(light music)
– [David] When I tell people what I do,
there’s generally a sort of brief moment
of complete silence,
and then it’s followed by lots and lots of questions.
– [Narrator] David Mearns is a shipwreck hunter.
– [David] I think I did have some natural skills
and interest that sort of made me good at what I do.
I always liked research, and finding the shipwrecks,
you start research in archives.
So you’re looking for clues,
you’re working like a detective.
– [Narrator] Historical record is the seed
of much of David’s work, and also his passion.
– [David] The biggest turn-on to this whole thing
is really bringing that history to life,
breathing new air in and visual images
into stuff that is just on the pages
and papers in archives and libraries.
(bright music)
This is the earliest pre-colonial shipwreck ever discovered.
This is the Esmeralda shipwreck of Vicente Sodre.
– [Narrator] Vicente Sodre was the uncle
of famed explored Vasco da Gama
and commander of the Esmeralda,
a ship in da Gama’s fleet.
In 1503 a storm sunk the Esmeralda.
– [David] It’s from the European Age of Discovery
when Columbus, Magellan, Vasco da Gama
are going around the world.
– [Narrator] Nearly 500 years later,
and after six months of research,
David Mearns’s team located the Portuguese shipwreck
off the coast of Oman.
– [David] We have over 2,800 individual artifacts,
and so every object we find
is really the potential for completely new discoveries,
and we know we’re finding things
that nobody else has seen before.
This copper alloy metal disc
is one of the most important,
because it has the Portuguese coat of arms
and the personal emblem of Dom Manuel I,
and he was the king during Vasco da Gama’s reign.
Instantaneously I know we had the right shipwreck.
– [Narrator] The Esmeralda was part of the fleet
of Vasco da Gama, a Portuguese explorer
who was the first European to reach India by sea.
Da Gama sailed during a roughly 200 year period
now known as the Age of Exploration,
which began in the mid 15th century
as Europe sought out global oceanic trade routes.
This boom in exploration
was initially driven by the desire to reach
the spice markets of the Indian subcontinent,
and was another early step toward what today
is called globalization,
the development of an integrated global economy
marked by free trade of goods and services.
– [David] We all now live with globalization,
and it’s a word that was probably only invented
in my lifetime.
– [Narrator] As the explorers worked to excavate the ship,
tiny artifacts are some of the most amazing discoveries.
– [David] One coin in particular, the indio,
there’s only one other one in the world.
They call it the Ghost Coin of Dom Manuel I.
– [Narrator] The rare coin was commissioned
by Portuguese king Dom Manuel,
specifically for trade with India.
– [David] So to find something like that is like,
you know, this is like Hollywood story, you know?
– [Narrator] Another exciting discovery
was the copper alloy ship’s bell,
the earliest ship’s bell ever discovered.
– [David] This bell was under this boulder
for 510 years.
It’s in relatively good condition.
What’s really sort of fun about it,
it matched the date that Vasco da Gama
found the sea route to India,
and that was part of globalization.
This is really world history that we’re discovering.
– [Man] Who found that, then?
You?
– With the Portuguese crown and the emblem of the world.
(men laughing)
(pensive music)
