This will be the first hunt of the year for the Fisher organization, which runs Mel Fisher's Treasures museum in Sebastian. Fisher Abt said the site about two miles south of the St. Lucie Nuclear Plant is the southern most tip of the fleet's wreckage field. "I think it's one of the 1715 fleet," she said. "We have some evidence of the early record of 1715 fleet material being found in that area." But there may also be wrecks in the vicinity from the 1600s and the 1800s.

Pope, the president of his company Amelia Research and Recovery, dug off shore at Stuart's Tiger Shores Beach last year with another treasure hunter who believes the 1715 wreckage reaches further south. David Jordan plans to return this year, working again with Pope, with hopes of finding a wreck by the cannons he thought he saw 29 years ago while surfing just north of Stuart Beach.

Fisher Abt, meanwhile, said her crews typically find some shards of pottery and musket balls, cannons and anchors, at any given shipwreck. And, "hopefully, some gold coins, gold chains gold jewelry," she said. "You never know."

Already, there has been promise of the Treasure Coast. "Our very first hole we dug . . .," Pope said, "we picked up a piece of copper sheeting from a ship." Copper was typically used for dinnerware and cooking pots, but was also used on the ship itself. The new find was only 3 inches by 6 inches and had not been positively identified. "We live everyday with anticipation of finding lots of treasure," Pope said. "Who knows? The next hole could be the big one."

"If the experts assessments are correct, the shipwreck could date back to the late 1400s or early 1500s, making it a discovery of global significance," Namdeb Diamond Corp., a joint venture between De Beers and the Namibian government, said in an e-mailed statement from the capital, Windhoek, today.

The site yielded a wealth of objects, including several tons of copper, more than 50 elephant tusks, pewter tableware, navigational instruments, weapons and the gold coins, which were minted in the late 1400s and early 1500s, according to the statement. The Namibian government will claim ownership of the treasure found, Halifa Mbako, group corporate affairs manager at Namdeb, said in a telephone interview from Windhoek today.

"By Namibian law, discoveries of this nature belong to the state," he said. "The discovery was found in our mining area, but the treasure belongs to the state." The Namibian government is in consultations with the governments of Spain and Portugal to try and identify the ship, which was most likely a trading vessel, given the goods on board, said.

On April 1, Bob Burrell, the head of Namdeb's Mineral Resource Department, found some rounded copper ingots and the remains of three bronze cannons in the sand. "All mining operations were halted, the site secured and Dr. Dieter Noli, an archaeologist and expert in the Sperrgebiet, was brought into the project and identified the cannons as Spanish breach-loaders of a type popular in the early 1500s," Namdeb said.

The find may be the oldest sub-Saharan shipwreck ever discovered, Namdeb said. "If this proves to be a contemporary of the ships sailed by the likes of Diaz, Da Gama and Columbus, it would be of immense national and international interest and Namibia's most important archaeological find of the century," according to the statement.

Diamonds have been mined along the south-western coast of Namibia and in its coastal waters for the last 100 years. De Beers, the world's largest diamond company, is 45 percent owned by Anglo American Plc, 40 percent held by the Oppenheimer family and 15 percent owned by the government of Botswana.

"We went out on the field looking for cannonballs," Alexander Granhof told the online edition of the Sydsvenskan newspaper. "I found a piece of metal and thought at first it was shrapnel from a shotgun. I shouted to grandfather and then we discovered more and more coins," he added.

In all, the pair found more than 4,600 coins on the field. Archaeologists, using metal detectors, boosted the tally to 7,000 but did not rule out that even more coins were hidden in the soil. "This is incredible," Bernd Gerlach of the Lund University Historical Museum told reporters.

Both Alexander and his grandfather Jens Granhof are interested in archaeology and went treasure hunting after reading about a treasure buried somewhere in the province of Scania. No reward sum has yet been determined but the silver in the treasure alone was estimated to be worth 1.5 million kronor (250,000 dollars).

During the 13th century when the coins were hidden, the sum could have fetched some 15 serfs, museum head Per Karsten said. The coins had been placed in two urns that were wrapped in cloth. The treasure was likely buried during troubled times, and one theory was that the coins were church taxes collected from nearby farms. The find included thousands of English coins with a high silver content and some other markers that likely were used locally.

They believe it to be either gold or silver, based on the scan with a sophisticated metal detector. A drilling company began boring pilot holes at one-yard intervals trying to find the entrance of the cavern, about 100 yards from the Czech border in the eastern German state of Saxony. Once it is found, the searchers are to snake a camera down into the enclosure to determine exactly what they have found.

"It can't be iron," Haustein said as work progressed at the site. "The computer readout clearly indicates gold." By late afternoon, however, the most excitement for a crowd of onlookers from the tiny settlement was a short-lived geyser of water that shot up as one of the holes was drilled.

Haustein — an amateur treasure hunter who is also a member of Germany's parliament for the opposition Free Democratic Party — said the process could take several days. Haustein has been working with Christian Hanisch, who found the notebook in the belongings of his father, a former Luftwaffe radio operator who died last year.

Haustein said last week that he was convinced they had found the storied Amber Room treasure but later acknowledged that, while there could be "cultural treasures" in the cavern, such as paintings or amber paneling, they are not things that show up with a metal detector.

The Amber Room — named for magnificent wall panels of golden-brown amber — was stolen by the Nazis from a palace outside St. Petersburg during World War II and has never been recovered in its entirety. The ornate Amber Room, made from amber panels decorated with gold leaf, was originally a gift from the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm I to the Russian Tsar Peter the Great. During the Second World War it was dismantled by the Nazis and later disappeared, and since then archaeologists have searched for the room in over 100 places.

Experts have been skeptical of Haustein's claim, pointing out that stories of the Amber Room surface regularly, only to be proved wrong, and that the Amber Room had no significant amounts of gold or silver in it.

