Viking shipwrecks in the Caribbean?

[Bobadilla]

Hello,

Before to start the new topic, I would like to wish you all from this Tresurenet Forum Happy New Year with many breathtaking finds and treasure hunting adventures. And the most important - come back home always in one piece and without any problem. If you do not find anything, at least have a fun!

Many articles and web pages have been dealing about controversal book of Menzies "1421: The Year the Chinese Discovered the World" during this year. Recently I read some interesting articles about the possibility that Viking ocean going ships sailed not only to Nueva Scotia coast but also to the shores of Mexico and Caribbean islands between 750 - 1050 A.C. Oklahoma runa stones and also others found on the territory of the USA confirm that Vikings indeed visited his land way before Columbus but there has not been any proof about their visits in the Gulf of Mexico so far. One of the latest theories states that the sacred god of Mayas, Quetzalcoatl, was taken into their reigion based on seeing bearded Vikings coming from the sea with their feared carved Dragons on heads of their ships. Bearded men are on many Mayan stone monuments without any explanations anyway. It was told that some of Viking ships were sunk on the coast of Yucatan and around some Caribbean islands cause of fouled weather. One group of invetsigators are supposed to seek the rests of these shipsduring the coming year.

What do you think about it?

Lobo

 

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[mad4wrecks]

"In Search of the Great White Gods" by Bob and Jenifer Marx deals with the topic of pre-Columbian contact in the Americas and cites many archaeological discoveries to support this theory.

 

[stevemc]

I have read of the early Anglo artifacts found in Oklahoma and other places. I remember Bob Marx found a Roman shipwreck off Brazil and the government buried in under tons of dredged material. I am sure it is very possible that early European explorers found there way into the Gulf of Mexico and beyond.

 

[Bobadilla]

I am very glad to hear your opinions. I am also in favor of these theories. Unfortunately I have not had a chance to read the book of Bob Marx but i will do the best to get it somehow. There is a place here in Dominican Republic called Bay of Samana which is surrounded with dozens of mangroves channels, most of them interconnected, small lakes, many hidden caves where original inhabitants of the island once had lived and it is said that there is a place where some white people once had lived way before the Columbus came. There is supoosed to be even small cemetery hidden somehere in the swamp. I am trying to get any possible evidence about it and, of course, I will keep you posted.

Lobo

 

[FISHEYE]

A person i know has the location of a bronze age phoenician shipwreck in the Caribbean.This wreck could change history.It could be worked with the proper funding for historical reasons.Anyone interested?

 

[Bobadilla]

A person i know has the location of a bronze age phoenician shipwreck in the Caribbean.This wreck could change history.It could be worked with the proper funding for historical reasons.Anyone interested?

Fisheye,

Of course, I would be interested! Can you send me email with some more details? I do not want to know the exact location, of course, but at least the region or island for me to think about some possible way how to work out everythig.

Lobo

 

[pcolaboy]

I would venture to say that anyone who can cross the upper North Atlantic in a completely open vessel with a flat square sail would certainly be able to manage traveling 1800 miles or so further south along a solid coastline and into the Gulf of Mexico and beyond.

 

[ivan salis]

old seafarers were a very tough breed indeed --the arabic spice traders of old bred with the locals in the phillipines thats where the muslim MORO people of the phillipines area came from --- they are much larger than the "locals"--- you would be amazed at the feats of sailing during the days of iron men in wooden ships --- look at capt bleigh and the life boat he was set adrift in --- it was much smaller than a viking vessel was --- see what kind of voyage he did in a open boat with little supplies --- Ivan

 

[Golddiesel]

A person i know has the location of a bronze age phoenician shipwreck in the Caribbean.This wreck could change history.It could be worked with the proper funding for historical reasons.Anyone interested?

Now how can they be so sure that the site is indeed phoenician or even bronze age? Were any artifacts found? or are they going off of some kind of coral formation that resembles a ship from that era?
Fascinating topic! However why wouldn't more archaeologists and historians be more inclined to confirm bronze age involvement in the new world??

 

[Gringo]

I have read of the early Anglo artifacts found in Oklahoma and other places. I remember Bob Marx found a Roman shipwreck off Brazil and the government buried in under tons of dredged material. I am sure it is very possible that early European explorers found there way into the Gulf of Mexico and beyond.

Uh...excuse me. But I can categorically, absolutely, and emphatically tell you that Bob Marx did NOT find a Roman Shipwreck off Brazil. I was there at the time, and I met with Bob Marx and an old friend some of you might have heard of, Harold "Doc" Edgerton, there in Rio, and I know the whole story about the "roman shipwreck" fiasco. I am surprised to hear of it after all these years, in fact.

But if Marx is saying he found a Roman shipwreck, he is deliberately lying about it. He knows it wasn't Roman. I was right there, physically present, when it was explained to him, by a friend of mine who was my agent in Brazil at the time. His name is Marco Santarelli.

