The Sunken 17th-Century Dutch Treasure Ships Found In The Great Barrier Reef | Absolute History

The Sunken 17th-Century Dutch Treasure Ships Found In The Great Barrier Reef | Absolute History

Much of the west coast of Australia was discovered by accident when Dutch treasure galleons crashed into its fringing coral reefs and left chests of gold and silver on the coral floor.

Ben Cropp has discovered hundreds of shipwrecks, including the famous Pandora of Bounty fame but there are thousands more still hidden in a watery grave. For example, its believed the Japanese pirate Yamada Nagamasa buried his enormous loot on Magnetic Island. It is rumored to be worth $100 million, and has never been found. Ben finds a strange symbol carved in a prominent rock on Magnetic Island, opposite the only bay a ship could safely anchor in. Is this symbol the proverbial x marking the spot?

So what became of all the gold and silver that fate often cruelly snatched from its rightful owners? Some were recovered, some lost forever, but much still remains for the intrepid treasure hunter who is prepared to research the facts, sift through the legends, and give it a try.

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38 Comments

  1. @sebastianmelmoth9100 on November 30, 2023 at 8:03 am

    cool stories —

  2. @SAOS451316 on November 30, 2023 at 8:06 am

    Damned treasure hunters ruining perfectly good archaeological sites is what these people are. They didn’t document anything properly if at all and took things!

  3. @ApplesauceNinja on November 30, 2023 at 8:06 am

    The salvage (if you care to call them that) companies are paying government officials to look the other way. The whole thing is corrupt from top to bottom.

  4. @xcreeseseater38 on November 30, 2023 at 8:10 am

    its bullshit the government owns all the coins still on the bottom of the ocean. what a joke

  5. @randallsmerna384 on November 30, 2023 at 8:10 am

    Divers helmet! F****** awesome find! So envious!

  6. @Pou1gie1 on November 30, 2023 at 8:11 am

    @42:12 He went to a psychic to determine what these supposed symbols mean???

  7. @dancummane3668 on November 30, 2023 at 8:16 am

    Ummm 🤔….. can’t see the treasure?? Y not a metal detector?

  8. @Pou1gie1 on November 30, 2023 at 8:20 am

    I always wonder why there aren’t underwater metal detectors to use in these situations? Wouldn’t it make it easier to find gold, silver , metal plates, etc.?

  9. @Emma-ey8cu on November 30, 2023 at 8:22 am

    I read recently a team of American treasure hunters found a French ship loaded with treasures. The French fought to take the treasures for 7 yrs and eventually won the treasure from the American hunters. My only thought was don’t the French have in their possession many treasures that they stold and refuse to give back?

  10. @SnowTiger45 on November 30, 2023 at 8:26 am

    To suggest that because the bullets came from a later era the wreck he’s looking for cannot be there is a bit misleading. There are many locations where multiple wrecks have landed on top of each other and strewn over the same area. One might have to look through the strata and coral to find older ship wrecks.

  11. @justbuns6404 on November 30, 2023 at 8:27 am

    It looks like videos taken from some guys YouTube channel and just cut/stitched together.

    We’re at some wreck! We’re at a university. Now we’re in an unrelated island. Now to a different wreck.
    What’s going on?

  12. @dukejohn2898 on November 30, 2023 at 8:28 am

    AbsoluteHistory its like netflix? Crap?

  13. @lizabethgussman331 on November 30, 2023 at 8:30 am

    There was a Chinese ship that go stuck in the Great Barrier Reef. It was abandoned.

  14. @ianpellant9312 on November 30, 2023 at 8:30 am

    This is badly labelled. There was no gold or silver treasure in Australia in the 17th Century.
    The east coast of Australia and the Great Barrier reef were not mapped until Capt Cook surveyed in 1770.
    Dutch traders are believed to have landed on the West / Northern coast in the 1600′ (17th Century).
    The Aboriginals had never developed gold smelting.
    Gold was discovered by the whites around 1850 in Victoria, starting a gold rush that made its way up the eastern Great Divide ranges and founded the port of Cooktown in 1873, followed by Port Douglas and Cairns as gold became important and ports were needed. Ships of ths time were mostly coastal steamers.
    17 Century Dutch Teasure Treasure Ships on the Great Barrier Reef… NONSENSE

  15. @emmagee1990 on November 30, 2023 at 8:34 am

    Am I the only one who felt like that lady was yanking that shark out from it’s hiding place? 😂 Looked like it was being handled so rough the poor thing

  16. @sheepdog1102 on November 30, 2023 at 8:34 am

    I would keep everything that I found! Finders keepers! The greedy government bureaucrats can kiss my behind!!!😊

  17. @laurielaurie8280 on November 30, 2023 at 8:37 am

    Great finds. I love the pipe you found at the end. Cool.

  18. @andymarkey88 on November 30, 2023 at 8:39 am

    Divers helmet…old ?, the copper underneath didn’t look too tarnished after all that time. Also never mentioned again or shown…. thats abit odd.