The story begins in 1989 in the area around Caborca, near the Gran Desierto de Altar in the Mexican state of Sonora. The nearest surface water is the Sea of Cortez; some 60 miles to the west. Arizona is 70 miles to the north. Ranching is the chief occupation, but there are a number of mines in the area along with placer gold deposits in some of the canyons. It is within these dry canyons that a local Mexican man began his quest to find hidden treasure in the form of placer nuggets. Some finds of nuggets had been made in the past, and fired with optimistic enthusiasm; our gold-seeker grew determined to find his share. At this point, our latter-day prospector did something very much at odds with tradition: visiting a Radio Shack store - he purchased a metal detector. Practicing on buried coins and other metal objects, he learned how to operate it, and then he set out for an area that was reported to have produced nuggets. Once there, he started to walk; slowly and carefully across the desert, all the while following a grid pattern that would ensure that no areas would be unchecked. Hundreds of boring hours slowly ebbed away with an occasional 'beep' from his ear-phones to signal a potential find. Most were due to scrap iron or old lead bullets. Then one day; the 'beep' sounded a little different. Digging down; he caught that first gleam from his own personal El Dorado. Hardly believing his eyes he kept digging, the gleaming surface kept going - and going. By the time he had completely uncovered this incredible nugget, it was obvious that it was huge. Just hauling it back to his home was a chore since it weighed over twelve kilograms. There; a gentle washing removed the last traces of dust left on the surface from its subterranean resting place. Now the enormity of his find engulfed him: What to do with this massive nugget, shaped like the boot of a conquistador of old? Who could help him with advice regarding the ways of selling such a thing? Ah, but of course - the Patron. He would know. And he did.

Since that fateful day in the Desierto, the "Boot of Cortez" has passed through a number of hands and has been marveled at by hundreds of thousands of museum-goers. It was one of the star exhibits at the Tucson Gem & Mineral Show in 2004, the theme of which was simply: "Gold". Based on its enthusiastic response by the public, the owner of the "Boot" was solicited to place it on loan for the traveling "Gold" exhibition assembled by the Houston Museum of Natural Science where it was exhibited in 2005, along with other notable specimens from: the Smithsonian, Harvard and other major collections. The exhibition then moved to the American Museum of Natural History in 2006 where it opened to rave reviews by collectors and casual visitors alike. After almost a year in New York City, the exhibition recently closed in August 2007.

Its pristine condition and unique shape have earned it the sobriquet "the most unusual and attractive large nugget in the World" and at 389.4 ounces Troy (32.4 Troy pounds) it is the largest surviving placer nugget from the Western Hemisphere. The 2nd largest nugget is Alaskan and is almost 100 ounces smaller. It has a bright, rich golden-yellow color which indicates a high purity (approximately 94% + pure). There have been larger masses of gold but these have consisted primarily of intermixtures of gold and worthless rock. The "Boot of Cortez" measures a stunning 10 3/4 inches in height and 7 1/4 inches in width.

"It's the biggest ship of its kind to be found," said professor Liu Wensuo, and archaeologist from Sun Yat-sen University. "It lay in about 25m (82ft) of water and was covered in mud - perfect conditions for preservation. Both the ship and its contents are in exceptionally good condition."

The salvage team began building a massive steel cage around the 30m (98ft)-long vessel in May in order to raise it and the surrounding silt. The cage was made up of 36 steel beams, each weighing around 5 tons. Together with its contents, the cage weighed more than 3,000 tons. The heavy lifting began a day earlier than expected at 0900 on Friday due to favourable weather conditions. It was completed two hours later and placed on a waiting barge.

As many as 6,000 artefacts have already been retrieved from the 13th Century vessel, mostly bluish white porcelain, as well as personal items from crew members, including gold belt buckles and silver rings. A further 70,000 artefacts are believed to be still on board, many still in their original packing cases.

In the mid-1980s a number of ships, containing enormous hoards of Chinese porcelain, gold and silver, were found by foreign treasure hunters. This really is only the beginning, there are so many shipwrecks in this area... sometimes they even wash ashore Their valuable cargoes were sold at auction houses in the West. At the time, China was too poor to bid for the artefacts. The loss of such an important part of its history spurred the government into action.

Nanhai 1 will be the first major project to be undertaken by Chinese underwater archaeologists. Professor Liu is confident that the salvage will be a success. "This really is only the beginning, there are so many shipwrecks in this area, fishermen often snag artefacts in their nets, sometimes they even wash ashore," he said.

It will also give historians much-needed information on a time when China was trading with the world. During the Song dynasty, most of the country's trade was with India and the Middle East. Later that trade would shift westwards. "People often think of ancient China as being a closed society, but in the Tang and Song dynasties, China traded with the world - much like today," Professor Liu added.

The Nanhai 1 will eventually be moved to a new purpose built museum near Yangjiang in Guangdong province. The dramatic building - still far from completion - is being built on the beach. The ship will be stored underwater in a massive tank, in which the water temperature, pressure and other conditions will be identical to where it lay on the seabed, allowing visitors to watch as archaeologists uncover its secrets. China has invested about $40m in this project, in the hope of reclaiming a part of the country's history, and this time ensuring it stays in Chinese hands.

The 545 coins, each worth thousands of euros to collectors but priceless to historians and archaeologists, could overturn much of the received wisdom about the complexity, and wealth, of pre-Roman Celtic society in France. Why was such enormous wealth, a king's ransom at the time, buried in the grounds of a large Gaulish farm 40 miles south of Saint-Brieuc in the first century BC? Why was the hoard never recovered?

"Treasure on this scale would only have been used for transactions between aristocratic families," said Yves Menez, an archaeologist specialising in iron-age Brittany. It has always been assumed that the Celtic nobility lived in fortified towns, not in the wild and dangerous countryside. "The reality must have been more complex," Mr Menez said. Like all Gaulish coins, the 58 "stateres" and 487 quarter "stateres" found near to the village of Laniscat are copies of early Greek money.

Gauls served as mercenaries in the armies of Alexander the Great. The money that they brought home served as the model for home-minted coins. Some of the new treasure trove, rescued from the site of a proposed dual-carriageway, have the familiar Celtic monetary pattern of a horse on one side and a man's head on the reverse. Other coins have hitherto unknown designs, such as horses with human heads.

There are also images of riders and wild boars. Smaller caches of Gaulish coins have turned up in the past but rarely of such quality and never in such numbers. Most transactions for goods in Gaulish times were conducted through barter. Coins were for the super-rich. "This is an exceptional discovery," said Mr Menez. "It represents a colossal fortune for the period. Each of these coins was like a 500 euro note today."

The hoard of coins was discovered by the French government agency, the Institut National de Recherches Archéologiques Préventives (INRAP), which has the right to explore any potentially significant site before a road or new building covers it forever. The coins are believed to have been minted in around 75 to 5BC. They were probably buried just before, or during, the first Roman invasions of what is now northern and western France.

A dig led by INRAP archaeologist Eddie Roy discovered the coins scattered over 200 square metres of a site soon to be occupied by a new by-pass. It is believed that they were all buried together but disturbed over the centuries by agricultural ploughing. "We found a single coin about 30cms down and then we started a systematic search," Mr Roy said. "We found 50 more in a single day and then, with the help of metal detectors, we located all the others."

