Metal objects were much desired. A 16 th -century shipwreck cargo off the coast of Esposende (Portugal) and the importance of studying ship cargos

doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-3246433/v1

Download PDF

Research Article

Metal objects were much desired. A 16 th -century shipwreck cargo off the coast of Esposende (Portugal) and the importance of studying ship cargos

https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-3246433/v1

This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License

Journal Publication

published 20 Mar, 2024

Read the published version in Journal of Maritime Archaeology →

You are reading this latest preprint version

During winter storms in 2014 and 2017, strong waves threw hundreds of timbers and artefacts into the Belinho beach in the North of Portugal. These were the remains of what was later discovered to be a 16th -century shipwreck, probably originating from Northern Europe. This paper aims to study the material culture associated with that site, mainly formed by hundreds of pewter, brass, lead, iron, and stone artefacts, discussing the importance of studying cargo. Most of these objects seem to have belonged to the ship’s shipment and are tied to a European trade system reflecting economic, cultural, and symbolic behaviours.

cargo

pewter

brass

shipwreck

The purpose of this paper is to study a ship’s cargo from a wreck found in Northern Portugal. Although ships’ cargos are frequently mentioned in archaeological publications, seldom, if ever, are those cargos approached theoretically. The reason seems simple when we consider that usually, archaeologists study material culture within a system of cultural, social, and economic relations and entanglements between human and non-human agents and cargos, except for when the study of “when and where they were made and by whom” cannot provide any extra information, especially with regard to use (Harding, 2016, 5; Hodder, 2012; Appadurai, 1986). So how do we analyse this cargo in a way that provides more than just a quantification and description of artefacts and discusses more than its economic importance? The answer is quite tricky, mainly because we lack all the human-object relations, especially from the moment they entered the vessel. Of course, we can infer what would be their potential use, which we did. However, it seems that when the ship was wrecked, the biography of those artefacts, or their lives, was almost interrupted. In his seminal paper “The cultural biography of things”, I. Kopytoff asks the necessary questions to analyse the biography of any given commodity: “Where does the thing come from, and who made it? What has been its career so far, and what do people consider to be an ideal career for such things? What are the recognized ages or periods of a thing's life, and what are the cultural markers for them? How does the thing’s use change with its age, and what happens to it when it reaches the end of its usefulness?” (1986, 66–67). When a ship wrecks, its cargo's projected life is interrupted thus, we cannot provide an answer to all these questions.

This interruption makes it difficult for certain cultural aspects related to use and consumption to be debated, the very same debates that archaeologists are so fond of in households, settlements, or even concerning other artefacts found on board a ship where objects had a specific use, i.e. the physician’s case on the Mary Rose, an anchor, a water barrel (Gardiner, 2005). Debating about the use of individual items can create patterns which allow archaeologists to construct narratives about the past and the people living in those spaces. For the Belinho wreck, we will try to reconstruct some of these possibilities, especially in relation to the ship and its discovery. When cargo is concerned, it does not seem that “obvious that objects in the past, as in the present, came into being, had a use-life, and went out of use” (Harding, 2016, 8). In fact, cargos seem to reflect precisely the opposite, that an object may have been involved in a premature death.

If cargo does not permit the study of the “complexity of relations between people and their material world,” it is necessarily the study of movement and artefacts in motion in very variable geographies. And while we cannot use them to study identities as consumer goods, we can question “why and how things moved in the first place”? (Escribano-Ruiz et al., 2021, 14)

Although not identified, that ship is believed to be Iberian. It can be dated roughly in the first half of the 16th century based on the style of artefacts, hull fragments and artillery. Though the hull and the artillery point to an Iberian-built ship, the cargo can tell us about the point of origin and the itinerary of the ship, being fundamental in understanding a ship’s identity. In the specific case of the Belinho shipwreck, although studies on its construction may have revealed that it was an Iberian ship, what does it mean to be Iberian? Recently Sara Rich questioned what forms the identity of an Iberian ship. What makes it Iberian? Being built in Portugal or Spain? What about being built in an overseas occupied territory? What about a ship built abroad but commandeered or purchased by the Spanish or Portuguese navy? (Rich 2022, 63). To those who study the history of wooden shipbuilding in Europe, an Iberian ship is a ship built in the Iberian Peninsula that shares a series of construction features that are typical to the region. These features, though they are often shared by other cultural areas, typically appear in different clusters of shared features. These construction features have been called ‘architectural signatures’ (Rieth 2021, 2624) and are the equivalent of Richard Dawkins’ concept of memes in that they are either spread or contained in organic, non-intentional ways (Dawkins, 1976.) To historians, an Iberian ship is a different thing, based more on Iberian cultural identity. This discussion is far too broad to be approached in this paper, though there are cultural similarities shared by Spain and Portugal in the early modern age that can be identified in the archaeological record (Casimiro, 2019). Certain artefacts, like ceramics, jewellery, coinage, and others, can indicate Iberian identity, though in the Belinho shipwreck, except for two pottery sherds, none of these objects was found. In this sense, is this an Iberian ship just because it was built with Iberian technology? The study of its cargo reveals that its final journey may have started far away from the Iberian Peninsula; is it still an Iberian ship if it were built in Spain or Portugal but owned and operated by non-Iberian people? We will get back to this debate later, mainly because the study of cargo can seldom contribute to this discussion.

During the winters of 2014 and 2017, exceptionally strong storms, known as Hercules and Doris, hit the northern Portuguese seashore. The violent impact significantly eroded several areas of sandy beaches. In one particular beach, known as Belinho, these storms revealed a previously unknown underwater archaeological context by throwing ashore a large collection of ship timbers and artefacts (Fig. 1). The first observation of this evidence was not made by archaeologists. They were discovered by Luís Miguel Calheiros and João Sá, a local sculptor searching for raw materials for his work on the beach in 2014. Sá noted that the timbers were not natural looking, and were found along metallic artefacts, which were initially believed to be damaged “helmets”. Together with some relatives, Sá collected a sample of these objects and informed the local heritage authorities.