  19. @laurielaurie8280 on November 30, 2023 at 8:41 am

    It really is sad how men kill each other for treasure, money, love, etc. Finding those skeletons on that island is a sad reality of it. Some things in human nature never change.

  20. @DenUitvreter on November 30, 2023 at 8:41 am

    Willem van Oranje started the 80-years war, the 30 years war was for the French and Germans mainly about who’s religion was the best, the protestants or the catholics. The 80-years war started because the Dutch wanted relgious tolerance and their king, Philip II of Spain wanted to torture and burn all protestants. So after over a decade into the rebellion the Dutch declared the king a tyrant who denied them their inalienable rights instead of serving the people like he had to, and therefore independence. The revolt became a war between the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Empire for independence.

    The 80-years war ended together with the 30-years war at the peace of Westphalia, but that was kind of a formality for the Dutch Republic because they where well established as an independent nation by then, they had become the supreme economic power, ended the supremacy of the Spanish Empire and had been fighting the Spanish and Portuguese mostly overseas.

  21. @cindy7911 on November 30, 2023 at 8:42 am

    The spice trade was nothing compared to the opium trade.

  22. @aliciacruz5957 on November 30, 2023 at 8:44 am

    Interesting

  23. @StevenLeishman-yw6cf on November 30, 2023 at 8:45 am

    That’s your opinion on the aboriginal paintings. I bet there’s a better more truthful one too

  24. @ibnewton8951 on November 30, 2023 at 8:45 am

    Listen folks, if 18th century dutch ships ran aground on the great barrier reef, then the only treasure they were likely to contain, would have been peppercorns and other sundry spices. Lol.

  25. @skybluskyblueify on November 30, 2023 at 8:46 am

    Underwater metal detectors alert strongly on gold. I think it would have helped to find some under the sand and coral even many inches down.

  26. @neddyladdy on November 30, 2023 at 8:46 am

    Dutch ships were wrecked on the Great Barrier Reef were they? Did you listen to the narration ?

  27. @geofflewis8599 on November 30, 2023 at 8:46 am

    ..what treasure would the Dutch have found in Australia?..

  28. @lisawiththevizsla1 on November 30, 2023 at 8:48 am

    Every thing should have been reseached before disturbing it from it’s natural place. Every ship has a History to be Chronicled for History’s sack.

  29. @Bambisgf77 on November 30, 2023 at 8:49 am

    Why must things over 75 years old be put back to rot? I don’t understand?

  30. @janina8559 on November 30, 2023 at 8:51 am

    He had me interested until he consulted a psychic. Maybe it was Ancient Aliens 🤷🏼‍♀️.

  31. @johnnyh5969 on November 30, 2023 at 8:52 am

    I’m divorced after 25yrs
    Boxed professionals @39yrs old
    When can I dive with you
    I can swim

  32. @LindaCasey on November 30, 2023 at 8:52 am

    💖💖

  33. @paultheretrogamer on November 30, 2023 at 8:53 am

    Great video that guys a mad man I would never drink that stuff made me shudder

  34. @danielmoncaster3216 on November 30, 2023 at 8:55 am

    Sick of the woke revisionist language in history hit videos.

  35. @sailingsolo5290 on November 30, 2023 at 8:56 am

    Treasure hunting would be a cool hobby. If i found gold i would shut up. Melt it down and stack it. Never telling the authoritys. Authority are the biggest most corrupt disgusting human forms. Especially in australia.

  36. @rolandtomkellam9306 on November 30, 2023 at 9:00 am

    Todd, a few years ago I was detecting on the home farm where my daddy was born and I grew up. My dad had a single shot 22 rifle when he was a teenager. He would tell me stories of throwing up ink bottles and pennies and hitting them with the 22. My dad is still living and is 96. Three years ago I was detecting in the field behind the main house and dug up a penny. Not any kind of penny, but a 1940 wheat penny that had been bent by a 22-shot. When I took it to him and told the story of it, he was kind of silent, then said "I guess this was one of mine. "

  37. @mikkelnpetersen on November 30, 2023 at 9:02 am

    I think one of the main challenges with salvaging shipwrecks might be the question of "salvage rights", you find something and there’s BOUND to be some nation that’s saying "that’s a historical artifact that WE have the right to (because we say so), hand it over, for free of course", while someone else might try to say "it was found in OUR national waters, so we have the right to it".
    Whenever you find something, beware of those who want to take it from you without working for it, i’m not saying "I found it, it’s MINE", but I would not hand anything over to anyone who tries to ORDER me to, if they would have more of a "that’s an artifact of national history importance to us, we’re willing to compensate you for its return" attitude then I might be open for negotiations.

    And I belive there are MANY historical items "lost" because of such rules and attitudes, fx. in some nations if you have a building project and finds historical artifacts, the goverment can force you to start an archeological digs site AT YOUR EXPENSE, there have been cases where they demolished houses and found things like pipes laid through ancient buildings and human remains because it would’ve been too expensive to report it, so they just kept their mouths shut and build over and through it.

  38. @randallsmerna384 on November 30, 2023 at 9:02 am

    Completely absurd that the things that are found must stay down there so that they can rot to nothingness and be lost to time.

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