The dig unearthed the remains of a large manor house or farm, which is thought to have belonged to the "Osisme" people – a Celtic tribe living in the far west of the Breton peninsula. The coins were probably buried in the farm's boundary embankment. Why? To hide the wealth from the Romans? Possibly. The farm was occupied for several centuries after the treasure was buried but the coins were never recovered: one small part of Gaul which resisted the Roman invasion.

Known as an Angel Coin because of the depiction of an angel on one side of it, experts say the coin would have belonged to someone of great wealth and social standing, possibly a merchant trader, in medieval times.

Thought to have been minted in the 1500s, the rare discovery has excited historians and archaeologists in the region who have been desperate to catch a glimpse of the coin first-hand. However, few have clapped eyes on the artifact which is due to be auctioned off in London in the coming weeks.

It is expected to fetch thousands, but there has been widespread disappointment that the unknown seller has decided not to report the coin to the finds liaison officer at the Museum of Antiquities for the North East. Rob Collins, finds liaison officer at Newcastle University's Museum of Antiquities, said the discovery was very exciting, not only for Northumberland but the region as a whole.

He told the News Post Leader: "Gold coins don't turn up very often, they are fairly rare finds. "They are normally found in very good condition as gold doesn't corrode so they appear quite lusty in that sense. "Gold coins like this represent a considerable amount of wealth to the person at the time, so in that way, it's very rare for gold coins to be lost or dropped. "This particular coin would have belonged to someone like a merchant or possibly some type of nobility."

Although Mr Collins has only seen photographs of the coin, he says he would like to have seen it in the flesh in order to verify its identity. "It's important for me to see such artifacts and verify them. "It's disappointing not to be able to see the coin and speak to the finder as well," he said.

Local historian, John Dawson, of Cambois, said the coin was discovered somewhere near the Choppington Pit, between Choppington and Guide Post and claims it could be worth up to £20,000. He said: "One coin is a find but if another was to be found in the same area then it becomes a treasure trove. "The coin would have been made sometime between 1505 and 1529 and it is thought that only another nine have been found in this country."

Most of the coins are German, English and Arabic currency from the late 900s and early 1000s. But archaeologists are most excited about the presence of six very rare Swedish coins, from the reign of Olof Skötkonug, king of Sweden from 994-1022. One of the Swedish coins has never been found in Sweden before, although an example has been found in Poland. One of the other coins is only the second of its kind to have been found.

The find contains rare early Viking money and foreign currency from present-day England, Germany, Ireland, Iraq, and Uzbekistan. Along with a similar cache recently discovered in England, the new find paints a picture of Vikings trading and looting their way across Europe and beyond. The Anglo-Saxon coins were likely either plunder or protection money known as danegeld, which was paid by regional rulers to keep Vikings from attacking, experts said. The Asian coins are products of the Vikings' extensive trade, which the Norse conducted by sailing south along Russia's long rivers to reach the Middle East.

Archaeologist Dan Carlsson told Svenska Dagbladet that the coins were "very well preserved, and come from a period about which we know little in terms of coin history." Gotland is one of the richest sources anywhere of buried Viking treasure. Discoveries of coins and other treasure are made on a regular basis.

The artifacts are encased in a "concretion," essentially a chunk in which the cannons and other objects have been fused together due to the reaction between saltwater and iron over time. The concretion, which is about the size of a small car, is the largest ever recovered from the wreck and was too heavy to be lifted by crane, Clifford said by cell phone from his boat, the 75-foot Vast Explorer. Instead, a custom-built net was attached to the mass, which was lifted from the ocean floor by four flotation bags, Clifford said.

The concretion was discovered last summer in the same spot as a smaller mass of three cannons that was retrieved from the ocean floor last month, Clifford said. The newly found cannons, believed to be among the approximately 30 cannons that the Whydah had stolen from other ships and was storing in her hold, were found about 10 feet beneath the ocean floor at the spot where the first artifacts from the wreck were discovered in 1984.

The concretion will be tied to a pier in Provincetown tonight and left underwater until it can be transported to a laboratory in Brewster for examination later this week, Clifford said. "All we know is that there are some cannons and other artifacts sticking out of it, but until we get it in the lab and X-ray it, we won't know exactly what's in there," Clifford said. "It's pretty suspenseful."

The Whydah, laden with loot from at least 54 other ships and manned by a crew of about 140 pirates, sank in a northeaster off Wellfleet on April 26, 1717. Clifford has removed about 200,000 artifacts from the wreck since 1984, some 200 of which are on display in Cincinnati as part of a traveling museum exhibit.

The pair kept their find intact and it was transferred to the British Museum to be examined by experts, who said the discovery was "phenomenal". It was declared as a treasure at a court hearing in Harrogate on Thursday. North Yorkshire coroner Geoff Fell said: "Treasure cases are always interesting, but this is one of the most exciting cases that I have ever had to rule on. "I'm delighted that such an important Viking hoard has been discovered in North Yorkshire. We are extremely proud of our Viking heritage in this area."

Metal detectorists David and Andrew Whelan, who uncovered the treasures, said the find was a "thing of dreams". The pair, from Leeds, said the hoard was worth about £750,000 as a conservative estimate. They told the BBC News website: "We've been metal detecting for about five years; we do it on Saturdays as a hobby. "We ended up in this particular field, we got a really strong signal from the detector... Eventually we found this cup containing the coins and told the antiquity authority. "We were astonished when we finally discovered what it contained."

The ancient objects come from as far afield as Afghanistan in the East and Ireland in the West, as well as Russia, Scandinavia and continental Europe. The hoard contains 617 silver coins and 65 other objects, including a gold arm-ring and a gilt silver vessel. Dr Jonathan Williams, keeper of prehistory in Europe at the British Museum, said: "[The cup] is beautifully decorated and was made in France or Germany at around AD900. "It is fantastically rare - there are only a handful of others known around the world. It will be stunning when it is fully conserved."

Most of the smaller objects were extremely well preserved as they had been hidden inside the vessel, which was protected by a lead container. The British Museum said the coins included several new or rare types, which provide valuable new information about the history of England in the early 10th Century, as well as Yorkshire's wider cultural contacts in the period.

It was probably buried for safety by a wealthy Viking leader during the unrest following the conquest of the Viking kingdom of Northumbria in AD927. A spokeswoman for the museum said: "The size and quality of the hoard is remarkable, making it the most important find of its type in Britain for over 150 years."

The find will now be valued for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport by the Independent Treasure Valuation Committee. Dr Williams said that the British Museum and the York Museums Trust would be looking to raise the funds to purchase the collection so it could eventually go on public display. The proceeds would be split between the finders and landowners.

