Wreck of Dmitri Donskoi with supposedly $130 billion in gold inside, discovered
77 replies, posted
I had a class on nautical archaeology from a guy who worked on the Uluburun wreak with the INA. He had a lot to say about Fisher. The Atocha was a 17th century Spanish treasure galleon that was loaded with gold items, gems, jewels, and countless other artifacts. It's absolutely a wreak that should've been recovered by professional archaeologists. Not only did Mel loot it's gold but he also sold forgeries in his gift shop. He was undeniably a scumbag.
The Demitiri is a 20th century Russian frigate. It's archaeological value is basically this alledged gold story. Otherwise it would likely be left alone as a wartime grave like most other military wreaks. The funny thing about the gold is theres actually no evidence it exists it seems. No one's ever been able to prove it. The last company that claimed it carried good had their stock go up 41%. Now this company, Shinil Group, is coming in saying they're going to recover it and "be generous" with the gold. Half of it should go to Russia, and the rest they say they'll invest in projects between Russian and Korea. They also say they're going to make an exhibit of items pulled from the wreak. Presumably for more money in terms of admission.
So far it smells of typical treasure hunter stuff trying to get rich of the wreak. It probably won't be taken apart to archaeological standards. But right now without evidence the gold even exists, to me it's still in "this smells like an investor scam" stage. Which most treasure hunting missions are.
Sites are always better preserved while in situ. This is a basic principle of archeaology. If you can not properly study it you leave it in place because it will be better preserved that way than half assing it.
When you use giant vaccums to destroy sites, dynamite, etc... you’re a looter. Plain and simple. It is their actions that define them, not the legalese thst surrounds them.
I work in museums. I work with archaeologists. I am probably going to become a nautical archeaologist. What you’re suggesting is not common.
an improved version of her half-sister Vladimir Monomakh
per wikipedia. She is the only one of her kind.
Really? Which ones? Where? How accessible to researchers are they? A quick google search for
The atocha is one of but many, and is just a famous example.
even then, while this era featured standardization, many vessels were the only kind of their class. Each one was still hand built, there are differences in yards, workers, etc... for example, in the U.S during the period of WWI there were two firms that built submarines: Electric Boat (which is still around), and Lake Torpedo Boat Company. The boats produced by each company, even when of the same class, had different characteristics. The Lake builts were infamous for being less seaworthy, awful dive times, etc - even though the boats were “standardized”. Having been involved in a major battle also means this wreck takes on a greater need for study. “Standardized” means nothing.
Another example would be that only one of the ships sunk at Jutland was untouched by looters - ONE. There could have been so much learned about the battle, from the ships there, but others were more concerned about making a profit from metals on board.
So... demolitions workers are looters? You wrote it's 'plain and simple' so I don't think you could argue otherwise. I would thin that, you know, looting would define looters much like robbery defines robbers. If we're going with the plain and simple route, then any time anyone takes anything of yours that's robbery - because we're ignoring the context of the actions and looking at nothing but the actions themselves.
I didn't claim it was common. I disputed your claim that they, quote, "never get studied".
Can they really complain about it, though? I mean, it is in international waters and, by definition, nobody owns those waters nor has any right to impose state will on them. Doesn't mean that said Russian government couldn't declare them persona non grata and so forth and generally make life difficult for them if they dared go to Russia but I don't think they have actual claim unless that claim is recognized by, say, NATO or et cetera.
Sites, yes, the objects in those sites: No. Unless your goal is to keep whatever it is in exactly the state it is now, then it will always be better preserved in a location where it can be routinely tended to. Also, over time, if you allow a site to be undisturbed then, of course, whatever is in the site will decay further.
When you’re using dynamite to destroy a shipwreck to get to its treasure, or a vaccuum to suck up all the treasure and in the process destroy the site then yes I will call you a looter. Treasure hunters do no study the wrecks, they destroy them. They care not about what can be learned, only money.
If the vast majority if objects that looters bring up never leave private collections and are never studied its more than fair to say they “never get studied”. The exception is not the rule.
Vast majority is not 'never'. It never will be 'never' unless we're to accept hyperbole, which I'm not here.
You didn't specify using dynamite to destroy a shipwreck to get to its treasure, you stated that 'the actions define the looting' and the action that you defined was explosives or vacuum force - ergo making anyone that uses explosives of vacuum force for any purpose a looter. I don't dispute that you could call them looters, but I do dispute that they are legally looters.
If this site is in international waters then nobody 'owns it' - which means nobody can steal from it.
Warships are always considered to be part of the sovreign nation they are owned by. Does not matter where they are.
I don't agree with that when it can lead to critical things rusting into nothing and so forth. If there's nothing left to study because you left it to rot and decay then what, exactly, have you achieved by leaving it be? All you're doing is willingly allowing information to be lost over time.
