BLOOMINGTON, Ind., July 31 (UPI) -- U.S. archaeologists say they might be closer to finding some of the lost ships of Christopher Columbus.
Indiana University-Bloomington scientists say they not only believe they will find the ships, but also answer the 500-year-old mystery of what was on those ships.
"The discovery of a Columbus shipwreck, let alone the finding of the flagship Mariagalante, would be a tremendous contribution to maritime archaeology," said Charles Beeker, director of the university's academic diving and underwater science programs.
"Perhaps more important would be the cargo," he added. "Such a find would shed new light on the nature of the contact period between the Old and the New Worlds."
Earlier this summer, Beeker and Geoffrey Conrad, director of IUB's Mathers Museum of World Cultures, took a team to the Dominican Republic's La Isabela Bay to explore magnetometer anomalies the IU researchers had discovered 10 years ago. The readings suggest large objects buried under silt and mud, much as how a shipwreck, or several for that matter, would appear.
Beeker said several ships sank in La Isabela Bay during a hurricane in 1495 and one might be Columbus' flagship on his second voyage to the New World.