A gold bar, eight gold chains including two that measure more than 4 feet long, 11 ornate gold pieces and hundreds of other artifacts were recovered earlier this week by divers from Blue Water Ventures of Key West. Among the most intriguing discoveries was an 8-inch-long closed lead box. A small gap in its seal allowed salvagers to glimpse contents thought to be pearls (several thousand).

Found in approximately 18 feet of water, about 40 miles west of Key West, the items are believed to come from the Spanish galleon Santa Margarita. The Margarita sank off the Florida Keys in a 1622 hurricane.

An initial cache of treasure and artifacts from the Santa Margarita was discovered in 1980 by the late shipwreck salvor Mel Fisher. Fisher is best known for his 1985 discovery of the treasure of the Spanish galleon Nuestra Senora de Atocha, which sank in the same hurricane that claimed the Margarita.

Dr. R. Duncan Mathewson III, partner and director of archaeology for Blue Water Ventures, said Blue Water's team has been searching for the remainder of the Margarita wrecksite for two years under a joint venture agreement with the Fisher group, now headed by Mel Fisher's son, Kim Fisher. The elder Fisher began a quest to find the 1622 galleons in 1970.

The latest finds, Mathewson said, occurred in an area known as the Quicksands. The artifacts and treasure will be taken to the Fisher group's Key West headquarters for cataloging and conservation. Experts plan to attempt opening the sealed metal box Friday afternoon after its initial conservation and examination. Mathewson estimates more than $100 million worth of artifacts and treasure from the Santa Margarita remains to be recovered.

Anxiously awaiting the decision is Jack Harbeston, managing director of the Cayman Islands-registered commercial salvage company Sea Search Armada, who has taken on seven Colombian administrations over two decades in a legal fight to claim half the sunken hulk's riches. "If I had known it was going to take this long, I wouldn't have gotten involved in the first place," said Harbeston, 75, who lives in Bellevue, Wash.

In 1982, Sea Search announced to the world it had found the San Jose's resting place 700 feet below the water's surface, a few miles from the historic Caribbean port of Cartagena. Under well-established maritime law, whoever locates a shipwreck gets the rights to recover it in a kind of finders-keepers arrangement meant to offset the huge costs of speculative exploration.

Harbeston claims he and a group of 100 U.S. investors - among them the late actor Michael Landon and convicted Nixon White House adviser John Ehrlichman - have invested more than $12 million since a deal was signed with Colombia in 1979 giving Sea Search exclusive rights to search for the San Jose and 50 percent of whatever they find. But all that changed in 1984, when then-Colombian President Belisario Betancur signed a decree reducing Sea Search's share from 50 percent to a 5 percent "finder's fee."

Current President Alvaro Uribe's office declined to discuss the impending court decision, which is expected by Wednesday. But over the years successive governments have argued that Colombia's maritime agency never had the authority to award exploration contracts to Sea Search because the wreck is part of the country's cultural patrimony. The government may also be motivated by dollar signs. Harbeston believes that if sold skillfully to collectors and museums, the San Jose's treasure could fetch as much $10 billion - more than a third of Colombia's foreign debt.

The real value is impossible to calculate because the ship's manifests have disappeared. But the San Jose is known to have been part of Spain's only royal convoy to try to bring colonial bullion home to King Philip V during the War of Spanish Succession with England from 1701-1714. "Without a doubt the San Jose is the Holy Grail of treasure shipwrecks," said Robert Cembrola, director of the Naval War College Museum in Newport, R.I.

In 1994, Colombia hired treasure hunter Tommy Thompson to verify Sea Search's coordinates. Thompson, an American who has since disappeared allegedly with millions in investors' loot from a previous deep-sea find, turned up nothing. Another oceanographer, Mike Costin, who worked on a commercial submarine brought in by Sea Search for one of the company's early, booze-filled expeditions, also has his doubts.

"We found something, but I don't think it was the San Jose," he said. An underwater video taken of the alleged wreck in 1982 shows what looks like a corral reef-covered woodpile. "But drink a glass of wine and it can look like almost anything," said Tony Dyakowski, a Canadian treasure hunter based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Dyakowski claims to have uncovered sea logs that put the San Jose miles closer to the mainland. Harbeston shrugs off his detractors, saying, "If everyone's so sure it's not down there, then why don't they let us finish what we've started?"

Wherever the hulk lies, marine archaeologists say advances in diving, sonar and metal-detection make it possible to find almost any underwater wreck today. The problem is fending off rivals for whom the glint of gold is too powerful to resist. "It's like when you light a lantern in the forest and you discover all these insects you didn't know were there before are now descending on you," said Peter Hess, a Delaware lawyer who represents salvage companies.

Besides Sea Search, rival salvage companies and the Colombian government, Spain has also actively defended its sovereign rights over sunken ships that flew its flag. Last week, Spain filed claims in a U.S. federal court seeking up to $500 million in colonial treasure a Florida firm estimates it found recently in a shipwreck in the Atlantic Ocean.

Archeologists also have voiced concern, pointing to a 2001 UNESCO convention - backed by Spain but not signed by Colombia or the United States - that outlaws commercial exploitation of sunken cultural heritage. "People forget the San Jose is an underwater grave of 600 men," said Carla Rahn Phillips, a University of Minnesota historian and author of the new book "The Treasure of the San Jose." "The wreck deserves to be treated with respect, and most salvors I know only pay lip service to its historical importance."

The Colombian court ruling will also affect other commercial salvage companies eager to dive for more than 1,000 galleons and merchant ships believed to have sunk along Colombia's corral reefs during more than three centuries of colonial rule. Almost none have been recovered due to the legal limbo in the San Jose case. Daniel de Narvaez, a scuba-diving businessman hoping to salvage a wreck near the Caribbean island of San Andres, said that given the long, tortuous battle, he expects the decision could go either way. "After such a laughable and tragic ordeal, nothing surprises me anymore," he said.

A chartered cargo jet recently landed in the United States to unload hundreds of plastic containers packed with the 500,000 coins, which are expected to fetch an average of $1,000 each from collectors and investors.

"For this colonial era, I think (the find) is unprecedented," said rare coin expert Nick Bruyer, who was contracted by Tampa-based Odyssey Marine Exploration to examine a batch of coins from the wreck. "I don't know of anything equal or comparable to it." Citing security concerns, the company declined to release any details about the ship or the wreck site.

Company co-founder Greg Stemm said a formal announcement will come later, but court records indicate the coins might have come from the wreck of a 17th century merchant ship found off southwestern England. Because the shipwreck was found in an area where many colonial-era vessels went down, the company is still uncertain about its nationality, size and age, Stemm said, although evidence points to a specific known shipwreck.

