Wednesday, 24th January 2007 (5134 views)

An argument is building up concerning whether gold coins, which have been found by archaeologists or members of the public, are best preserved in a public archive or commodified and sold.

The Atocha coins are at the centre of the debate.

After being found in a 17th century shipwreck, they were donated to Delaware Technical & Community College in early January, but were then auctioned to collectors who use them as investment purchases or for private collections.

Treasure collectors have a special fondness for coins which are attributed to a famous ship or shipwreck.

However historians and anthropologists have been calling into question this decision because they say that artefacts such as the coins are important for use by scholars researching the past.

A statement from the Advisory Council for Underwater Archaeology said: "Whether it is relics from a civil war battlefield or gold or silver from a shipwreck, the mining of sites results in an irreplaceable loss to the collective heritage of present and future generations."

Historians are angry that the Atocha was salvaged at all because it lay intact on the seabed as an important artefact of European colonisation in 1622. Upon salvaging, the ship was ruined.

 

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