 

[stevemc]

I didnt say I was told by Marx, so I didnt get the explicitive laced version, but I read it in the past about that. You know how the press can distort the facts. I always wondered why the government would have destroyed it though? Got any clues about that? Or what it really was?

 

[Gringo]

Sure. I can tell you what happened, from my own participation.

I first started working in Brazil in the early 70's. Met a diver on a harbor blasting job there, and we became friends and kept in touch over the years. In the 80's I was the product manager for an underwater tracking and navigation system, a sidescan sonar system, etc. My friend Marco had his own company in Brazil ( Geomap S.A. Rua Mexico, Rio) I signed them up as our sales reps for Brazil. I made a lot of trips down there.

On one of these trips, Marco and I were down at the yacht club in Rio looking for a place for lunch. I was amazed to look across the restaurant and see someone I knew, Dr. Harold Edgerton, of MIT. I had worked for Doc Edgerton's company (EG&G) for over ten years, and knew Doc. Of course I went over and said hello, and was surprised to run into him in a restaurant in Rio. Doc was with this guy who I did not know, but introduced him as Bob Marx. Former editor of Argosy magazine, and world renowned treasure hunter.. Marco and I joined them for lunch.

Doc and Bob Marx started explaining that there had been Roman amphora found on a wooden wreck offshore Rio. Very close, actually. Marx had convinced Doc to bring down one of his sub-bottom profilers to try to map the wreck. I was pretty amazed to hear about roman amphora in Rio, myself. But at that point had no reason to disbelieve it. Marx was going on and on about what an incredible find this would be, etc etc. I remember him being pretty full of himself, and we all stayed well into the afternoon, drinking and talking. Hydroacoustics, sonar, USBL tracking, ROVs etc. was my career for almost 40 years. I was ( and still am) very interested in finding things under the ocean.

During this entire lunch conversation Marco was pretty quiet. After we left Doc and Marx, we went back to my hotel, where Marco dropped me off. Later that evening he picked me up and we went to dinner. He told me he was not aware that I was friends with Doc. Within the world oceanographic and seafloor mapping community, Doc was a legend. Marco was in awe to have met him. Marco also knew Marx from earlier days when he was a diver in Brazil. I don't know the details of their earlier history.

Marco told me at dinner that while he could cheerfully watch Marx make an ass of himself, he did not feel right keeping his mouth shut about the amphorae if Doc Edgerton's reputation was involved. Then he told me this story.

Back when Marco was in college, he and some of his diving buddies came up with an idea to make a few bucks. One of them had a friend, or relative, ( I forget which) who had a shop in Rio that sold antiques, and old nautical stuff was popular. Brass portholes, binnacles, you know the shop type. Marco and his friends decided to have some pottery items made, and put them in the ocean to "age" them so that they would look antique. Grow a few barnacles, etc. They took a photograph from an encyclopedia, and went to a pottery place up in the hills above Rio where one of them knew the potter. They had him make up a number of copies of this pottery in the photograph, which happened to be a Roman amphora.

They then took the freshly made amphora out to an old wooden fishing boat wreck that they lobster dove on out of Rio, and they put them in the wreck. Marco said they never intended to claim these pots were roman, they just wanted them to look like old pots from the sea. They just happened to pick an amphora photo for the model.

Now, how Marx found out about these showing up on the antique market in Rio , I haven't any recollection of whether or not he told me about it. But he was now down there with Doc Edgerton and his SBP to find and document this wreck.

Marco and I called the hotel where Doc and Marx were staying, to ask if we could stop by. It was fairly late, but we knew they were planning to hire a boat the next morning and we wanted to let Doc know the amphora were not genuine before he went to all that trouble. Doc invited us over for a drink.

Well, when we got there, Doc and Marx were sharing a hotel suite, and Marx was already sacked out in his room. Doc, Marco and I sat up talking about all this. Doc laughed about it, and said he had run into an identical situation in the Med, where divers had "salted" a wreck site with modern pottery fakes. Marco explained that this was not his intention, they had just been college kids looking for an easy way to use diving to make a few easy bucks. About midnight, Marx woke up (probably from us talking in the next room) and came out. He was naked, by the way. The guy was a real piece of work. Anyhow, he threw on a robe and sat down, and right there Marco explained it all again to Marx. He told him, in front of me and Doc, exactly how the amphora got onto that wreck. He and his diving buddies had not gone back for all of them, we found out, and they had left several on the fishing boat wreck to age longer. Marco did not know if any of his buddies had been back, but suspected that some other diver had found the wreck, and the remaining fake amphora, and that was where all this started. He had put the jars on the wreck somewhere around 1970, and this Marx thing would have been around '83 or '84...so I am sure any amphora left on the wreck for 14 years would have looked authentic at first glance. But Marx was told they were fakes. He was pretty pissed off about it, but really, who could he be upset with? The next day Marco and I went about our business ( We were meeting with Petrobras about using underwater navigation systems to place drilling templates) and then I went on to other places.