The site is beyond the territorial waters or legal jurisdiction of any country, he said. "Rather than a shout of glee, it's more being able to exhale for the first time in a long time," Stemm said of the haul, by far the biggest in Odyssey's 13-year history. He would not say if the loot was taken from the same wreck site near the English Channel that Odyssey recently petitioned a federal court for permission to salvage.

"In seeking exclusive rights to that site, an Odyssey attorney told a federal judge last fall that the company likely had found the remains of a 17th-century merchant vessel that sank with valuable cargo aboard, about 40 miles off the southwestern tip of England. A judge granted those rights Wednesday.

In keeping with the secretive nature of the project dubbed "Black Swan," Odyssey also is not discussing details of the coins, such as their type, denomination or country of origin. Bruyer said he observed a wide variety of coins that probably were never circulated. He said the currency was in much better condition than artifacts yielded by most shipwrecks of a similar age. The coins - mostly silver pieces - could fetch several hundred to several thousand dollars each, with some possibly commanding much more, he said.

Value is determined by rarity, condition and the story behind them. Other experts said the condition and value of the coins could vary so much that the price estimate was little more than an educated guess. "It's absolutely impossible to accurately determine the value without knowing the contents and the condition of the retrieved coins. It's like trying to appraise a house or a car over the phone," said Donn Pearlman, a rare coin expert and spokesman for the Professional Numismatists Guild. Experts said that controlled release of the coins into the market along with aggressive marketing should keep prices at a premium.

The richest-ever shipwreck haul was yielded by the Spanish galleon Nuestra Senora de Atocha, which sank in a hurricane off the Florida Keys in 1622. Treasure-hunting pioneer Mel Fisher found it in 1985, retrieving a reported $400 million in coins and other loot.

Odyssey likely will return to the same spot for more coins and artifacts. "We have treated this site with kid gloves and the archaeological work done by our team out there is unsurpassed," Odyssey CEO John Morris said. "We are thoroughly documenting and recording the site, which we believe will have immense historical significance."

The company salvaged more than 50,000 coins and other artifacts from the wreck of the SS Republic off Savannah, Ga., in 2003, making millions. But Odyssey posted losses in 2005 and 2006 while using its state-of-the-art ships and deep-water robotic equipment to hunt for the next mother lode. "The outside world now understands that what we do is a real business and is repeatable and not just a lucky one-shot deal," Stemm said.

In January, Odyssey won permission from the Spanish government to resume a suspended search for the wreck of the HMS Sussex, which was leading a British fleet into the Mediterranean Sea for a war against France in 1694 when it sank in a storm off Gibraltar. Historians believe the 157-foot warship was carrying nine tons of gold coins to buy the loyalty of the Duke of Savoy, a potential ally in southeastern France. Odyssey believes those coins could also fetch more than $500 million. But under the terms of an agreement, Odyssey will have to share any finds with the British government. The company will get 80 percent of the first $45 million and about 50 percent of the proceeds thereafter.

Odyssey also is seeking exclusive rights to what is believed to be an Italian-registered passenger vessel that sank during World War I in the Mediterranean Sea east of Sardinia, and to another discovered in the Mediterranean about 100 miles west of Gibraltar.

Although the Spanish government had given its approval, authorities in the regional government of Andalucia had been blocking progress towards recovering the 10 tonnes of gold and silver believed to have gone down with the vessel. On Friday, however, they gave the go-ahead for the Odyssey Explorer to go after the wreck, El País newspaper reported yesterday.

The American ship, belonging to the Florida-based Odyssey Marine exploration company, has been scanning the sea bed off Gibraltar for almost a decade. The 400 square miles of Mediterranean sea bed have turned up what appear to be dozens of ancient and modern wrecks, including some believed to date back 2,000 years to Phoenician and Roman times. But one wreck in particular, lying some 2,500 ft (760 metres) down and with the cannons still clearly visible to robot cameras despatched by the company, is thought most likely to be the HMS Sussex. The 80-gun warship, supposedly laden with gold and silver, had been on a secret mission to ensure the support of the Duke of Savoy in the war of the League of Augsburg against Louis XIV of France.

Admiral Sir Francis Wheeler, with HMS Sussex as his flagship, had led a fleet of some 80 vessels to the mouth of the Mediterranean at Gibraltar. "Historical records suggest a million pounds sterling was destined for Savoy," Odyssey Marine says. "Other court records show that just as Wheeler's fleet was assembling to sail for the Mediterranean, a million pounds was being collected at the exchequer ... and that an order was sent to the exchequer to issue 'a million pounds in money for the use of the fleet'."

In mid-February 1694, after a stop-off in Gibraltar, the Sussex found itself caught in a terrible storm. Admiral Wheeler eventually agreed to cut down the main mast to increase its stability. But, according to the two Muslim sailors who were the only survivors from the crew, the mast smashed to pieces while the vessel drifted, took on water and, eventually, plunged to the bottom of the ocean. Some 560 Sussex crew members were among the 1,253 sailors to die that night. Admiral Wheeler's body, dressed in his night-shirt, was discovered later by Spanish fishermen.

The HMS Sussex has long been a treasure hunter's dream. Odyssey Marine, which recovered more than $75m (£38m) of gold and silver coins from the wreck of the SS Republic off Georgia in 2003, began its hunt for the Sussex in 1997. In what was hailed as a ground-breaking agreement between a government and a treasure-hunting company, the UK has signed a deal with Odyssey Marine Exploration to allow it to seek out the Sussex.

Under the terms of the deal, any treasure discovered will be divided between the government and the company. The Spanish government initially tried to block the search, but Spain now agrees that - if it can be proved that this is the Sussex - the cargo belongs to Britain.

The search begins four years after officials with the Amelia Island-based Amelia Research and Recovery team first surveyed the shallow waters off Hutchinson Island for a stack of cannons that a local surfer discovered almost 30 years ago.

"I'm excited and ready to go," said Dave Jordan, a former Palm City resident and surfer who kept his discovery a secret for 25 years until his wife triggered the memory. "I want to see what's there." So does Doug Pope, the president of Amelia Research and Recovery, who on Monday captained the four-story-high boat down the Intracoastal Waterway in Fort Pierce. Pope and Jordan worked with the state to secure necessary permits to "dig and identify" the 42 targets they found during a 2005 survey about 200 yards from the beach.

