Spanish Cash in Mozambican Waters: The Numismatic Assortment of the São José (1622)

The shipwreck codenamed MOG-003 was present in Infusse reef, Mogincual, within the Province of Nampula, Republic of Mozambique, in 2004 throughout a magnetometer survey of the world. It has been tentatively recognized because the São José, a Portuguese Indiaman vice-flagship (Almiranta) from the 1622 fleet en route from Lisbon to Goa, India, misplaced at this location on the twenty fourth of July of 1622 throughout a battle towards the Anglo-Dutch fleet. The archaeological excavation of this wreck offered a set of artefacts from the late sixteenth and the early seventeenth centuries which allowed the examine of the numismatic and artillery features of that point. The proof confirms that the São José was carrying Spanish reales minted within the Americas and Spain, belonging to the Portuguese crown.