The Truth About Hunting for Pirate Treasure
The Truth About Hunting for Pirate Treasure
From The Goonies to PAW Patrol, we are obsessed with the idea of finding a pirate’s lost treasure. Did pirates actually hide their treasure? And what makes something treasure anyway? In this episode of Rogue History, maritime archaeologist Joel Cook unearths the unsettling truth behind treasure hunters and explains their complicated role in modern archaeology.
*****
PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to:
http://to.pbs.org/DonateORIG
*****
Rogue History
Shaking off the barnacles from this wildly popular storytelling canon, this Pirates historical series is an enlightening voyage that unravels historical myths, unearths lost narratives, and discovers fresh perspectives. This is the pirate history you were never told.
Subscribe to PBS Origins so you never miss an episode! https://www.youtube.com/pbsorigins
And keep up with Rogue History and PBS Origins on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PBSDigitalStudios/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/pbsds
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pbsds
Chapters
00:00 – Intro
00:50 – What is a Marine Archeologist?
01:47 – Na’nao I Shipwreck
03:49 – 14 Million in Gold on the Sea Floor
05:25 – Treasure Hunters Throughout History
06:35 – Whydah Wreck
08:08 – Importance of Artifacts “in situ”
O.M.F.G!!!! Our host literally dives for pirate treasure when he’s not teaching us about pirates!!!???
GTFO! This guy is too fucking cool!
Is it just me, or was the audio peaking really bad in this episode?
I love Joel. I hope we continue to see more of him.
excellant
Is someone at PBS trying to piss off the CCP? 😂
Joel Cook is rapidly becoming my favorite PBS host. His stories and presentation are always fascinating.
After a big storm or a hurricane people usually find silver or gold coins along the Treasure Coast. My uncle is friends with a guy that found a whole shipwreck just outside of Jupiter Inlet. Crazy to think this is only part of what lie beneath the ocean.
0:50 It didn’t occur to you that if there were treasure buried in your mom’s flower garden, that your mom would have already found it when she planted the flowers?
Marine archeology is a pretty major degree at my Alma mater UWF because of our town history as a port town for multiple colonial nations. The university museum is almost entirely full of marine archeology recoveries. It’s an awesome degree field that my degree worked closely with.
And yet the Whydah Museum still continues to use inaccurate depictions of pirates. Further Barry Clifford angered UNESCO the other year for the botched dig in Madagascar.
😃
Great vid❤ have you heard of the 17th century dress they found on a wrecksite in the Netherlands?
Which museums were featured in this video? They looked really interesting
What a beautiful speech at the end!
I was really impressed with the Steamboat Arabia Museum in Kansas City – and that was a case where a group of private people banded together to excavate a fully loaded steamboat that sank in 1856. They kept the collection together – part of the museum experience is talking with staff who do conservation. I was also able to talk to one of the original members of the team; maybe this was cheeky (okay, it was), but I asked him if they had made back their initial investment. He responded by saying that they didn’t owe the bank any money anymore, but that doing this type of archaeology isn’t a great way to make money. So I’d say that this could be a second example of people unaffiliated with an institution making responsible choices with sunken treasure. (And what a treasure! Go see it!)
3:45 – Turn on subtitles. Accidental Maritime-Archeology Pun Ahoy!
Love this serie! Marine archaeologists merits to be known!
You’re a marine archaeologist? That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever heard.
PBS needs to do a series about people doing the dream jobs they wanted to do as children.
I think there should be government funded incentives to keep the sites intact, a bit like the financial incentives in the UK for turning over archaeological discoveries to the government. People who only care about money won’t stop unless they have a financial incentive. I know various countries deal with this problem in many different ways.
I’d just like to point out that you missed a golden opportunity to use the clip of Captain Jack Sparrow saying "Not all treasure is silver and gold, mate" from the first POTC movie. 😋 (Yes I’m aware it might’ve been a copyright issue, it just would’ve been perfect at a couple different points in this video.)
Thank you Joel for presenting this. I normally shy away from the topic of pirates and treasure for exactly these reasons, however you present the facts and truths that we have lost behind the façade of the modern media concept of pirates. Keep up the good work!
People always look over here for shipwreck bc of spanish gold (stolen and exploited natives in order to obtain it).
Man this dude is cool!
Well said. Thanks.
Joel, I’m sure your mom laughs about the flower garden excavations… now 😂💖
Going into this episode, my feeling is that the trope is so popular because it’s a pirate-y activity that can be including in G rated media. The main thing pirates did, steal from people using the threat of violence, isn’t going to fly in media for a 5 year old who’s obsessed with pirates (at least not from most parents), so pirates are turned into treasure hunters, often with the origins of the pirate treasure they’re searching for not being mentioned.
I once considered getting a masters in marine archaeology, but instead became a geologist. I really appreciate this episode, as I always told my geology peers to leave artifacts alone if they find them in the field, having understood it from my archaeology classes. The geologist in me would say the same for fossils. Their in situ is just as important as in situ for archaeology its not just what you find, but where and how.
But isn’t the REAL treasure the friendships we made along the way?
"It belongs in a museum!!!!"
We all wanted to be marine biologists growing up- but only because we hadn’t heard of marine archeologists!
First to treasure 🏴☠️ !!
Now to find a way for Joel Cook to do a video with Irving Finkel about Mesopotamian pirates…
So you telling us is that the One Piece is real, but not quite like we imagine it?
Lots of his shipwreaks in belize waters
Hey, you forgot the movie Treasure Island. The book is better. And they kept out the secret reason why Long John Silver wanted his share of the treasure. Read the book.😊