Thursday 9 October 2014

Shipwreck Found Off Haiti Is Not Columbus' Santa Maria

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UN investigators have found proof that a shipwreck found off northern Haiti in 2003 could not be the Santa Maria, the lost flagship from Christopher Columbus' first voyage to the Western Hemisphere.

Uncesco said a team of experts who explored the site at the request of the Haitian government determined the wreckage was from a more recent vessel for reasons that included the discovery of copper nails and spikes at the site. The Santa Maria would have used components of iron or wood, the agency said.

2 comment(s):

Gareth said...

Columbus' first voyage to the western hemisphere? Hardly. The western hemisphere starts at the Greenwich meridian.

Gerard said...

According to the dictionary, the Western Hemisphere is a geographical term for the half of the Earth that lies west of the Prime Meridian (which crosses Greenwich).

In this sense, the Western Hemisphere consists of the Americas, the western portions of Europe and Africa, the extreme eastern tip of Russia, numerous territories in Oceania, and a portion of Antarctica.