a very storied history and it is reflected in the remains of Encarnación and the other material culture that we are finding as part of this project," Hanselmann said. "We've barely scratched the surface of what we could learn about this area of Panama."