Ana Almeida and Ivone Magalhães, archaeologists from the Esposende Municipality, immediately initiated a recovery operation to collect the remaining artefacts on the beach. After an initial analysis, they determined that the storm had deposited materials from at least two distinct archaeological sites. On the one hand, there were hundreds of roman amphorae fragments, and; on the other, there were the timbers and artefacts of what was believed to be an early modern shipwreck. Because of the wealth of material culture presumed to remain, the site, Belinho 1, was placed under daily surveillance between 2014 and 2017. Thanks to this, additional materials were discovered and collected, during subsequent storms and low tides.

The story of this discovery, the study of its timbers, and the recognition of its origin as an Iberian ship based on naval construction have already been widely discussed in previous papers (Bettencourt et al., 2014; Martins et al. 2017; 2020; Almeida et al., 2017; 2020; 2022; Delmas et al 2016). In this sense, the present paper will not approach this again except for contextualizing purposes. Instead, it will focus on the study of the artefacts recovered in association with what is believed to be an Iberian wreck dating to the first half of the 16th -century. Every time a paper is published about this shipwreck, the hundreds of artefacts recovered at the site are always briefly mentioned, with the sole purpose of providing a chronology, without a thorough analysis that will permit and enhance the discussion about the economic, social, and cultural importance of these items.

In 2014, immediately after the Belinho 1 site was discovered, researchers from the Portuguese Centro de História d’Aquém e d’Além-Mar (CHAM) at NOVA University of Lisbon undertook a preliminary study of the post-medieval timber collection under the direction of José Bettencourt, focusing on the key structural timbers that included the keel, stern knee, stern post, several floor timbers and hull planks. CHAM’s team concluded that the surviving architectural signatures on the Belinho ship timbers are consistent with early modern Iberian shipbuilding technology (Bettencourt, et al. 2014).

Following the announcement of the discovery of the Belinho site, historian Amândio Barros conducted an archival investigation to identify potential historical events related to the Belinho shipwreck disaster. His research focused on the Esposende area, near the beach of Belinho, during the late-16th and early-17th centuries. The research yielded an interesting candidate: a small merchantman with 70 to 80 tons of capacity named Nossa Senhora da Rosa, lost in the area during the winter of 1577. Further research uncovered documents that mention the salvage of part of the cargo on March 14 of the following year from the Belinho beach. Nossa Senhora da Rosa was sailing from the Canary Islands to nearby Vila do Conde, with a cargo of pitch and Madeira wine (Barros, 2016; 2020). As we will demonstrate, the material culture found on this site is not very consistent with this hypothesis.

Given the relevance of the Belinho artefact collection, the city council of Esposende invited a team of maritime archaeology and wood sciences experts from a Marie Curie funded project ForSEAdiscovery (2013–2017), to continue CHAM’s preliminary study. This survey took place in the summer of 2015 (Almeida et al., 2022).

In 2017, during one of the year’s lowest tides, the water conditions improved, and the original discoverers of the site Alexandre Sá and João Sá, detected two cannons and one anchor. In the following days, Alexandre Monteiro and John Sexton investigated the site via SCUBA, confirming the presence of the anchor and the two bronze cannons. We believe these were part of the ship’s defensive system and will not be included in our study. These bronze guns were found to be a pair of similar demi-culverins with octagonal sections, typical from the first half of the 16th century (Almeida et al., 2020: 197–198). They are similar to the one found in the Oranjemund shipwreck, on the Namibian coast (Monteiro, 2017). Two iron guns were also recorded, one a breech-loader, and another, a larger muzzleloader, both highly concreted (Almeida et al., 2020: 197–198). In 2018 in another monitoring dive, two additional iron guns were located, as well as several associated hull timbers, and more artefacts were also identified.

An analysis of the timbers recovered suggests that this ship may have been built on the Iberian Peninsula, given some of the construction traits observed (Delmas et al., 2016), and the dendrochronological analysis did not identify any northern European source.

The artefact collection

The first analysis of the materials recovered associated with the site of the Belinho shipwreck occurred in December of 2014 when during the conservation process, artefacts were divided into categories. Metals were the most abundant and were divided between copper alloys, pewters, ferrous materials, and lead. Other artefacts are made of stone, ceramics, and wood.

A collection of 664 artefacts were found in the intertidal zone. This number does not include wooden parts of the ship, lead fragments (which we believe to be parts of the hull’s construction), stone ballast, or objects directly related to navigation; because of this, the actual number of artefacts is much larger than 664. The objects found on the beach correspond mostly to pewter and brass objects (Fig. 2 and Table 1).

Table 1
	Diameter (cm)	Fragments	NMI
	14	3	3
	18	71	60
	24	156	123
Pewter circular plates	22	19	16
	3	50	33
	40	10	8
	47	9	7
Pewter octagonal plate	18	4	4
Pewter bowls	18	3	3
Pewter tankard		2	2
Pewter spoons		2	2
Pewter cover		1	1
Unidentified pewter		156	-
Brass plates	47	89	27
Brass basin		1	1
Brass almsdishes plates		7	7
Brass candlesticks		4	4
Unidentified brass		26	-
Needle		1	1
Buckle		1	1
Chain mail rings		32	2
Lead bullet		2	2
Lead chunck		162	-
Stone bullet		33	33
Axe		2	2
Sword		6	2
Nail		1	1
Metal ring		1	1
Metal chuck		1	1
Caldron		1	1
Ballast fragments		27	2
Wood object		1	1
Concretions		4	-
Coconut		2	2
Pottery		2	2
Cork lid		1	1

When the first objects were recovered on the beach (2014/2015) the Municipality of Esposende did not have the human resources or technicians to respond to the need that these types of artefacts, and their quantity, demanded in terms of conservation. That was the main reason for the request for external support from three main institutions:

Texas A&M University (TAMU), the Conservation Laboratory of Vila do Conde Municipality (LCRGAMVC), and D. Diogo de Sousa Museum (MDDS). These three institutions, together with the Portuguese National Centre of Underwater Archaeology (CNANS), assisted with the first conservation needs, namely washing and drying the artefacts. Simultaneously the conservation professionals from the Vila do Conde Municipality and Texas A&M University identified the first punction marks in the pewter objects.