Starting as early as today, professional divers will use metal detectors to rule out which of the targets are "modern junk" — bridge parts or other metal debris — picked up in the initial survey, Pope said. Then they'll use a 6-inch vacuum dredge to determine what the remaining targets are. If they uncover an artifact of potential historical significance, the treasure hunters must first receive a permit to "salvage" the material.

"When the treasure gods start smiling, then we'll say we found something," Pope said. "They don't smile that often." If Jordan's memory turns out to be accurate, Martin County historians say the shipwreck could be part of an 11-vessel Spanish fleet that wrecked in a hurricane in 1715.

So far, the ship from that fleet discovered farthest south was the Urca de Lima, found north of Fort Pierce's Pepper Beach Park, which now contains a state underwater archeological preserve around the wreck. Other ships from that fleet have been discovered in Indian River County.

While it is unlikely any gold will be uncovered in the search, officials with the Historical Society of Martin County are hoping historical treasures will be discovered and eventually displayed in the new Elliott Museum planned just yards from the possible shipwreck site.

Jordan, who has family in Martin County and is in the process of moving from North Carolina to Gainesville, said he will likely stay on the Polly-L for a few days as the work begins. The project is expected to take about a month. "It's important for me to find the cannons, but it's not about me," he said. "I'm excited Martin County is getting a chance. There's tons of history here. It's unbelievable."

Drawn by a Brazilian math teacher's Web site descriptions of miners scooping up thousands of dollars in gold, between 3,000 and 10,000 people have poured in since December, cutting down huge trees, diverting streams and digging ever-deeper wildcat mines, in an area that only months ago was pristine rain forest.

Hundreds of mud-covered men with picks and shovels hack at the earth, marking their tiny plots with tree branches and string. Others feed dirt into wooden troughs and the residue into pans. A lucky few will end up with tiny nuggets and flakes of gold to sell for $530 an ounce in the town of Apui, about 50 miles north. Even the cooks, cleaners and porters serving the new industry are making about six times the minimum wage.

It's reminiscent of Serra Pelada, a mountain that became a gargantuan hole in the jungle floor after a gold rush in the early 1980s, immortalized in Sebastiao Salgado's photos of what looked like a hellish human anthill. "This is even better than Serra Pelada. I've been mining all around the Amazon since 1978 and this is the best I've ever seen," said Joao Leandro de Azedo, 70, overlooking his stake from a hammock. Azedo said he has panned some 70 ounces of gold worth a total of $19,000 since arriving 17 days ago, including 17 ounces in a single day. Half the proceeds went to the man who staked out his plot, and 8 percent more to Jose Ferreira da Silva Filho, who claims to own the entire "garimpo," or wildcat mine.

Already, too many people are chasing too little gold and there isn't enough space for all the miners at the eight main digging sites. Price-gouging (chain saws costing around $400 in gold) is rampant and malaria is spreading in the makeshift city, nicknamed Eldorado do Juma after the Amazon's mythical Eldorado, or city of gold. It already has bars, restaurants, barbershops, bakeries, equipment shops and jewelry stores, most of them constructed out of tree branches and tarps. A 16-room brothel is under construction.

Federal police armed with automatic weapons arrived last month, imposing a nightly curfew and cracking down on shootings but making it harder to get rich quick. "Luckily, we caught it right at the beginning. It is a concern for everyone that this doesn't become another Serra Pelada," said Walter Arcoverde of the National Department of Mineral Production.

Local people had been mining this area of the jungle state of Amazonas in relative peace until Ivani Valentin da Silva, a math teacher in Apui, posted their pictures and stories on the Internet, said Antonio Roque Longo, the mayor of Apui. "Perhaps he didn't have any idea of the impact it would have," said Longo. "People see this on the Internet and they think they're going to do the same thing. But the truth is, for every one person who strikes it rich there are 30 who go home penniless."

Da Silva said he clearly wrote that the gold would soon run out. "Unfortunately, no one read the article," he said, denying any responsibility for the environmental damage being done by the thousands of fortune-seekers. His Internet posting forced federal police to pay attention, he said, and without that, "the area would be totally devastated."

Government geologists are trying to measure the deposits, while environmental regulators struggle to prevent miners from using heavy equipment or mercury, which joins gold particles together but can ruin the rivers. The fear is that like Serra Pelada, Eldorado do Juma will end up a scarred wasteland.

Already, small rivers of mud gush from streambeds at night, suggesting that heavy-duty water jets are being used illegally, despite promises to wait for permits. "Most of the gold that can be mined manually has already been found, but if they start using heavy machinery this place is going to explode all over again," said Luiz Gonzaga da Conceicao, 51, a miner from Brazil's far west.

The land reform agency says the land actually belongs to the federal government, but now that the miners are here, there's talk of compromise _ authorities say they will permit pressure hoses, rock crushers and other machinery if miners police themselves and stick to an environmental protection plan. But da Silva, the man who claims to own the whole area, says he's working on exactly that. "This place has a great future. There are other minerals here besides gold. We have to get organized to exploit it," he said.

The authority plans to display the find along with an exhibition on its history in Newark in about 12 months. Sarah Midgley, the council's head of leisure and cultural services, said the authority felt compelled to buy the torc to preserve the area's heritage and prevent it from going overseas.

"The torc is one of the most significant pieces of Celtic artwork found in northern Europe and it proves that there was a significant community in the Newark area," she said. It is thought the relic, which would have been worn as a civic ornament, was buried as part of a religious offering.

An inquest declared the artefact to be "treasure" in May 2005. That meant Mr Richardson and Trinity College, Cambridge, who own the land where the torc was found, will share the £350,000. The authority is now looking at potential sites in the town to display the find, which is currently being looked after by the British Museum.

Sonja Marzinzik, curator of prehistory and Europe at the museum, described it as "an outstanding find of very high-quality workmanship." She said that it was a stunning example of early English heritage that reflected the skill of the makers and the importance of Anglo-Saxon England in the wider, early medieval world.

The discovery raises questions about the mobility of people and goods in the early Middle Ages. The gold is studded with large garnets, which would have come from Asia. Dr Marzinzik said: "The large garnet settings are extraordinary, as substantial garnets of this kind are scarce, particularly in the 7th century when supplies from the Indian subcontinent and Sri Lanka dried up. Their analysis can shed light on the economic background of gemstone provenance and trading networks. Suddenly we’re part of a much bigger picture. Before, we were not in the picture."

The finder, who wishes to remain anonymous, reported his discovery to Kevin Leahy, principal keeper of archaeology at Scunthorpe Museum, who is also finds adviser for the Portable Antiquities Scheme, which records archaeological objects found by the public.

