The “San Giacomo di Galizia” Warship Galleon (1597)—Building Narratives through an Archaeological and Historical Reading of the Ribadeo I Shipwreck

Abstract

Early November 1597. After an intense combat with four enemy ships, San Giacomo di Galizia (also known as Santiago), a just over 1000-ton galleon, enters the Ribadeo harbour in a terrible state, where it wrecks. This war vessel had been built in Naples in 1590 and sailed the Mediterranean and the Atlantic until it sank. In late November 2011, during an archaeological survey of the dredge area to improve the navigation of the ports in Galicia, a large ship was found and identified as the San Giacomo, which wrecked 414 years prior to its discovery. Several archaeological campaigns permitted a thorough record of the wreck and the recovery of hundreds of objects which this ship carried on its final journey. These artefacts included ceramics, metalwork, and wood, objects which reflected the activities that occurred on board during its short life. Combining an interdisciplinary approach based on artefacts, documents, and chemical analysis, the aim of this paper is to, on the one hand, attempt to reconstruct the sailing itinerary of the ship over its period of use and, on the other, to discuss how these commodities can help to write new narratives about the activities which occurred on board.

Life on Board Portuguese Ships in the 16th–18th Centuries: Theorizing Households through History and Archaeology

“…Wine was supposedly kept inside barrels, but documents also mention dedicated wine jars, a type of vessel that was found onboard the San Giacomo di Galicia (1597) wreck [7]. Regarding food, hardtack was unsurprisingly on every menu, since it could be stored for months.…”

“…Although many other wrecks exist that can be considered Portuguese, we have decided to use evidence only from those whose origin and affiliation we are sure of. These include the Esmeralda (1503), a wreck off the coast of Oman [3]; the Bom Jesus (1533), a wreck off the coast of Namibia [4,5]; the Spanish Armada wrecks (1588), some of them originating from Lisbon [6]; the San Giacomo di Galicia, wrecked in Ribadeo Bay (1597) [7]; the Nossa Senhora dos Mártires (1606), wrecked in the River Tagus [8][9][10]; the Nossa Senhora do Rosário (1619), wrecked in the Azores [11]; the Sacramento (1668) [12], wrecked off the coast of Bahia in Brazil; and the Santo António de Tanná (1696) [13,14], wrecked in modern Kenya in front of Fort Jesus. There are many more Portuguese wrecks around the world (some which have been investigated archaeologically) whose names we do not know, such as the Nogmeni wreck in Kenya [15] or the Seychelles wreck [16], among others.…”

Ship Archaeology and Material Culture: Artifacts, Representations, Structures, Narratives, and Materialities (16th–19th Centuries)

“…The order of articles follows both chronological and thematic criteria through the inclusion of several examples of research conducted on the archaeological excavation of the shipwreck site of Ribadeo I (four articles in total). The article "The 'San Giacomo di Galizia' Warship Galleon (1597)-Building Narratives through an Archaeological and Historical Reading of the Ribadeo I Shipwreck" [1] develops the historical context of the ship, its military campaigns and its sinking on the Galician coast in 1597. This large ship, known as the Santiago or also the San Giacomo, was identified as the former in 2011 as a result of an archaeological survey designed to improve the navigation of the port of Mirasol in Ribadeo (Galicia), and was only discovered 414 years after it was wrecked.…”