Since the appearance of this shipwreck, the municipality of Esposende has reinforced its investment in the conservation of its cultural heritage. It started by building a tank to keep the rescued wood wet and to desalinate it. It invested in human resources capable of carrying out the conservation of these objects, acquired equipment such as a water demineralizer and conductivity meter, and acquired materials and tools. For the conservation of artefacts from this shipwreck, in 2022, CNANS donated a set of tanks to the municipality of Esposende, which allowed them to accommodate more material rescued from underwater archaeological sites. Since 2015 several artefacts have been X-rayed to record these objects, especially those stuck inside concretions. These X-rays are only possible due to a partnership with the Valentim Ribeiro da Santa Casa da Misericórdia Hospital in Esposende. Presently most of the artefacts associated with this wreck are properly stored in a controlled environment and available to be studied by researchers. The purpose of this controlled environment is to reduce material degeneration.

Recently (2020), some of these objects were cleaned so they could be integrated into the exhibition Patrimónios Emersos e Submersos – Do Local ao Global, included in the commemoration of five hundred years since Mageallan’s circumnavigation. Esposende Municipality employees were responsible for this process, according to the recommendations made by the different partners. The first conservation actions in 2014/2015 were carried out by Chris Dostal (Texas A&M University) and Ana Valentim (Municipality of Vila do Conde), who also carried out the first washes of the materials. Since 2019 the municipality of Esposende has had a conservation and restoration technician working on its collections. The complexity and diversity of materials in the Belinho artefacts are demanding. To overcome the difficulties of being able to treat such a diverse collection, different partners are consulted, for example, to carry out the treatment of copper, brass, and iron, the following were consulted: Texas A&M University; D. Diogo de Sousa Museum, Municipality of Vila do Conde and CNANS. The conservation actions carried out considered the proposals presented and the available resources.

The Esposende Municipality is now working to acquire a space where these objects can be stored individually to avoid deterioration.

Concerning the study, the publication of cargo and material culture aboard Iberian wrecks is not frequent and rarely reported with a monographic objective. This is one of the main reasons that make the study of the Belinho cargo so important when combined with the analysis of the ship’s architecture.

Cargoes and material culture, in general, tend to be neglected as monographic studies. For shipwrecks in or from both Portugal and Spain, there are only a handful of examples of early modern wrecks (dated from early 16th to late 17th century) that have been partially published where some concern was given to the cargo. This is the case of the Aveiro A, a wreck dated roughly from mid-15th to mid-16th century (Alves et al., 1995; Carvalho and Bettencourt, 2012); the Bom Jesus (1533) wrecked off the coast of Namibia (Werz, 2015; Knabe and Noli, 2012); the São João (1552) and the São Bento (1554), both off the coast of South Africa (Maggs, 1984; Auret and Maggs, 1982); the Seychelles (Boudeuse Cay) Portuguese shipwreck, probably Santo Antonio of 1589 (Blake and Green, 1986); Nossa Senhora dos Mártires in the Tagus River (1606) (Afonso, 1998; Castro, 2005; Coelho, 2008); Nossa Senhora da Luz (1613) (Bettencourt, 2008), Santíssimo Sacramento wrecked off Bahia, Brazil (1668) (Mello, 1979; Bandeira and Gomes, 2016); or Santo António de Tanná in Kenya (1698) (Sansoon, 1981; Gil and Teixeira, 2012; Coelho et al., 2017). Other Iberian shipwrecks have been found, some of them with intense research as it is the case of the Red Bay Wreck (Grennier, 2001; Grennier et al., 2007; Lowen, 1998), the Highbourne Cay (Smith et al., 1985), or the Emanuel Point wreck (Bending, 2019; Smith, 2018) just to name a few. Others had their cargos pilled and savage and are known just through some publications (Marken, 1994)

Exhaustive monographic studies of Iberian ships or ships with Iberian-related cargos were only made for a few dozen sites, such as the Studland Bay wreck in the United Kingdom (Gutiérrez, 2003), the finds of the Ponta do Leme Velho wreck in Cape Verde (Gomes et al., 2014), for the possible Esmeralda (1503) shipwreck found in Oman, (Mearns et al., 2015; Casimiro, 2018), for the Angra D (Bettencourt, 2018) and for the San Giacomo di Galizia (1597) (Casimiro et al., 2023).

Pewter

The most frequent items found on this site are pewter plates, with 490 fragments and 254 vessels (MNI) (Fig. 3). Morphologically the plates have a short flap and a round bottom. Seven different sizes of plates were recognized, with diameters ranging from 14 to 47 centimetres. However, the most abundant have a rim diameter of 24 centimetres. Three porringers with two floral handles, and a rim diameter of approximately 17 centimetres were also recovered. A flat object seems to be the cover of a book or the lid of a box. Two pewter spoons were also found, as well as two tankards missing their lids (Fig. 4).

Pewter objects are among the most frequent finds in Early Modern Age wrecks, most frequently as part of the sailors’ assets and not frequently as cargo. As cargo, the most recognizable is by far the so-called Pewter Wreck, sunk off Punta Cana somewhere in the 16th century and salvaged by treasure hunters, with more than 1200 objects made of copper alloy (Roberts, 2012; 2012a; 2013), or La Belle (1686) a French shipwreck with over one hundred pewter artefacts (Bruseth and Turner, 2004, 99).

