[Many thanks to Peter Jordens for bringing this item to our attention.] Miguel Gutierrez-Garitano (mail) writes, “In the 1950s, the remains of a ship five centuries older than Columbus’s Santa María were discovered in the sands of Havana; Only photographs and fragments of wood remain from the discovery, as it was covered with sand and has never been seen again.” Here are excerpts from Post office.
The news went unnoticed by almost everyone: Cuba was in turmoil, ruled by the Batista dictatorship and in full pre-revolutionary fire. It was then that a storm exposed the remains of a shipwreck off the coast of Havana, in the area between Tarara and Santa María, east of the city. This was, experts thought, the first foreign ship to arrive on the shores of Cuba. In fact, word spread that it was a Viking ship, which delighted the popular imagination. Despite all that, given the political and economic situation, the investigation by the team that found it – from the Speleological Society of Havana – did not go any further: the boat was covered to preserve it, after taking some pictures and keeping a few pieces of wood .
However, beginning in 2003, Cuban historian, archaeologist, and explorer Daniel Torres Etayo took up the trail and took it upon himself to unravel the mystery when photographs and samples from the ship’s hull resurfaced by chance. Authorities sent the samples to the Kon-Tiki Museum in Norway to be analyzed and dated. Thus, it could be known that it was a ship of 790 AD. The analysis revealed fragments of iron, a metal then unknown in America. Photographs reported an oversized helmet; and the evidence pointed more towards a European ship than a Scandinavian, or perhaps an African one.
The discovery became a revolution. Although Daniel Torres said, “There are some – he commented in an interview with the newspaper Rebel Youth in 2012—who say it could change history. But honestly, I don’t think that will happen, because the one who changed it was Christopher Columbus in 1492. Also, the fact that others could have reached our waters first is not unusual. We have documented cases of Iberian fishermen who, in colonial times, were lost in storms while fishing for herring and ended up senseless in the Caribbean. The Atlantic did not represent a physical barrier. The handicap was quite psychological. This ship could have been one of those, which does not mean that the crew was stationed there. I may have arrived even without people”, he underlined.
Famous for his studies on Taíno bateyes – a type of ceremonial square where pre-Columbian indigenous people practiced a type of ball game – and a series of shipwrecks scattered along the coast of the Greater Antilles, such as the Ciudad de Alejandría, a steamer that made its way to New York -Havana and which sank in the 19th century with all passengers on board, the works of this Cuban researcher have gone beyond the borders of the island. In 2011, Daniel Torres Etayo was honored to receive the National Geographic Society’s Emerging Explorer Award, which includes $10,000 in addition to a variety of research enhancement tools. Unfortunately, the economic blockade that Cuba suffers from the US prevents Torres’ group of researchers from enjoying the money; they also have great difficulty in bringing to the island some of the machinery or pieces of equipment needed to illuminate an enigma, the solution of which is considered an almost impossible mission.
Despite the uncertainty of the tools, the team narrowed the search area, from the initial three kilometers to an area of 100 by 80 meters. The great difficulty involved in searching the sand and technical deficiencies, however, have made it impossible to pinpoint the location. According to journalist and researcher Juan Antonio Sanz López, who lived in Cuba and researched the case, the research area is not easy. “There are beaches with lots and small bays. And there’s lots and lots of sand.” The same Torres team admits that by limiting the search area they were able to leave the wreckage outside. Therefore, it is about looking for “a needle in a haystack”. Sanz also suspects that the authorities make the search difficult, as he assures that it has already happened in other famous cases. What will be done if it reappears? The team does not plan to unearth the rest, as it would be too expensive and impossible to preserve. It is a question, experts say, simply to extract a new sample to clarify whether the dating carried out by the Kon-Tiki Museum is correct or not. “It could have been a Viking ship or a Saxon ship. Or an older Basque whaling, but in that case, the meeting would have been wrong,” says Juan Antonio Sanz. The expert insists that since 2012 there has been “absolute silence” about this exploration. But he thinks the ruins are still there, waiting to be rediscovered. Meanwhile, the mystery continues.
[Translated by Ivette Romero.] For the full article, see https://www.elcorreo.com/tiempo-de-historias/llego-playas-cuba-20220718100330-nt.html