Dr Leahy said: "He had got a signal and found the first fittings from the gold sword hilt. He realised its importance and brought an excavating machine to take off the turf and pick up the rest. They were about 15 inches down. He brought them to me to declare them as possible treasure.

"He came in with a box, with the objects wrapped up in kitchen-roll paper. He went through each one, as if pulling large rabbits out of a hat. These were clearly very important 7th-century sword fittings with filigree gold, a really top-quality object."

The only other object to emerge from the site was a 1920s lightbulb. Dr Leahy said: "That confirmed my feeling that the sword was originally in the river. There is a history in Lincolnshire of finding weapons in rivers, starting in the Bronze Age. One can only guess why, but there were a lot of early medieval battles and fights on river crossings. This could have been dropped."

The sword’s quality suggests that it was commissioned by someone of high rank. Society was stratified at that time and the owner might have been a member of an important family or a noted warrior. The blade has not survived, although traces of iron are preserved on some of the gold fittings, which include the pommel, the upper hilt guard, the upper hilt collar, the lower hilt collar and the lower hilt guard.

After the find was valued by an independent treasure valuation committee at £125,000, the British Museum had to raise the money. The purchase was made possible with a £70,000 grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund. The rest came from the British Museum Friends and museum funds.

Experts from Oxford Archaeology North were brought in and with the help of English Heritage began further excavations. Below the broaches they found the grave of a Viking woman. The two copper alloy broaches that started the whole thing. Courtesy Portable Antiquities Scheme. Then, 10 metres away, they found more burials, full of grave goods. Altogether, Peter’s "find of a lifetime" led to the discovery of two female and four male burials.

"This was a haunting find," explained Faye Simpson. "When I first saw the excavated graves, complete with artefacts but the bodies of those buried long decomposed, it seemed as though the people buried there had indeed followed in the footsteps of their ancestors and gone to Valhalla – the Viking afterlife."

The sandy soil of the area means that while the bodies have decomposed, the goods they were buried with remained exactly where it was interred over a thousand years ago. Archaeologists were therefore given the unique opportunity to excavate a Viking Age cemetery under 21st century conditions.

In the male burials they found weaponry and fire-making materials in two of them, while one was buried with spurs, a possible bridle and what is thought to be the remains of a drinking horn. One of the females was buried wearing a magnificent jet bracelet on her left wrist and with a copper alloy belt fitting. The other had been buried with a wooden chest at her feet, which x-rays may determine holds weaving equipment.

"We could not have expected more from the excavation of the site," said Rachel Newman of Oxford Archaeology North. "We knew the broaches found by Mr. Adams came from a burial of a Viking Age woman, which was exciting and of great importance in itself, but we did not expect to find five other graves complete with such a splendid array of artefacts. It truly has been an amazing few months excavating this extremely important Viking Age site."

The site is made even more remarkable by its rarity. Only one other Viking cemetery has been found and excavated in England to date - a cremation cemetery at Ingleby in Derbyshire, which was excavated in the 1940s. Ashes were found buried in earthenware pots and very few artefacts survive. The only other group of bodies to be found buried together was a battlefield cemetery at Repton, Derbyshire.

According to Sir Neil Cossons, Chairman of English Heritage, it is the fact that the burials are of a domestic type that makes them so important: "This incredible find provides rare archaeological evidence of the Vikings as settlers who integrated themselves into English life," he said. It reveals, he added, "the presence of the Vikings as a community group including women and challenges the war-lords stereotype as depicted by Hollywood."

"I just stumbled by chance across an Arab silver coin that was around 1,100 years old," Edvin Svanborg told news agency TT. Svanborg says he is studying history, and recognized the coin as one that is commonly found on Gotland. He said he had seen pictures of similar coins in the past.

The brothers started looking for more coins, and quickly realised that they had found something very valuable. In quite a small space they found around 1,100 coins and a few bracelets. Most of the treasure was in good condition, although rabbits had left their mark on some of the coins.

This was the first time that the Svanborg brothers had found treasure, although Edvin said he hoped to find more in the future. "I'm planning to study to become an archaeologist," he said. The brothers are now likely to get a reward, after handing over the treasure to the authorities. It is so far unclear how much they will receive. "But that's not the most important thing. The point is finding a treasure trove," Edvin said.

Majvor Östergren at Gotland county administrative board praised the brothers for handing in the treasure. "They acted in an examplary fashion."

Gotland is an archaeologist's paradise, where there have been discoveries of a large number of Viking treasures. Farmer Björn Engström found the world's largest ever haul of Viking treasure on the north-eastern part of the island a few years ago. The loot included coins, necklaces and other jewelry, which altogether contained 65 kilos of silver and 20 kilos of bronze. He was given 2.1 million kronor as a reward.

Palm Beach resident Peter Knollenberg will watch the Today segment with great interest, as he is chairman of Sovereign Exploration Associates International, a company with a license to the shipwreck site — code named Fantome Cove — off the rocky coast of Cape Prospect near Halifax, Nova Scotia.

In those shoals on Nov. 24, 1814, HMS Fantome foundered in rough seas, laden with U.S. coins and silverware snatched three months earlier from the dinner table of first lady Dolley Madison during the sacking of Washington.

Today producers are interested in the efforts of Philadelphia-based Sovereign Exploration Associates "because governments are fighting. It was a British ship, and they want to get hold of it. But they had looted the White House," said Pieternel Knollenberg, the chairman's wife.

The company bought the rights to the Fantome site three years ago and completed its first dive in 2005. Nova Scotia has first dibs on any finds under Canada's Maritimes' Treasure Trove Act. The provincial government is entitled to 10 percent of the artifacts or treasure for its museums, said Robert Baca, president of Sovereign.

"They want us to bring it up," he said. "It's big for their tourism, to invite people to come see 'the White House' there." But Britain has asked Canada to intervene and withhold further exploration permits, citing the "sovereign immunity as Royal Navy warships," a right which the Fantome retains after sinking, said Steve Atkins, a British Embassy spokesman in Washington, D.C.

"It is not a matter of rehashing arguments of war that took place many years ago between two nations that have subsequently become the closest of allies. It is also not a question of what this ship may or may not hold as cargo. Royal Navy warships and their cargos remain the property of the British government," Atkins said.

Another wrinkle is the HMS Tilbury, wrecked nearby on a voyage from Halifax during a hurricane in 1758. About 280 people died, and the payship's cargo included wages for a British admiral's forces. Although Fantome wrecked more than a half- century after Tilbury — and did not involve loss of life — British objections apply to both ships.

Regarding the Tilbury, authorities want to protect the site as a burial ground, Atkins said. But based on the court martial of the captain, it was known that "no one died in (the Fantome) wreck," Baca said. "The Brits can't say the loot is theirs, because it was stolen from us. So it's a ploy about disturbing sailors' remains."