As part of the crew or passengers’ assets, the number increases exponentially, and just as an example, since many more exist, pewter objects were also discovered on board the English Ship Mary Rose (1545) (Weinstein 2005), some of the 1588 Armada shipwrecks (Martin, 1975, 144), the Portuguese Namibian shipwreck (Knabe and Noli 2012, 185), and the Alderney wreck sites (Parham and Cousins 2018), dating from the second half of the 16th century, the Portuguese Indiaman Nossa Senhora dos Mártires (D’Intino, 1998). These are common finds in almost every early modern shipwreck. These objects are found in wrecks either as cargo or objects used in daily activities. Their resistance to breakage made them the perfect artefacts to resist the unstable environment inside any ship.

Portugal produced pewter plates, but few survive today. In 1539 King João III regulated the activity of the pewter makers (picheleiros), which were placed under the protection of Nossa Senhora da Oliveira (Zeller 1969). However, Portuguese marks are well-known and do not resemble any of the ones found at Belinho. Fifty-eight plates have marks of approximately 0.5 cm in size, and they are almost certainly all makers’ marks. Analysis revealed a variety of maker marks, all pointing to an origin in Northern Europe, where a majority of the workshops were located. The most abundant mark identified depicted a crowned hammer. These crowned hammers have many variants, depending on the producer. In one case, it is possible to recognize two manufacturer initials, "U" and "C", a brand type frequently used in Dutch or German productions (Fig. 5). Crowned hammers are represented in Belgium at the end of the 15th century (Greenland 1904: 94), in the 16th century in Switzerland, and in the 17th century in Scotland (Fiske and Freeman 2016). Another of the marks identified appears to depict a crown and a rose (Gadd, 1999), which is a frequent mark since the 16th century on pewter plates demonstrating the quality of production (Cotterel 1963).

Cupreous Material

The number of brass plates is smaller, with 125 fragments corresponding to 34 artefacts (MNI). These are larger in size since their average size is almost 50 centimetres in diameter. Only one can be interpreted as a basin, and seven plates present decoration (Fig. 6). These correspond to what is usually known as Alms Dishes and seldom, if ever, are found in shipwrecks. The most important production centre for these objects was Nuremberg, although these were also produced in other parts of Germany, the Netherlands, and the Low Countries, though in smaller quantities (Martins, 2010, 26). Alms Dishes are plates decorated with a large variety of motifs. The ones associated with the Belinho shipwreck had five variants. Two with floral decorations at the centre, one with St. Cristopher with a baby Jesus on his shoulders holding a walking stick, and another with St. George fighting a dragon so he could rescue the princess. One plate is decorated with an Old Testament scene where Joshua and Caleb transport a cluster of grapes harvested in the valley of Eshkol, and two others show a scene where Adam and Eve are tempted by the serpent in paradise. Some of the plates have legible text, which reads: DER.I.N FRID.GEHWART – He who brings peace and HILF.IHS. XPS.UND.MARIA – Jesus Christ and Mary.

This diversity of religious scenes points to use in an environment like a church (Gadd 2008). Some documents reveal that these objects were frequent in Iberian catholic churches and used to collect money among people or even to perform rituals such as baptism and the anointing of the sick (Martins 2010).

A single pot was found in 2016 with no handles, and it appears to have once had a lid. Its use is debatable. While all the other brass artefacts have been identified to have a specific function, this one could be just a storage vase. Four brass candlesticks were also recovered.

Other copper alloy objects are residual and correspond to two sets of chain mail, one with 24 rings and the other with 8 rings. The division into two artefacts relates to the fact that the diameter of the rings in each set and their manufacture are slightly different. There is also a fragment of a needle and a small bucket, similar to the ones used by everyone at that time (Whitehead, 1999). It is not possible to infer what these artefacts were doing on board; they could be personal effects of crew members or passengers, but they could also be cargo.

These copper alloy objects are frequently found on board shipwrecks and terrestrial archaeological sites because these were the types of things that were widely owned and used.

Iron

Seven iron objects were discovered, their state of preservation was poor, and the concretions around them did not permit visual identification. Analysis via X-ray radiography revealed two axe head fragments belonging to two different objects and at least two swords (six total fragments) one with pommel, handle, guard and the other with the tip of the sword's scabbard. The condition of these weapons did not allow us to go beyond general recognition of their function, and it is not possible to state if any of these objects were part of the cargo or tools and weapons used by people on board. One single iron nail was discovered, but it is impossible to accurately define its use.

Stone

To date, 32 stone cannon balls have been recovered on the Belinho beach. Although the petrological analysis is pending, they appear to be cut of granite, limestone, and volcanic rocks, revealing different origins. Diameters vary between 7 and 9 centimetres on the smaller ones and between 12.5 and 18 centimetres on the larger ones. The inclusion of these stone cannon balls in this paper relates mainly to the fact that we cannot be sure if these objects were cargo or ammunition used on the boat.

Ceramic

Only two sherds were found on the beach, both corresponding to carinated bowls. The paste is light buff and covered with white tin glaze, decorated with cobalt blue lines. The fabrics and decoration suggest that this is an Iberian production made in the 16th century, although the state of conservation of its surface does not permit a more refined chronological definition (Casimiro 2013).

Ships were, among many things, fundamental parts of a well-established transportation system carrying people and things and all the knowledge and ideas that they brought with them. We may never discover the name of the ship wrecked on the Belinho beach in the 16th century. The study of its timbers and the construction of its hull led archaeologists to determine that this ship could be classified as Iberian. The material culture inside suggests that, although it may have been constructed with Iberian technology, the port where it sailed from for its last voyage was much further north than anywhere in Iberia, most likely from a northern European port. The coherence of the collection, especially the pewter and brass objects, suggests that they were most likely loaded in one single moment, in one port, or nearby ports.

