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A cop bean recoup from the bottom of the sea may be the cadaver of a 17th - century primitive sub known as a diving bell — one of the human beings ’s first , and the earliest ever found .
The dome was feel in 1980 near the 160 - foot - recondite ( 50 metre ) wreck of the Santa Margarita , a Spanish treasure galleon that sank in 1622 in the Florida Straits , about 40 Admiralty mile ( 65 kilometre ) west of Key West .
The mysterious copper object was found off Florida by divers in 1980, near the wreck of a Spanish treasure galleon. It was thought to be a huge cauldron for fish stew.
The artificer take on the rotary object was an outsized cooking cauldron , and it ’s been housed ever since at theMel Fisher Museumin Sebastian , Florida .
But new research suggest the objective may actually be the top of an other diving bell lost during a salvage of the gem ship a few years after it sank . These primitive submarines were sometimes used by divers in shallow body of water ; they are often undefendable at the bottom and filled with air .
" There ’s all these convergences of information , and they seem to all item in one focusing , " Sean Kingsley , a nautical archaeologist and editor program ofWreckwatch magazine , told Live Science .
Maritime archaeologists now think the object was the apex of a 17th century diving bell used in an early attempt to salvage treasure from the wreck.
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Kingsley and nautical archeologist Jim Sinclair — a member of the team that recovered the physical object — detailed theirreasons for proposing the artefact is a diving bellin the powder store ’s latest topic .
Copper ‘cauldron’
consort to Sinclair and Kingsley , the physical object is 147 centimeters ( 58 inches ) in diameter — much too expectant for cooking — and that there are no mark of charring or heating .
It seems to have been made from two copper sheets , and there is a heavy rim constellate with copper rivets all the room around it .
" Everybody was calling it a copper cauldron , " Sinclair told Live Science . " But I ’ve seen quite a few old wooden ships , and [ caldron ] did n’t front anything like that . "
The researchers think the diving bell was based on a 1606 design by the Spanish inventor Jerónimo de Ayanz, which was later used to gather pearls in Venezuela (left). A diving bell designed in 1616 by the German inventor Franz Kessler is also shown (right).(Image credit: public domain)
However , the mysterious physical object couple description of diving event bells made at this time , and it was found near a large phone number of iron ingots that the researchers call up were used to anchor it to the seafloor .
Upton Beall Sinclair and Kingsley noted that while there ’s no record of such a diving Alexander Graham Bell being used to salvage treasure from the Santa Margarita , the salvager Francisco Nuñez Melián — a Spaniard then base in Havana — described cast such a diving gong in his writings in 1625 .
Upton Beall Sinclair thinks the object is what ’s left of the diving doorbell described by Melián , or the remains of an earliest diving event bell lost in the country . He suggests the domed stadium was the top of the diving toll , and that it was surrounded by several watertight down panels , perhaps made of woodwind and leather cover by metal that have since been recede .
Several designs for diving bells were produced in the 17th century; one of the most famous is this 1690 design by the English scientist Edmond Halley, who discovered Halley’s Comet.(Image credit: public domain)
The researchers suggest the diving chime would have been big enough for three diver to use , and that it may have been tie in to an air hosiery .
Early divers
While diachronic track record do n’t mention that a diving ship’s bell was used on the Santa Margarita crash , Sinclair and Kingsley note that the Spanish were other trailblazer in this field . They suspect the gimmick was based on a diving bell tested in 1606 by the inventorJerónimo de Ayanz , whose blueprint was later used to gain drop in Venezuela .
Sinclair also suggested the describe success of the Santa Margarita salvage in the seventeenth century could bespeak a diving bell had been used : Melián report they ’d recuperate 350 silver metal bar , thousands of amber coin and eight cannons from the wreck .
The discovery has n’t yet been detailed in a peer - reviewed study . ButJoseph Eliav , a maritime archeologist at the University of Haifa , distinguish Live Science that it was possible the deep object was part of an early diving bell .
The Santa Margarita was a Spanish treasure galleon that sank in a hurricane in the Florida Strait in 1622. Several early attempts were made to salvage treasure from the wreck, but its location was lost in later centuries.(Image credit: Model by Daniel P. O’Neall, photo © Carol Tedesco)
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An engraved gold plate recovered from the wreck of the Santa Margarita; it’s thought to have been a lid for a solid gold chalice that was also found on the wreck.
" All I can say , based on the photographs , is that this artifact being the top of a diving toll is a plausible hypothesis , " he said in an email .
Eliav was not involved in the late research but has take thediving setup used in 1535 in Italy ’s Lake Neri — the earliest acknowledge enjoyment of a diving bell . He observe that the low-pitched section of the potential Santa Margarita diving Alexander Bell seem to have been attached to the dome with the remaining ring of stud , which deserved further work .
" This wrinkle had to be watertight , so any indication of something like a cachet or caulk between the two parts , or perhaps some sort of welding , may corroborate the surmise , " he enounce .
Salvagers located the wreck of the Santa Margarita again in 1980 and have since recovered millions of dollars of treasures and artifacts from it, including gold bars, coins, and a gold and rock crystal religious reliquary.
