Discovering
Buried Treasure!
In March 1961, Arthur C Clarke and fellow divers were diving close to the British-built lighthouse on an offshore outcropping called the Great Basses Reef when they stumbled upon an old shipwreck containing thousands of silver coins and other artefacts.
The offshore lighthouse is located 13 km off the Yala National Park, and strong seas make it hard to approach for most of the year. Later research found that the wreck was of a Muslim trader ship that had sunk in 1703 while sailing the legendary Spice Route – with a cargo of freshly minted silver Rupee coins, made in 1701 by order of Shah Aurangzeb, the last great mogul emperor of India who ruled from 1658 to 1707.
Over the next two years, Clarke and associates mounted an expedition to explore and salvage what was left of the wreck. Battling rough seas, bad weather and piratical snoopers, they dived again and again for sunken artefacts and knowledge of the maritime past.
“
Nothing, except perhaps the landing of a flying saucer in one’s backyard, is quite so disruptive of everyday life as the discovery of sunken treasure. There are very few people who can confirm this, but by a series of most unlikely events, I happen to be among them. ”
– Arthur C Clarke
Artefacts salvaged by Clarke and fellow divers from shipwreck at Great Basses Reef
“
Nothing, except perhaps the landing of a flying saucer in one’s backyard, is quite so disruptive of everyday life as the discovery of sunken treasure. There are very few people who can confirm this, but by a series of most unlikely events, I happen to be among them. ”
– Arthur C Clarke
Artefacts salvaged by Clarke and fellow divers from shipwreck at Great Basses Reef
1964
With the concurrence of the Ceylon Department of Archaeology, they invited and involved the respected maritime archaeologist Peter Throckmorton, often described as the ‘Father of Underwater Archaeology’.
These efforts resulted in one of the best documented shipwrecks in the Indian Ocean; some coins were later exhibited at the National Museum in Colombo, and at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. Clarke also chronicled the experience in his books, The Treasure of the Great Reef (1964) and Indian Ocean Treasure (1965).
This marked the birth of maritime archaeology in Sri Lanka.
by Arthur C Clarke [Expedition Magazine, May 1964]