Months later, when I was next in Rio, I asked Marco what had happened with the Marx/amphora thing. He told me Marx had hung around Rio long after that, making a nuisance of himself, until the government kicked him out of the country.

Now, as to whether or not the Brasilian government might have dumped dredge spoils over the area of that wreck, it's possible. It wasn't far offshore. They would know the wreck was modern, with no historical significance. Of course you are right, in that if it was a Roman wreck the government would have been trumpeting the news to the world, and it would be in a museum by now, and history re-written. Didn't happen, did it.

So, I was pretty surprised to read that someone reported that Marx had found a Roman wreck....because I know for a fact that it was not authentic, was not roman, and that Marx well knew that it wasnt. If he had gotten to the point of having one of these amphora dated, he would have confirmed that it was made from Brasilian clay around 1970.

But I admit, blaming the Brasilian government for obsuring his find of a lifetime makes a pretty good excuse for having no evidence....

 

[stevemc]

Great story! That explains a lot about why nothing was done with it, and why there never was anything else heard about it. Thanks.

 

[billinstuart]

Hey Gringo. LTNS. Interesting story..sounds like a guy I knew in Savannah. I restored properties in the historic district, and there was a guy who made "antiques" for the tourists. I wouldn't be surprised if some of this didn't occur in my area, the "treasure coast".

 

[mad4wrecks]

1) Marx never claimed he was the first to find the Roman shipwreck site. The initial newspaper reports from 1976, which Marx received while he was working in Australia, reported, incorrectly, that a Greek shipwreck had been discovered in the Bay of Guanabara, Brazil by a diver named Roberto Teixiera. There is a large rock nearby that comes within 3 meters of the surface.

2) Marx arrived in Brazil in 1979 and started a company called Fenicia Pesquisas Arqueologicas Ltda. and spent three years searching for and finding many wrecks around Salvador. Later he was able to dive on the shipwreck site in the Bay of Guanabara and recovered many amphorae shards.

3) Marx first saw 2 of the amphorae recovered back1976 while he was dining at the home of the director of IPHAN, the Brazilian Historical & Artistic Institute in Rio de Janeiro. (another case of an archaeologist with a personal collection of artifacts?) These were 2 of the many hundreds of amphoraes that were reported on the site by the diver Roberto Teixiera. A short 16mm movie of the site was made.

4) Amphorae shards from the wrecksite were sent to Dr. Eliezer de Carvalho of the Oceanographic Institute in Rio grande for carbon-14 analysis. The shards were dated around 2000 years old, plus or minus 140 years.

5) There are many reports of local commercial fisherman recovering large, intact macumba jars in their nets around the rock in the Bay of Guanabara. The fisherman would break these jars with a hammer and dump them overboard so they would not snag them again. That is why there are so many shards found there. The fisherman have identified the jars from pictures as the same as the Roman amphorae.

Since Marx is currently out of the country and not able to respond to Gringo's allegations, I have posted these paraphrased excerpts from the book In Quest of the Great White Gods by Bob and Jenifer Marx. The chapter on the Roman shipwreck in Brazil offers other evidence and the names of the people involved.

 

[Gringo]

Allegations? Thats pretty funny. I was there. You were not there. Or I would have seen you.

The amphora that Marx was planning to take Doc Edgerton out to were fakes.
Please put aside your Argosy fantasies for a moment and read your history books. Do you really think that if the Romans had rowed to Brasil, there would not be maybe a brief mention of it?

And I am SURE Bob Marx and any divers working with him would write nothing but the truth. The thought of profit would never enter their heads. This would be a discovery of interest to all mankind. The shards are in the Smithsonian, now, right?

Doc Edgerton is dead now. Maybe he kept a journal, I don't know, nor care. I also don't much care about what Marx wrote about it. He is selling something. I am not.

Marco Santarelli is still in Rio. I lost track of him, but believe he is running the family businesses after his father died in a hang glider crash. One of which was CobraSub, the manufacturer of Brazilian diving equipment. The family also owns a Brazilian boat manufacturing company. He could probably be reached if anybody cared, since he would know all the players and was one of the guys who put the amphora on the bottom anyway.

If you talk to your buddy Marx, tell him I said hello. I was the big blonde guy in the hotel room the weekend he was there with Doc Edgerton. And the Brasilian with me was Marco Santarelli.

 

[Gringo]

Nope. No grudge. That weekend is the only one I am talking about. The one that I witnessed first hand. I have not run across Bob Marx since then. I saw something printed here that I knew was not right, and said so. I can't say why he would spend four years on a dead end, only speculate. did it sell books?

