Underwater Archaeologists Uncovering Secrets of Sunken Pirate City

Underwater archaeologists using a new state-of-the-art technology are mapping out the submerged portion of the 17th-century town of Port Royal in Jamaica.

Underwater archaeologists explore the submerged portion of Port Royal. Image credit: Texas AM University.

Port Royal was the English mercantile capital of the New World, and as such, an important and wealthy centre for trade and commerce for the entire West Indies.

Known as the ‘wickedest city on Earth,’ the town was famous for its loose morals, pirates and bullion.

On June 7th 1692, Port Royal was destroyed by an earthquake, quicksand and a final crushing blow of a tsunami. Two thirds of the city was wiped out, sending it to the bottom of the sea.

“Port Royal is a true sunken city — but not only that, it is a catastrophic site,” said Dr. Jon Henderson, an underwater archaeologist at the University of Nottingham, UK.

“It went down so quickly that it was sealed in a moment in time. It’s sometimes called the Pompeii of the New World.”

“The earthquake captured Port Royal at its prime — everything people were using now lies sealed under the silt in Kingston Harbor.”

“Port Royal is the only sunken city in the Americas (that we know of) and it was the English center in the Caribbean in the 17th century,” he added.

“If you’ve seen the Pirates of the Caribbean films, Port Royal is the first town they go to where the Jack Sparrow character is introduced.”

Map of Port Royal by John Taylor, 1688. This is one of only a handful of eyewitness drawings of the town before the 1692 earthquake; note Fort Charles at the southwest of the town.

To create a precise digital model of the ruins of Port Royal in three dimensions, with photo-realistic detail, Dr. Henderson and colleagues carried out a high resolution survey of the partially submerged site.

“The site is actually covered in silt and redeposited coral, so it is buried under about 6 to 10 feet of deposit,” Dr. Henderson said.

“This is great from an archaeological point of view, because a lot of the site will be sealed, meaning it is in excellent condition, but it limits what can be seen.”

“New technology is opening up submerged archaeology for the first time,” he noted.

“Now we can do photo realistic 3D surveys of what is actually under the sea and show it to people, which was not possible before.”

“Previously we could only rely on drawings, photos and video but now we are at a point where people who would never have seen a submerged site before will be able to see exactly how these sites appear on the seabed.”

“This technology is key to raising awareness about the importance of underwater cultural heritage.”