The pewter plates reveal the same production technology, and some of them bear similar or very similar marks. It is not easy to date pewter objects since these remain similar from the 15th to the 19th century, apart from some changes in the rims. Nevertheless, the crowned hammer is consistent with 16th -century production. As for the alms dishes, these are easier to situate in a narrower chronology. Although these were produced from the 16th to the late 18th century in several places, the styles of the objects found in the Belinho beach are quite similar to the productions made in the 16th century (especially between 1520 and 1580). Although metal plates are a regular find in European shipwrecks used for daily activities on board, the exceptionality of the brass plates indicates that these were part of the cargo.

In the case of the Belinho wreck, we do not know what its destination was meant to be, but we can discuss its origin or at least the origin of its cargo. It may even have been destined for a Portuguese port; although brass and pewter objects are not frequent finds in archaeological sites in this country, we know of their existence in Portuguese households through probate inventories. In the probate inventory of Catarina Loba, made in 1498, several pewter objects are mentioned. In her house she used plates from different sizes (quatro partes grandes d’estanho usados (…) hum partell pequeno velho e quatro saloerinhas d’estanho (…) tres trinchos d’estanho), one basin (hũa baçia d’estanho grande grosa usada), three porringers (tres escudellas), seven tankards (sete pichees d’estanho), a jar (hũa albarrada), and a salt cellar (hum saleiro de pe alto d’estanho). She also owned three candlesticks made of pewter. Oddly, the inventory also describes three pieces of pewter with no functionality, or at least a function that we are not aware of (huns pedaços d’estanho que sam tres) (Olaia and Pinto, 2021). The fact that pewter plates of different sizes, porringers, tankards, and candlesticks were frequently described in inventories during the 17th and 18th centuries points to a demanding market for them, at least in Portugal.

We propose that the pewter and brass dishes were cargo and not part of the crew’s and passengers’ personal items due to the uniformity of the collection and the high value and low utility of the plates.

With all of the evidence pointing to the Belinho 1 wreck dating to the 16th century wreck, the value of its cargo was likely enormous. Church inventories reveal that alms dishes were often owned by religious institutions, further elevating their inherent value (Martins, 2010). In the inventory of the possessions of wealthy nobleman D. Teodósio (c. 1505–1563), the average value of a small pewter plate (possibly akin to the 24 cm plates from Belinho) was around 60 reis. Brass objects were higher, and the average basin would be worth about 200 reis. As a comparison, a normal pottery plate costs no more than 5 reis (Fernandes, 2015), and a porcelain or small tin glaze bowl would be worth around 60/75 reis. Pewter and brass objects were expensive commodities (Hallet and Senos, 2018).

Terrestrial discoveries of pewter objects are rare. Metals are seldom found in domestic contexts, mainly due to their possibility of being recycled. Nevertheless, if these were frequent inside Iberian houses, as they were in Northern Europe, they would be found in archaeological contexts. In Portugal and Spain, people preferred to consume their food on ceramic objects. Thus, this cargo could have been destined to be used on board ships, where pewter plates were more frequent. As for the brass objects, their value and their absence from shipwrecks may indicate other uses. One should remember that brass objects in the mid-16th century were still used on the coasts of Africa to trade for other commodities. No matter its destination, the value of these objects suggests that this ship’s wreck was a huge economic loss for someone.

Despite the attempt to identify it as the 1577 Nossa Senhora da Rosa, the elevated number of metal artefacts on board indicates a northern origin for the ship. The pewter plates have marks typical of the German-Swiss region, and the cannons suggest a tentative date for this shipwreck somewhere between the first and the third quarters of the 16th century (Almeida et al. 2017). If the Belinho ship was coming from the Canary Islands with a cargo of wine, it first had to cross a northern route to get that cargo, reducing the hypothesis of this identification.

Perhaps most important that the ships or all the plates found and classified as cargo is the history of the discovery itself and what it meant for the concept of archaeology. When a ship wrecks so close to the beach, the objects and parts of the vessel itself are often thrown into the beach, and there are historical accounts of populations recovering those artefacts or even the sailors when surviving the disaster. The same happened to the Belinho wreck around 500 years after it sunk. It is not possible to ignore the relation with the adrift approach proposed by some archaeologists, where objects are found “far removed from their object and function” (Pétursdóttir, 2023, 260) when things brought by the sea have a heritage value. This is, in fact, the history of the discovery of this ship; when an artist looking for things brought by the sea for his artistic projects found the ship’s wood and artefacts, providing them with cultural significance before archaeologists were able to identify them. Although not the purpose of this paper, as archaeologists, we study the things that exist in the present, and the artefacts recovered on the beach in need of rescue and conservation allows us “to understand their pasts and their relevance to life” (Witmore, 2023, 281). The Belinho objects are as much part of the past as they are of the present, and that narrative should have major importance in the debate of how previous time periods, the ones that archaeologists usually study, engage with the Anthropocene.

The value of this ship is enormous in terms of understanding the relational value of the contacts between Northern Europe and the Iberian Peninsula through artefacts. This vessel reveals how people and commodities from different origins interacted in the creation of economic and cultural value. The presence of such pewter objects made in Northern Europe on board an Iberian ship, intended to be used in Iberian domestic environments or sent to be traded by other commodities, reveals a network of relations between people and objects. Ships were the main actors in this geographical relationship between distant areas while travelling and carrying cargo, and how and where the ships were built was less important than the connection that these ships established.

Acknowledgements

We want to thank the finders of the site for their commitment, insight, and tremendous support: Luís Miguel Calheiros, João Alves Sá, Alexandre Alves Sá and Emanuel Sá.

This project would not have been possible without the support and participation of the Municipal Council of Esposende.

