21.11.2003 The steamer was carrying a golden treasure

Twenty thousand twenty-dollar coins were carried by the paddle-wheel steamer Republic, which left New York on October 18, 1865. Two days later, however, a storm hit the ship and its cargo went down. The treasure was not recovered by underwater archaeologists until 2003.

Archaeologists discovered the treasure after 12 years of searching. The paddlewheel steamer Republic dates back to the Civil War. However, it was doomed by the aforementioned storm it ran into on its way to the defeated South. Specifically, New Orleans.

The crew battled the storm for two days. However, the vessel began to sink as its steam boilers failed. By then, the steamer was about 160 miles from the port of Savannah. Most of the people on board were saved, but the ship and its cargo went down.

The gold coins were just for the reconstruction of New Orleans. Several prospectors, including the well-known Odyssey Company of Tampa, began searching for the treasure. The search was difficult and lengthy, but also very expensive.

"In the early 1990s, I was approached by an expert who supposedly knew where the Republic steamer was located," recalled Greg Stemm, head of the archaeological team.

But archaeologists haven't given up the search. They even expanded the site they were searching. They concluded that the steamer may have been swept away by the Gulf Stream. They eventually discovered the wreck about 100 nautical miles off the coast. Using 20 sonars, they searched 2,000 square miles of bottom off the coast of Florida, eventually coming across the remains of the Republic at a depth of 510 metres.

Inside the steamers, they discovered gold coins. According to experts, the value of the coins found in 1864, on the reverse of which is the head of Liberty in a Phrygian cap, was 2.4 billion crowns. "We could have picked up the loot and disappeared within three days," Stemm said.

But the underwater archaeologists, on the other hand, recovered several items from the wreck, including an old wine bottle, which they presented as evidence of their find to a Tampa court, which confirmed that the find belonged to Odyssey.

Sources: www.impuls.cz, www.novinky.cz, www.bbc.com