Here’s what you’ll learn from reading this story:
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Archaeologists have discovered a ceremonial coin placed under the foundations of a church in 1584.
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The Spanish colony of Rey Don Felipe, located in the southern tip of Chile, lasted less than three years due to harsh conditions.
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Archaeologists have located the ‘founding coin’ of the destroyed colony right where historical records say it was.
Hidden under the foundation of a church built at the founding of the Spanish colony of Rey Don Felipe, a ceremonial silver coin remains in the same spot it has occupied for 440 years. That coin was coined by colony founder and Spanish navigator Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa on March 25, 1584, and remained untouched until archaeologists recently brought it to light. Now, researchers hope the coin will shed light on the history of a long-vanished settlement.
As the Spanish and British argued over South America, the discovery of a passage at the southern tip of the continent offered both countries the opportunity to secure a favorable strategic position. The Spanish claimed lands on both sides of the strait and created colonies, but unfortunately the coin did not bring much luck to the settlers living “at the ends of the Earth”. Most of the 350 settlers were tragically lost within just a few years, and when English navigator Thomas Cavendish passed through the area some three years later, he renamed the site Puerto del Hambre, or ‘Famine Port’, due to the destruction wrought by the settlement’s people. Gradually, this location was put into historical oblivion. “For many centuries,” the National Museum of History wrote in a translation, “the exact location of its founding date remained only a reference in historical documents.”
Until a group of archaeologists got involved. Researchers used highly accurate geolocation and advanced metal detection systems to map the area and mark spots worth exploring, and one of those spots ended up containing a coin. The silver “real de a ocho” is located at the 440-year-old settlement’s founding church, where it was placed on a stone by de Gamboa when he founded the colony. “Most impressive,” according to a joint statement translated from Chile’s Center for Historical and Humanistic Research and Chile’s Austral University, “it was discovered in the exact position and position described by Sarmiento in his article on the Strait of Magellan: lying on the surface of a rock in the small church they built.”
Minted in Potosi (present-day Bolivia), the silver coin features the Jerusalem cross on one side and the coat of arms of Philip II on the other. It was one of the first truly global currencies and circulated in Europe, America and Asia. De Gamboa wrote about coin placement during the city’s founding, and although experts previously used his writings to find two bronze cannons at the colony in 2019, the discovery of this ceremonial coin further strengthens the writings’ accuracy.
The find of the coin offers a new starting point to explore the history of the site’s other structures, including houses and storage areas, some of which appear on surviving maps from the 16th century. “This discovery provides a rare and powerful point of convergence between textual sources and archaeological evidence,” said Soledad Gonzalez Diaz, lead researcher on the project and historian at Bernardo O’Higgins University in Santiago. archeology”. Living science. “Not only does it help confirm the location and layout of major structures in the settlement, but it also opens up new possibilities for reconstruction. [its] spatial organization.”
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