The American company that discovered the
lost ship with what may be history's richest sunken treasure
has signed an agreement with the British government, which
owns it, to raise it from the bottom of the Mediterranean and
split the proceeds.
The agreement is a legal breakthrough that could open the
way to the recovery of perhaps up to $4 billion in gold coins
that went down with H.M.S. Sussex in a violent storm in 1694,
and of dozens of sunken vessels in seas around the world.
The company, Odyssey Marine
Exploration Inc. of Tampa, Fla., found what British
authorities believe to be the Sussex during four expeditions
off Gibraltar from 1998 to 2001. The exploratory work was done
with British approval, and the discovery tentatively announced
last February. But until now there has been no legal precedent
for a private company to join with a government to raise its
treasure.
As new technologies open up the deep sea, the maritime
superpowers of present and past — notably Spain, Portugal,
Britain, France, the Netherlands, Russia and the United States
— have begun to assert ownership over thousands of ships that
were lost in distant waters.
But little has come of the claims because the governments
often lack the money and skills to pull sunken treasure and
cultural riches from the depths, and they have struck no major
deals to let commercial partners share the risks and
rewards.
The new agreement, which is being announced by Britain on
Monday, changes that. The Ministry of Defense, the sunken
ship's official owner, calls it "an important step in
development of a `partnering' approach to deep-sea
archaeology."
Experts say it could end the days of freelance treasure
hunting and start a time when nations oversee the recovery of
their own lost fleets. They praised the agreement for
requiring cultural artifacts to be handled according to
contemporary archaeological standards.
The British say the Sussex, the flagship of a large
flotilla, carried a fortune in treasure to buy the loyalty of
a shaky ally in a war against France. In darkness half a mile
down, the site where it is believed to lie consists of a large
mound rich in cannons, anchors and other artifacts — the only
such objects found anywhere near the area where the Sussex was
reported lost.
"We're fairly convinced it's the Sussex," a senior British
official said in an interview. "And we're very excited to be
working with Odyssey. We really want to see this succeed."
American experts, echoing the British assessment, say the
accord is unique. "It's the first time we're seeing a
profit-making group doing this kind of recovery," said Anne G.
Giesecke, an marine adviser to the Society for Historical
Archaeology, a professional group. Robert C. Blumberg, a
senior policy adviser at the State Department, called the
agreement "a public-private partnership where both sides stand
to gain."
Months of detailed negotiations delayed the accord until
Sept. 27, British and Odyssey officials said. The government
said the agreement would "extend to recording and preservation
of artifacts and their eventual conservation, publication,
exhibition, marketing and all other facets relating to the
management of our underwater cultural heritage."
Odyssey considers the agreement a coup and a model for a
new era. "We see a whole industry emerging," said Greg Stemm,
a founder of the company. "The private sector will routinely
help governments in managing their marine heritage. It's
already a huge industry on land."
The company, which is publicly traded, is risking its own
money in the venture: $4 million so far and up to $4 million
for excavation work with an eventual total of tens of millions
of dollars, much of it for marketing the treasure, Mr. Stemm
said. Both sides agree that the ship carried coins, most
likely gold, that were worth £1 million in 1694. In weight,
that would be about nine tons. The $4 billion figure comes
from the theoretical value of the coins if sold to collectors,
which the company says it cannot predict.
The partnership is to split the profits or appraised values
of the recovered coins on a sliding scale that favors Odyssey
at first and then the government. Odyssey is to get 80 percent
of the proceeds up to $45 million, 50 percent from $45 million
to $500 million and 40 percent above $500 million. The British
government gets the rest.
The agreement calls for archaeological integrity — a
difficult technical feat at such depths and a goal that
critics of for-profit archaeology are likely to dispute. Many
archaeologists abhor the sale of recovered artifacts, saying
it inhibits scholarly analysis and public display.
The partnership agreement draws a distinction between
classes of artifacts, saying cultural items have a greater
archaeological value than coins, which it allows to be sold to
help pay for the project.
Mr. Blumberg of the State Department praised the approach
as allowing the saving of wrecks that otherwise would
deteriorate over time and be lost to history. Academic
archaeologists, he said, had little money for the
investigation of deep-sea artifacts. "If you have a thousand
gold coins and they're virtually identical in every respect
that you can discern," he asked, "why shouldn't you keep a
representative sample for a museum and let the rest be
sold?"
In recent years maritime countries have occasionally
recovered shipwrecks from their shallow coastal waters. Sweden
lifted the Vasa, a 17th-century warship, and Britain the Mary
Rose, a 16th-century warship. This summer, the United States
lifted the gun turret of the Monitor, a 19th-century
ironclad.
In the case of distant waters, the governments often turned
a blind eye to shallow-water treasure hunters. Spain took no
action in 1985 when Mel Fisher found the Atocha, a galleon
lost off Florida in 1622, and recovered about $400 million in
treasure.
The stakes and costs have soared in recent years as robots,
sonars and other advanced gear have opened every corner of the
deep to exploration and recovery, bringing thousands of lost
ships into play.
So governments have begun to assert ownership over their
vessels, especially warships.
In 2000, Spain won a legal battle over the issue when a
federal appeals court in Virginia ruled that it owned the
remains of two warships lost off the Virginia coast two
centuries ago. The ruling snatched the ships away from a
treasure hunter, who estimated that the wrecks bore more than
half a billion dollars in coins and precious metals.
In a new disclosure about the Sussex, the British statement
said the "considerable economic loss to the nation led to the
foundation of the Bank of England," which bailed out the
government with a loan.
In keeping with British practice, the 30-page agreement is
being kept secret. But the British have released a summary
memorandum. It specifies such things as the licensing fees
Odyssey must pay, the profit breakdown and how a project plan
must be completed in 100 days.
"The government," it says, "may appoint two representatives
to monitor and record the exploration to determine whether the
activities are being carried out in compliance with the
project plan."
The agreement also says the British government will receive
"10 percent of any net income derived from intellectual
property rights associated with the project," as well as 3
percent of Odyssey's "gross sales of merchandise that utilizes
the name H.M.S. Sussex."
The partner approach, officials said, was adopted to avoid
expensive court battles and to allow experts to devote more
time to recovering lost history.
"To its credit," the statement said, "the company decided
to work with British officials rather than resort to standard
salvage practices."
Reprinted with permission.
Copyright© 2002 The New York Times Company