From the Antigua Observer

PANAMA CITY, Panama, Jun. 7, CMC – Underwater archaeologists have solved the mystery of a shipwreck filled with blades, scissors and mule shoes more than three years after finding it in the waters off the Caribbean coast of Panama.

The vessel has been identified as the Nuestra Señora de Encarnación, a colonial Spanish ship known as a nao, or merchant ship, that sank in 1681 during a storm at the mouth of Panama’s Chagres River.

“This truly is an exciting and intriguing shipwreck,” said project director Frederick “Fritz” Hanselmann, who is also underwater archaeologist at the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Texas State University.

Very few Spanish merchant naos have ever been found, and even fewer have been unearthed in the Encarnacións’s amazing condition, Discovery News said.

Resting at a depth of just 40 feet, the 334-year-old wreck is buried in up to three feet of muddy sand and silt that preserved the entire lower portion of the ship’s hull, the report says.

Originally constructed in Veracruz, Mexico, Encarnación sailed as part of the Tierra Firme fleet, en route to Portobelo, Panama from Cartagena, Colombia.

Hanselmann and colleagues stumbled upon the vessel in 2011, during their ongoing search for five ships the 17th century pirate Captain Henry Morgan lost en route to sacking Panama City in 1671. A year before, the team recovered guns that were lost overboard when Morgan’s ships ran aground.

The manifest of the ship matches the archaeological record – that revealed that the ship sank with barrels and wooden boxes filled with swords, mule shoes, tacks, cloth roles, and lead bale seals with inscriptions. Apart from perishable organic material, the items are still in place.

According to the researchers, the area where the Encarnación lies may and hold up to 30 shipwrecks.

“The waters surrounding the mouth of the Chagres River and further along the Caribbean coast of Panama hold more than 500 years of storied maritime history,” Hanselmann said.

“The search for Morgan’s lost ships will continue and who knows what else we will discover along the way,” he added.

For more on this story go to: http://antiguaobserver.com/mysterious-caribbean-shipwreck-identified/