The Beeswax Wreck of Nehalem: A Lost Manila Galleon

A volunteer group of archaeologists, historians, geologists, and community members began working in 2006 on a project aimed at identifying the identity of Oregon's “Beeswax Wreck.” The authors are involved in the group's Beeswax Wreck Project and discuss here their research process and findings that support the hypothesis that the Santo Cristo de Burgos, a Manila galleon, was the ship that wrecked near Nehalem Spit. Along with systematic archaeological documentation, the team used beeswax stamped with Spanish shippers' marks to determine the ship's country of origin and radiocarbon dating of Chinese porcelain sherds coupled with geological research to determine when the ship wrecked. According to the authors, “for those of us researching the Beeswax Wreck, the goal has never been to recover artifacts or ‘treasure.’ Instead, we are most interested in solving the mysteries of the what ship wrecked off the north coast of Oregon three hundred years ago.”