Tânia Casimiro is funded by FCT by the project [DL57/2016/CP1453/CT0084].

Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Afonso, S.L. (ed.) (1998) – Nossa Senhora dos Mártires. The last voyage, Lisbon: Verbo.
Almeida, A.; Casimiro, T.M.; Castro, F.; Martins, M.; Monteiro, A.; Gomes, R. (2022) – The Belinho 1 Shipwreck, Esposende, Portugal, in Solana, A.; Castro, F.; Nayling, N. (eds) Heritage and the Sea, New York: Springer, pp. 119-144
Almeida, A.; Castro, F.; Monteiro, A.; Magalhães, I. (2020) – Belinho 1 Shipwreck: A probable 16th century ship lost at Esposende, Portugal,” in Clara Sarmento and Sara Pascoal, eds., Cultural Tourism and Heritage in Northern Portugal. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Editors, pp. 185-201.
Almeida, A., Castro, F., Monteiro, A., and Magalhães, I. (2017) – O naufrágio quinhentista de Belinho 1, Esposende. Resultados preliminares, AlmadanOnline, 21 (3), pp. 80-95.
Alves, F.; Rodrigues, P.; Garcia, C.; Aleluia, M. (1998) – A cerâmica dos destroços do navio de meados do século XV, Ria de Aveiro A e da zona da Ria de Aveiro B. Aproximação tipológica preliminar, in: Actasdas 2as Jornadas de Cerâmica Medieval e Pós-Medieval, Tondela: Câmara Municipal de Tondela, pp. 185-210.
Appadurai, A. (ed) (1986) – The Social Life of Things. Commodities in cultural perspective, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Auret, C.; Maggs, T. (1982) – The Great Ship São Bento: remains from a mid-sixteenth century Portuguese wreck on the Podoland coast, Annals of the Natal Museum, Vol. 25(1), pp. 1-39.
Barros, A. (2016) – Breve Relação do Naufrágio do Navio Nossa Senhora da Rosa, Perdido Através de Esposende em 1577. O navio do Belinho?. In R. Varela Gomes & M. Varela Gomes (eds.), A Gestão dos Recursos Florestais Portugueses na Construção Naval da Idade Moderna: História e Arqueologia (pp. 51-60), Lisboa: IAP/FCSH-UNL.
Bandeira, B.; Gomes, J. (2016) – Portuguese Faience from the Santíssimo Sacramento wreck, off Bahia – Brazil, in: Gomes, R.V.; Casimiro, T.M.; Gomes, M. V. (eds.) Proceedings of the First International Conference of Portuguese Faience (16th-19th centuries), Lisboa: Instituto de Arqueologia e Paleociências, pp. 297-306.
Barros, Amândio J. M. (2020) – Breve relação do naufrágio do navio Nossa Senhora da Rosa, perdido através de Esposende em 1577. O navio de Belinho?, in Boletim Cultural de Esposende, III SÉRIE, N° 1, pp. 169-200.
Bendig, C.D. (2019) – Amidships Assembly of the Sixteenth-Century Emanuel Point II Shipwreck, International Journal Historical Archaeology, 23, pp. 513–541.
Bettencourt, J.; Fonseca, C.; Coelho, I.; Carvalho, P. & Silva, T. (2014) – O Navio de Belinho. Catálogo dos materiais inventariados pelo CHAM em Junho de 2014. Report.
Bettencourt, J. (2008) – A nau Nossa Senhora da Luz (1615) no contexto da Carreira da India e da escala dos Açores: uma abordagem histórico-arqueológica, unpublished MA dissertation, Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon.
Bettencourt, J. (2018) – Os naufrágios da baía de Angra (ilha Terceira, Açores): uma aproximação arqueológica aos navios ibéricos e ao porto de Angra nos séculos XVI e XVII, unpublished PhD dissertation submitted to Universidade Nova de Lisboa.
Blake, W., Green, J. (1986) – A mid-XVI century Portuguese wreck in the Seychelles, International Journal Nautical Archaeology, vol. 15 (1), pp. 1-23.
Bruseth, J.; Turner, T. (2004) – From a Watery Grave: The Discovery and Excavation of La Salle's Shipwreck, Austin: Texas A&M Press.
Carvalho, P.; Bettencourt, J. (2012) – De Aveiro para as margens do Atlântico: a carga do navio Ria de Aveiro A e a circulação de cerâmica na Época Moderna, in: Teixeira, A.; Bettencourt, J. (eds), Velhos e Novos Mundos. Estudos de Arqueologia Moderna, Lisboa: Centro de História de Além-Mar, pp. 733-746.
Casimiro T.M. (2013) – Faiança Portuguesa: datação e evolução crono-estilística. Revista Portuguesa de Arqueologia, 14, pp. 355-373.
Casimiro, T.M. (2019) – Historical Archaeology in the Iberian Peninsula, Encyclopaedia of Global Archaeology. New York: Springer (doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51726-1_2677-1)
Casimiro, T. M. (2018) – Material Culture from the Al Hallaniyah Isle early 16^th century Portuguese Indiaman wreck site, International Journal Nautical Archaeology, 47, pp. 1-22.
Casimiro, T.M.; Martínez Ramirez, S.; Crespo Solana, A.; San Claudio Santa Cruz, M.; Castro, I.A. (2023) – The “San Giacomo di Galizia” Warship Galleon (1597)—Building Narratives through an Archaeological and Historical Reading of the Ribadeo I Shipwreck. Heritage, 6, pp. 1732–1753.
Castro, F. (2005) – The Pepper Wreck: A Portuguese Indiaman at the Mouth of the Tagus River, Texas: Texas A&M University Press.
Coelho, I. (2008) – A Cerâmica Oriental da Carreira da Índia no contexto da cara de uma nau – a presumível Nossa Senhora dos Mártires, unpublished MA dissertation presented to the Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas da Universidade Nova de Lisboa.