If you are not prepared to study and preserve what you are recovering then you are doing more damage than you are preventing. That which is prserved on the bottom has survived from the conditions. Many sites my advisor has worked on have not been raised for that reason. They are put back because it is safer and better preserved.
This is a major part of the current internstional agreements for at sea: UNCLOS. The water itself is international but a warship is rightful property of the nation it belong(ed) to. It’s not complicated.
Unless it was sunk during a time of war, in which case it belongs to whomever sunk it. It was sunk in a time of war - but it sank potentially due to a malfunction rather than an act of war - which means Korea wouldn't own it. That said, it's in international waters (as far as I can tell) which should mean that technically 'nobody' owns it unless it's claimed or declared by committee or nation to be the property of et cetera.
As I edited in later in my post, it looks like they may have - at least by Korean law - the rights to salvage it due to its circumstances and location.
No. Customary law is that it is always owned by the flag state. The IDI wrote up a resolution a few years back on this to give words to the custom - no treaty has been signed.
but being customary it’s what everyone basically
does as it is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prize_of_war
Materiel captured as a result of the Falklands War was reused by the British Armed Forces. This included two Agusta A109 helicopters captured by the British Army, SAS from the Argentine Army which were used by the Army Air Corps until 2007. Oerlikon GDF-002 AA guns and Skyguard FC radars were put into service by the Royal Aux Air Force for some 10 years
Something actively captured during the war is very different, it is at that point the flag state is transfered.
that’s not a sunken vessel.
It specifically was employed on sunken vessels.
Customary law is just that, a custom that many countries have followed, it’s not really codified in the traditional way, f. Ex. this is where the “3 miles from shore” thing came what was originally a nation’s waters (though post ww2 there was a major shift and now we treaty law with various larger zones n junk).
Where do you see that? Your page did not say that from what I saw. On top of that, an immediate salvage operation to use a ship again in wartime is a slightly different beast than a ship that has been sunk for over 100 years. In this sort of case the default has been it belongs to the state it was flagged by.
Why would anyone put so much money worth of goods on a single ship rather than several
dude imagine what u could get a hooker to do to u for this kind of money
It's literally a factory built ship with documentation to boot.
this means nothing, as per the example I provided before of the “factory built” Lake and EB submarines. Same designs, very different properties. And besides its archeaological value goes beyond the actual design.
And as per before, unless you’re willing to actually study and preserve it - just leave it. It is better preserved where it is.
The sea doesn't preserve, it destroys.
Are we going to go through this again. In every field of archeaology a site (which includes artifacts) is better preserved in situ. It has survived how it has for a reason. This is a standard archeaological practice. Don’t touch it unless you can afford to study and preserve it. This may take the form of limited excavations where you then cover the site up again while its on the bottom, or just not touching it at all.
No point in leaving it there if it has 200 tons of gold in it.
that’s a big if because it has only been rumored to house gold.
secondly: the groups interested in the gold would not be interested in the preservstion of the site, it would be harmed in the process of looking for gold. If it was a university team of archaeologists, then I could support it since they would likely follow best practices.
However, there is no indication that that is even close to the case, or if the gold is even real.
leave it be.
obviously just cut the ship into four quarters:
one for russia, one for north korea, one for south korea and one for japan
that way everyones happy
Russia during the early 20th century weren't known for their good decision-making.
Just my field of study, I don’t really like seeing misinfornation spread about it
If the ship really has 130 billion dollars worth of gold in it, I think that far outweighs any archeological value the wreck might have.
no it doesn’t. If you destroy the wreck, take things out of their place in situ (thus ruining their context)? then its gone for good. Again, if the project was being run by actual archeaologists this wouldn’t be an issue - as it stands it’s not. It’s being run by looters, who have in the past demonstrated no regards except to line their own pockets.
imo, leaving this much of a raw resource (gold) just sit on the ocean floor for "history" reasons is just criminally irresponsible and wasteful. There's a finite supply of gold on the planet and it's a surprisingly small amount.
Like yeah, let's keep historical artifacts where they are, or care for them, but that doesn't mean we have to become fucking hoarders and keep around every little thing.
130 billion could fund so many archeological projects I find it very hard to believe that letting it sit on the bottom of the ocean is the correct choice.
anything recovered in this case would go back to Russia, and I doubt any of it would be used to finance archeaology.
There’s an even more finite amount of these wrecks so to destroy them for pure profit is frankly retarded. If it was being done by archeaologists, with a methodological excavation and study of the wrecks and finds it wouldn’t be an issue. Where it becomes an issue is when you let “salvage companies” run amok because they only have a history of destroying wrecks for their own profit. They would not pay attention to any of the study or methedology that would preserve the knowledge of the wreck for the future.
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