Image © Mel Fisher’s Treasures
Today, the riches of the Atocha would be valued at hundreds of millions of dollars. For 363 years, this sunken Spanish galleon languished beneath the waters of Key West in Florida. A famous salvage expert, Mel Fisher, discovered the wreck in 1971 and brought this piece to the surface shortly thereafter.
This treasure describes just how people all over the world have regarded gold as beautiful and valuable at the same time, defining what “precious” means. Measuring a full four feet in length (1.292 metres), this heavy serpentine chain would have been worn as a badge of considerable status whilst functioning as a ready wallet; the chain comprises unsoldered links of very high carat gold (23 to 24 carat) which could have been prised apart by the wearer. In an instant, jewellery became currency in a form universally understood by the entire trading world.