Coelho, I; Carvalho, P.; Teixeira, A. (2017) – A cozinha e a mesa a bordo da fragata Santo António de Taná (Mombaça, 1697): estudo de objectos metálicos e em madeira, in Arnaud, J.; Martins, A. (eds), Arqueologia em Portugal – 2017 – Estado da Questão, Lisbon: Associação dos Arqueólogos Portugueses, pp. 1627-1639.
Cotterell, H.H. (1963) – Old Pewter its Makers and Marks. London: B.T. Batsford.
D'Intino, R. (1998) – Objectos do quotidiano, in Afonso, S. (ed.) Nossa Senhora dos
Mártires: A última viagem, Lisboa: Edições Verbo.
Dawkins, R. (1976) – The Selfish Gene. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.
Delmás, M. M. D.; Groenendijk, P. P.; González, I. I. G. (2016) – Dendrochronological research of samples from the Belinho shipwreck (Esposende, Portugal). Report No. 2015006, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Lugo, Spain.
Escribano-Ruiz, S.; Naum, M.; Linna, J. (2021) – Introduction, in Naum, M.; Linna, J.; Escribano-Ruiz, S. (eds.) Material Exchanges in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Archaeologival perspectives, Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 11-24.
Fernandes, I. (2013) – A loiça preta em Portugal: estudo histórico, modos de fazer e de usar, unpublished PhD dissertation, Universidade do Minho.
Fiske, J.; Freeman, S. (2016) – Hallmarks, Touchmarks and Guilds: regulating the Production of Silver, pewter, and Furniture.
Gadd, J, (1999) – The Crowned Rose as a secondary touch on pewter, The Journal of the Pewter Society, vol.12 (2), pp. 46-55.
Gadd, J. (2008) – Brass Basins and Bowls from a single Nuremberg Workshop (1500-1580), Journal of the Antique Metalware Society, 16, pp. 2-21.
Gardiner, J.; Alen, M. (2005) – Before the Mast. Life and Death aboard the Mary Rose. The Mary Rose Trust, Ltd: Portsmouth
Gil, L.; Teixeira, A. (2012) – Cada botão sua casaca: indumentária recuperada nas escavações arqueológicas da fragata Santo António de Taná, naufragada em Mombaça em 1697. In Velhos e Novos Mundos. Estudos de Arqueologia Moderna, Teixeira, A.; Bettencourt, A. Eds. Vol. 2 (ArqueoArte 1). Centro de História de Além-Mar: Lisbon, 2012, pp. 671-682.
Gomes, M.V.; Casimiro, T.M.; Gonçalves, J. (2014) – A Late 17th-Century Trade Cargo from Ponta do Leme Velho, Sal Island, Cape Verde, International Journal Nautical Archaeology, 44(1), pp. 160-172.
Greenland, C.F. (1904) Old pewter, Chambers Edinburg Journal, 6, pp. 93-96
Grennier, R. (2001) – The basque whaling ship from Red Bay, Labrador: a treasure trove of data on Iberian atlantic shipbuilding design and techniques in the mid-16th century, in (Alves, F (ed.) Proceedings. International Symposium on Archaeology of Medieval an Modern Ships of Iberian-AtlanticTradition. Hull remains, manuscripts and ethnographic sources: a comparative approach, Lisbon, Instituto Português de Arqueologia, pp. 269-293
Grennier, R.; Bernier, M. A..; Stevens, W. (eds) (2007) – The underwater archaeology of Red Bay. Basque Shipbuilding and Whalling in the 16^th century, Ottawa: Parks Canada
Gutiérrez, A. (2003) – A shipwreck cargo of Sevillian pottery from the Studland Bay wreck, Dorset, UK, International Journal Nautical Archaeology, 32(1), pp. 24-41.
Hallet, J. & Senos, N, (2018) – De todas as partes do mundo. O Património do 5º. Duque de Bragança, D. Teodósio I, Lisbon: Tinta da China.
Harding, A. (2016) – Introduction: Biographies of things. Distant Worlds Journal, 1, pp. 5-10.
Hodder, I. (2012) – Entangled: An Archaeology of the Relationships between Humans and Things. Oxford: Blackwell
Knabe, W.; Noli, D. (2012) – Die Versunkenen Schätze der Bom Jesus. Sensationsfund eines indienseglers aus der Frühzeit dês welthandels, Berlin: Nicolai.
Kopytoff, I. (1986) –The cultural biography of things: commoditization as process, Appadurai, A. (ed.) in The Social Life of Things. Commodities in cultural perspective, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 64-94.
Loewen, B. (1998) – The Red Bay Vessel. An example of a 16^th century Biscayan Ship, Itsas Memoria. Revista de Estudios Marítimos del País Vasco, 2, pp. 193-199.
Maggs, T. (1984) – The Great Galleon São João: remains from a mid-sixteenth century wreck on the Natal South Coast, Annals of the Natal Museum. Pietermaritzburg. Vol. 26(1), pp. 173-186.
Marken, M. (1994) – Pottery from Spanish Shipwrecks (1500-1800), University Press of Florida
Martin, C. (1975) – Full Fathom Five. Wrecks of the Spanish Armada, London: Chatto & Windus.
Martins, A.; Castro, F.; Nayling, N. (2017) – Belinho 1: Registo e análise provisória às madeiras do navio,” in Gomes, R., and Monchet, K., eds., Proceedings of the International Conference Árvores, Barcos e Homens na Península Ibérica (Séculos XVI-XVIII), Lisbon, Instituto de História Contemporânea, 26 and 27 January.
