The Mysterious Numbers on the Atocha Gold Bars

 Fernando III “The Saint” of Castile, King of Castile and Leon (1119-1252) issued a new gold coin, The Castellano or Dobla, which was the basic piece of the Castilian monetary system to substitute the former Arabian system in Spain. Castellano is from the Latin word castellanus. It is an adjective applied to certain Castilian gold coins in the Middle Ages; fifty part of the gold mark, equal to 4.6 grams.
 The kingdom of Fernando and Isabel (1452-1516 “the Catholic kings”) began the homogenization in the peninsular monetary system; from the pattern of the stronger economic system: the Castile kingdom.
The Castilian ducat was a gold coin created by the Catholic kings, which values were 375 maravedis. It changed across the times, in 1556 its value was 400 maravedis and since 1605, on 440 maravedis.
 The coinage of gold and silver was free act. The kingdom used to place the weight, the finesse (metal law) and the denomination (and value). That way any particular could go to the different mints and coined their own gold and silver or use the metal for different proposal.
 In the beginning of colonization period in the new world, the castellano was the unit adopted by excellence for weight gold, becoming a standard practice to stamp it on bars, fragments, nuggets and bullions and used as currency. This action was taken because the absences of gold coinage in the new territories and the high demand of currency at the growing new world economic transactions.
 At the same time wrote Juan de Mariana (1536-1624)…and sovereigns order in the beginning (the Catholic kings) elaborate coins of fine gold of 23 ¾ karats which they called castellanos… and in the court were determined to not produce more castellanos, instead, to coin the money they called excellent. Each piece (castellano) valued at 375 maravedis; so the coined gold mark increase the value at 24500 and the gold mark in paste (uncoined, crude gold in bullions or Jewelry) valued at 24250.At the same time its increase the 22k gold in paste to 22500,so the castellano were value at 450 …………

 Adopted in the early colonial period, one of the first references came from Columbus and Fray Bartolome las Casas, relating the 1502 wreckage of Juan de Bobadilla Fleet at Dominican Republic: ……and only a few people survive the storm, but all the cargo and 50000 Castilians in gold for the King were lost, and the own Bobadilla die…. The enforcement to keep the gold currency in the Spain territories, and avoid the capital escape to the rest of European countries was an obstacle to the new territories at all business operations, the lack of coins were accomplished by exchange for gold by weight (castellans) and silver (pesos).
A good sample of the unsuccessful measures in the new world for more than 100 years is reflected in a letter from the king Phillip’s III in order to the fleet; dated in Madrid, July 12TH 1622 saying:
The King:
Because I have been informed that notwithstanding the provisions and order that no gold in bars or cones of silver to be taxed can be taken or brought from one place to another in my west Indies or to these kingdoms, and if any of such things be found without the 20% tax thereon having been paid or marked, in any port of the Indies where there is no meter hey shall be forfeited. Excessive amounts have been found in the past and frequently in the port of el Callao and others of the provinces of Peru much gold and silver has been found without having been marked or the 20% tax thereon paid and because it is my will it is hereby provided and ordered that this command be keep and strictly observed. By these presents I command my viceroys, tribunals, governors and officials of my royal treasury and each and every part of my islands of the Indies and land and sea that whenever in any part or place of their districts they find any gold, silver cones or bars wrought into jewels, plate or other pieces, or gold in powder or in bars without the 20% tax having been paid thereon and marked shall be forfeited and seized, carrying out (this command) in accordance with the law and royal ordinances as this is my will.
I, THE KING

 An excellent sample about this practice along the 16th and 17th century is found on several gold bars from the 1622 fleet wreckage. The sample group is constituted by 23 gold bars from the Nuestra Señora de Atocha site, found between 1985 and 2001 with a difference of the other hundreds found with owners stamps, taxes, destination, assayers marks, precedence areas and others, it only holds a finesse stamps in the typical roman numerals and a unknown cipher in Arabic numbers. (Fig. 1; 1-a)

Fig.1- gold bar #57877 from year 2000 stamped with the metal purity in the typical roman numerals at the left (up side down), and the numbers 144-6 expressed in Arabic numbers. (Courtesy of Gary Randolph, photo Nelson Garcia.)

Figure 1-a: Roman number engraved on the flat side, expressing a finesse of 23 1/2 karats. (Each dot represents a ¼ karat)

 From that point and according with the information mentioned before, the first step were to determinate the bar physical weight in grams and compare with the numbers on it. The weight, 666.4 gm (in a 5 digits digital scale) were divided by 4.6 (the weight in grams for a castellano unit). Resulting as a 144.8 units, it was as similar as the number expressed in Arabic numerals at the end of the gold bars. (Fig: 2)

Fig-2- Arabic numerals at the end of the gold bar # 57877, showing the value by weight in castellanos.

 The same calculations were made on the rest of the 22 gold bars with the same characteristics, obtaining the same results: The weight in grams divided by the weight of a castellano unit (4.6 g), match exactly (in many of the cases) with the numerals on the bar; this means that the number on the bars is the value by weight in castellanos, the old unit adopted by the Spaniards in the New World at XVI and early XVII century for trade with gold (annex #1). Some small discrepancies in the decimals were found in some of the samples, and we assume it could be only for two causes: 1.) because the “inaccurate” measurement device systems used in the early XVII centuries, in which a few decimals was a tolerance error. 2.) Because of the time under the water, in an aggressive environment of sand and coral, in which the artifact probably suffered some erosion.
 Another curious characteristic on all those bars is the absent of any official mark such as, production area (city) stamp, taxes, assayer, goldsmith or owners mark. Since the regulations and orders by the king about marking the gold pieces were complained in almost all the gold bars and bullions found in the Atocha and Santa Margarita site, these 23 gold bars represent a good sample of another smuggling operation on the 1622 fleet.

Written by: Abraham Lopez, Chief Conservator, Mel Fisher Enterprises

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