Show me some of these hundreds of fragments, carbon dated 2000 years old by a reputable lab and I will think that there must have been another wreck besides the one he was looking for that particular weekend.

I would still ask why on a lot of issues, such as why date fragments when entire amphora from that wreck are available? Because fragments from Rome are easier to carry in your pocket to Rio?

Hey, three of the four of us who had that conversation are still alive. One of the three writes books about his adventures for a living. So does Clive Cussler, but Clive labels his fiction. Believe what you choose. I told you the truth.

As for the rest of the plot...for all I know the Knights Templar stole the intact amphora and smuggled them full of Jesus's ashes back to Rome where the Vatican has them locked away. I told you what happened while I was there. Not before, not after.

 

[Gringo]

Tell ya what I did for you. I did a couple Google searches. In one, I found out that the amphora pieces analyzed resemble something made in Morocco, well outside the Roman world. I also found out that the clay composition does not match known examples of the pottery it resembles. You can find this at:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1038045/posts

I also located a reference for Marco. His full name is Marco Saverio Santarelli Roversi. He is listed as the Director of the Mistral Tecnologia Maritima Ltda in Rio de Janeiro. Please...chase him down and ask him about Bob Marx, Doc Edgarton, and romans in rio. If I do it, you won't believe me. But thats the guy. No doubt about it.

Happy hunting. You will believe me next time.

 

[Bobadilla]

Hello Gringo and the others,

I believe what you are saying about your personal experience in Rio but, sorry, it proves only one case of fake ancient artifacts. How about other finds? I hope that you do not want to say here that all of them were fake?! I am talking here - among the others - about professor Payne from the Jalapa University who found in graves close to Mexico City some Roman jewelry. It was in 1961. In Venezuela the old jar with Roman coins dated 350 AC was found couple of years later. Speaking here about Phoenicians, they were very skilled ocean sailors, no doubt about it. Historical documents speak about it very clearly. In 1872 a stone with Phoenician inscriptions was found close to the city of Paraiba in Brasil. In 1968 it was announced that the inscription was real. And a little more.... Professor Elizabeth Hill found the rest of shipwreck close to the shore of Honduras in 1972. It was confirmed that the ship was from Cartage. Cartage sailors sailed the oceans 2000 years ago! Christopher Columbus himself discovered rest of old shipwreck evidently made in Europe close to Guadaloupe in the Caribbean during his second voyage. It was well documented in his log book from this trip.

I could keep on but it seems that it is only academic discussion, anyway. Sometimes I have a feeling that the actual historians do not want to change the history of the world. Imagine - once it would have been proved that hey were mistaken, nobody would probably believe them in any other maters.... I have my personal opinion about Menzies book "1421: The Year When the Chinese Discovered the World" but it is the same thing like with the UFOs: you have 1,000 cases but it is sufficient if you prove only one of them and you could change the history for ever.

Lobo

 

[Gringo]

Bobadilla, I am agreeing with you entirely. I am definitely NOT saying that people from Europe were not in the Americas in pre-Columbian times. I was taught in school that Christopher Columbus "discovered" America. Of course that was the way they taught history when I was growing up. And thats such a stupid statement. Its like saying Balboa "discovered" the Pacific ocean. I don't know what it was about those Europeans.... they were pretty ego-centric.

I am pretty well convinced that LOTS of vikings visited North America, and see no reason for a roaming, seafaring people not to keep sailing south. I believe the Irish monks stories, too.

And if you read what I wrote on this thread previously..you can see that I only addressed the specific incident that I know of, first hand.

From a practical standpoint, think about it. I now live on an island in the trade winds. Over the past two weeks the wind has has been blowing from the northeast steadily at 20 mph. I am sure these same winds have been blowing this same direction for thousands and thousands of years. If an early sailing boat were cruising anywhere in the Atlantic, and lost its mast or sail, and people on it managed to survive the crossing, they would end up over here somewhere. The Caribbean, or Central America. Having barely survived what must have been a long, terrifying ordeal through fishing, or cannibalism...once they came ashore in a land where there was food, water, and a native population...would they even try to attempt to make that trip again, with some makeshift repairs? Against the wind this time? I can easily believe they would choose to spend their grateful lives exploring the coast, safely, in a warm climate. As far as the people back in Europe, who were largely unaware of this side of the Atlantic until the 1500s, as far as they know it would have only been a case of yet another boatfull of adventurers who left port and never returned. They sailed off the edge of the earth. Sure, I totally believe its possible ancient sailors ended up surviving a trip like that.

I also believe in UFO's. But I know those amphora Bob Marx was investigating in Rio in the early 80's were manufactured about 14 years earlier by a potter in the hills outside Rio. I know the guy who confessed to being involved in it. And it totally explains why the clay was a mystery to the labs trying to analyze the pot fragments. Because it didn't come from Morocco or Europe, where their comparison samples were taken.