Martins, A.; Almeida, A.; Magalhães, I.; Castro, F.; Bezant, J.; Dominguez-Delmás, M.; Nayling, N.; Groenendijk, P. (2020) – Reconstructing trees from ship timber assemblages using 3D modelling technologies: evidence from the Belinho 1 shipwreck in Northern Portugal,” in: Rodrigues, J. (ed.) Proceedings of IKUWA 6, Fremantle, Australia, 2016: 116-126.
Martins, J. (2010) – Pratos e Bacias de Latão dos séculos XV-XVI de temática religiosa da Casa Museu Guerra Junqueiro, tese de mestrado em História da Arte Portuguesa apresentado à Faculdade de letras da Universidade do Porto (texto policopiado).
Mearns, D.L.; Parham, D.; Frohlich, B. (2015) – A Portuguese East Indiaman from the 1502-1503 Fleet of Vasco da Gama off Al Hallanuyah Island, Oman: an interin report, International Journal Nautical Archaeology, 45(2), pp. 331-351.
Mello, U., 1979, The shipwreck of the galleon Sacramento—1668 off Brazil. International Jounal Nautical Archaeology 8(3), pp. 211–223.
Monteiro, A. (2017) – Armas Brancas e Armas de Fogo na Carreira da India: as evidencias arqueológicas do naufrágio de Orangemund, Namibia, in Actas do Encontro Internacional Árvores, Barcos e Homens na Península Ibérica (Séculos XVI-XVIII), Lisboa: IAP/FCSH-UNL, pp. 210-243.
Olaia, I; Pinto, P. (2021) – Inventário dos bens de Catarina Loba (1498), Fragmenta Historica, nr 7, 131-156
Parham, D.; Cousins, T., (2018) – Alderney Elizabethan Wreck Site Report 2018. Unpublished report presented to the Alderney Maritime Trust.
Pétursdóttir, T. (2023) – Drift, in Rich, S.; Campbell, P. (eds) Contemporary Philosophy for Maritime Archaeology. Flat Ontologies, Oceanic Thought, and the Anthropocene, Leiden: Sidestone Press, pp. 251-268.
Rieth, E. (2021) – Master Frame and Flat Floor-Timber: An ‘Architectural Signature’ of the Mediterranean Shipyards? Heritage, 4: pp. 2623–2642.
Rich, S. (2022) – Hauntography of an Ordinary Shipwreck: Paradox, Appellation, Provenance, Apparition. In Heritage and the Sea; Crespo Solana, A., Castro, F., Nayling, N., Eds.; New York, NY, USA; Springer, pp. 59–72.
Roberts, M. (2012) – The Punta Cana Pewter Wreck: a first look at a mid-16th Century cargo from the Caribbean, Journal of the Pewter Society, 35, pp. 3-15.
Roberts, M. (2012a) – The Punta Cana Pewter Wreck: the earliest known pewter in the Americas. Bulletin of the Pewter Collectors’ Club of America, 14(7), pp. 4-19.
Roberts, M. (2013) - The Punta Cana Pewter Wreck Pewter: Origin, Styles, Makers & Commerce(https://www.academia.edu/5090970/The_Punta_Cana_Pewter_Wreck._PewterOrigins_ Styles_Makers_and_Commerce)
Sassoon, H. (1981) – Ceramics from the Wreck of a Portuguese Ship at Mombasa, Azania, 16, pp. 98-130
Smith, R.; Keith, D.; Lakey, D. (1985) – The Highbourne Cay wreck: Further exploration of a 16^th century Bahaman shipwreck, The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology and Underwater Exploration, 14, pp. 63-72.
Smith, R. C. (Ed.). (2018) – Florida’s Lost Galleon: The Emanuel Point Shipwreck. University Press of Florida
Teixeira, A.; Gil, L. (2012) – Cada botão sua casaca: indumentária recuperada nas escavações arqueológicas da fragata Santo António de Taná, naufragada em Mombaça em 1697, in: Teixeira, A.; Bettencourt, A. (eds.) Velhos e Novos Mundos. Estudos de Arqueologia Moderna, 2 (ArqueoArte 1). Lisboa: Centro de História de Além-Mar, pp. 671-682.
Weinstein, R. (2005) – Early pewter with an English provenance. The Journal of the Pewter Society, 24, pp. 2-6.
Werz, B. (2015) – Saved from the sea: the shipwreck of the Bom Jesus (1533) and its material culture, in: Gschwen, A. J; Lowe K., The Global City. On the Streets of Renaissance Lisbon, London: Paul Holberton publishing, pp. 89-93
Whitehead, C. (1999) – Buckles 1250-1800, Chelmsford: Greenlight Publishing.
Witmore, C. (2023) – OOO, Archaeology, and the Anthropocene. Comments on Maritime Archaeology and Anthropocene Philosophy, in Rich, S.; Campbell, P. (eds) Contemporary Philosophy for Maritime Archaeology. Flat Ontologies, Oceanic Thought, and the Anthropocene, Leiden: Sidestone Press, pp. 279-308.
Zeller, R. (1969) – Estanhos Portugueses, Barcelos: Companhia Editora do Minho

No competing interests reported.

Download PDF

Journal Publication

published 20 Mar, 2024

Read the published version in Journal of Maritime Archaeology →

Editorial decision: Revision requested
02 Jan, 2024
Reviews received at journal
14 Aug, 2023
Reviewers agreed at journal
10 Aug, 2023
Reviewers invited by journal
09 Aug, 2023
Editor assigned by journal
08 Aug, 2023
Submission checks completed at journal
08 Aug, 2023
First submitted to journal
08 Aug, 2023

You are reading this latest preprint version

Metal objects were much desired. A 16 th -century shipwreck cargo off the coast of Esposende (Portugal) and the importance of studying ship cargos

Status:

Journal Publication

Version 1

Abstract

Figures

Introduction

The discovery

The wreck and previous work

The artefact collection

Pewter

Cupreous Material

Iron

Stone

Ceramic

Discussion

Conclusion

Declarations

References

Additional Declarations

Status:

Journal Publication

Version 1