Around the World: Coins Help Identify Shipwreck
More than 400 gold Moroccan coins recovered from a 17th-century shipwreck helped researchers identify the vessel three decades after its discovery.
Persistence can pay off. It has in the identification of a shipwreck off the south coast of England. It took about 30 years, but due to, among other things, the gold coins that remained onboard, the ship has been identified as the Dom van Keulen.
The Dom van Keulen was a Dutch trading ship that left Morocco for the Netherlands in the autumn of 1633. The 400 gold coins recovered from the wreck about three decades ago aided in the ship’s identification, as is explained in the recently published book, From Morocco to the Coast of England: The Story of the Dom van Keulen and its Remarkable Cargo.
The book was made possible through the findings of historian Ian Friel, who uncovered previously unknown documents identifying the ship in the National Archives. Bournemouth University professor of maritime archaeology Dave Parham and former senior curator for Islamic and contemporary Middle Eastern art at the British Museum, Venetia Porter, edited the book.
The National Archives finding determined the ship “met with much tempestuous weather,” then sank off the coast of Salcombe, Devon, yet with the entire crew surviving.
According to Parham, “Among its cargo were 150 bags of gum arabic, 64 bags of saltpeter, 320 goat skins and 9,000 Barbary ducats, gold Moroccan coins. It is thought that most of the cargo was salvaged at the time, but more than 400 coins remained on the seabed until they were discovered by the South West Maritime Archaeology Group in 1995.”
Parham added, “This provides important context for the wealth and architecture of the Sa’dian Sharifs, the trade in African gold, and tangible evidence of the flourishing 17th-century maritime trade linking Morocco, the Low Countries, and Britain.”
Jeremy D. Hill is the head of research at the British Museum. Hill said, “The discovery of African gold from under the sea off the coast of Devon was an amazing discovery that raised so many questions about how it came to be there. Answering those questions has taken a team of experts, working collaboratively. The story can now be told of how a Dutch ship carrying North African gold was wrecked off the English coast, making this a discovery of international importance. It reminds us how much there is still to be found under our seas.”
The gold coins are significant in several ways. They have a pure gold content. Coins such as these were taken to what is today the Netherlands, where they were often melted and re-coined into Dutch ducats. Dutch ducats were accepted as an international trade coin.
The Sa’dian Sharifs were descended from the prophet via al-Hasan, son of the Orthodox Caliph ‘Ali. Muhammad al-Qa’im is known to have fought the Portuguese and Spanish in 1509. By 1554, the Sa’dis controlled all of Morocco after the capital city of Fez was seized. At that time, Muhammad al-Mahdi allied with England while simultaneously supporting Spain against the Ottoman Turks. In 1554, Queen Mary of England married Philip II of Spain, who became king consort through the marriage.
Both Christians and Turks continuously vied for influence in Morocco. The ‘Alawi sharifs gained control in 1654 following the death of Sa’di ruler Muhammad al-Shaykh al-Asghar.
The Sa’di Sharifs issued undated gold half and quarter dinar coins likely issued between 1603 and 1608 in the name of Abu Faris ‘Abdallah al-Wathiq b. Muhammad. Undated gold dinars and their halves were issued between 1603 and 1628 by Zaydan al-Nasir b. Ahmad, who ruled with Abdallah al-Wathiq and another brother until 1608. Further coins attributed to what is today Morocco would be issued by the Filali Sharifs between 1672 and 1727.
Only about 400 of the approximately 9,000 “Barbary” gold coins were overlooked by contemporary salvors. Today those coins, as well as all other artifacts gleaned from the wreck of the Dom van Keulen, are protected under the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973. The site is watched by the Devon and Cornwall Police marine unit and the National Coastwatch Institution Prawle Point station as part of Operation Birdie. Operation Birdie is a national initiative meant to prevent illegal interference with historic wreck sites. The Moroccan coins are now owned by the British Museum.
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