"We're focused on how these wrecks can help with history, especially of the War of 1812, when we were really on our own," Knollenberg said. "Kids' interest in the adventure side of these discoveries will help them learn the history side as well."

He's also concerned about rescuing history before these ancient ships deteriorate, from natural elements and advanced drag-net fishing gear. In many instances, "People don't have the financial wherewithal to explore these wrecks. We do. We can get (artifacts) out of the water and conserved."

In keeping with the treasure hunter’s tradition of guarding its finds, Odyssey’s court filings provided no details on the ship’s likely name, country of origin or wreck date. The company merely identified a point on the globe, said the wreck site was within a 5-mile radius of it, and handed the U.S. Marshals Office as evidence of the find a bottle it recovered from the site. Co-founder Greg Stemm declined to comment Friday when asked about the ship. "When we’re ready," he said, "we’ll be announcing a bunch more information."

It’s a welcome turn of events for Odyssey shareholders, particularly those who withstood years of failure before its 2003 discovery of the SS Republic, a sidewheel steamer that sank 100 miles off the coast of Georgia in 1865. Odyssey eventually sold the gold and silver coins it found on board for tens of millions of dollars, thus replenishing its coffers, credibility and stock price.

Since then, however, the company has had another round of setbacks. Though lucrative, the Republic ultimately yielded just one-quarter of the coins the company’s research suggested would be found. Last year, Odyssey’s inaugural shipwreck museum closed just 90 minutes after its grand opening in New Orleans because of Hurricane Katrina. Co-founder, chairman and CEO John Morris took temporary leave from his executive posts after being diagnosed with cancer. And Odyssey’s imminent plans to excavate a ship believed to be the HMS Sussex -- which sank in 1694, the company says, with millions or possibly billions of dollars in coins aboard -- was postponed after years of complex international negotiations when a Spanish regional authority jumped in with a last-minute claim.

Such is life at what may be the country’s only publicly traded company of its kind. Odyssey’s hope of achieving a consistent cash flow by having several projects in the pipeline at once has not yet materialized. Still, the company has made the best of its situation, such as performing sonar scans of the ocean floor in high-traffic areas when weather or legal conflicts interrupt. Odyssey wrote the Securities and Exchanges Commission in 2005 that it hoped to locate and salvage five separate wrecks it identified in the English Channel.

James Delgado, executive director of the Institute for Nautical Technology at Texas A&M University, said a large number of ships wreck in the busy corridor north of the Bay of Biscay. "You are at a crossroads of maritime trade that has been so for centuries," he said. "These are not easy waters."

Odyssey’s request for exclusive access to and control of the wreck site will be discussed at a court hearing Tuesday. Under international maritime law, salvors typically request such permission from their own court system or that of the jurisdiction nearest the wreckage.

Even if the federal court approves, it could be months or even years before the company is permitted to send remote-operated vehicles down to begin sifting the wreckage. Odyssey could face legal claims or challenges from parties such as the ship’s country of origin, the descendants of its insurers or owners and archaeologists who consider for-profit salvage an abomination. And though Odyssey says the ship lies 100 meters beyond any country’s territorial boundaries, and thus, presumably, in international waters, history suggests the nearest government will make a claim anyway.

"The workmen saw all these coins come pouring out of the digger bucket," said Maidstone Museum's Laura McLean. They will be transferred to the British Museum for cleaning and recording. It is then hoped the hoard of coins can be put on display in Kent. The county council's Andrew Richardson said: "In four years of dealing with all the treasure in Kent I have never dealt with anything on this scale.

"The remarkable thing is that someone has gathered these coins together and stashed them because they were no longer legal tender." Dr Richardson said the coins featured the head of Roman Emperor Constantine and other powerful figures from the time.

Huffsmith, a member of HRD's board of directors, filed an application for a water-quality waiver in early September with the state Department of Environmental Protection in Tallahassee. Divers would use their boats' underwater blowers, which channel water from the propellers, to remove sand from any wreck site, but Huffsmith wrote he doesn't expect that to hurt the nearby reefs built by Sabellariid worms, a protected species.

"The bottom (of the exploration site) consists primarily of coarse shell material deposited in the heavy surf zone," Huffsmith wrote. This material, he added, tends to drop out of the water, back to the bottom, within 5 to 10 minutes of being kicked up, rather than being suspended for great lengths of time and coating the worm reefs. If sand kicked up by the treasure hunt does approach any worm rock colonies, however, he said, HRD will stop work and contact state officials.

DEP spokeswoman Sarah Williams said Friday her agency is looking over HRD's application to see if it is complete. If so, she said, DEP could grant a waiver after a 60-day period for public comments. If not, the state will ask the company for more information. Huffsmith's application includes a 2005 research plan by project archeologist Robert Westrick, who pointed to new artifacts found in recent years in HRD's exploration area.

"Spanish Colonial coins and related artifacts have been found on the beach and beyond the dune line in the immediate vicinity," Westrick wrote. And since 1992, he added, his company has found the same such material scattered in the area off Indian River Shores it leases from the state.

Now HRD leaders want to find the ship they believe may have held the coins in its hold back in the 18th century. If they do, he indicated, it could be a new find among the other six wrecks already identified, documented and salvaged along the Treasure Coast. The company wants to identify several "magnetic anomalies" its divers detected in 1996 and 2001, Westrick wrote. These could indicate metal parts of a sailing ship, such as cannon or ballast, and thus point to an undiscovered wreck, he added.

All this is entirely possible, said Taffi Fisher-Abt, daughter of the late treasure salvor Mel Fisher and director of Sabastian's Mel Fisher Museum. "This is a large ocean," Fisher-Abt said Friday. "Dad once told me there's a shipwreck every 100 yards from Havana, Cuba, to North Carolina. Some are not valuable, some are, some are historical." She said HRD's site lies between two sites the Fisher organization has been exploring and salvaging for years off the Riomar and Wabasso Beach areas. The Fishers have leases to 10 wrecks of the 1715 fleet, from Cape Canaveral south to the St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant. The Fishers and HRD, in fact, are two of nine separate companies seeking to salvage treasure from the Treasure Coast.

Huffsmith said HRD won't even be exploring until early next summer, when the waters offer better visibility, so there is time to work for the state waiver. For much of the year, in fact, offshore visibility is too poor for the casual diver or snorkeler to spot Spanish treasure. So some arm themselves with metal detectors and "poach" on leased sites, Westrick wrote. "HRD's presence, while conducting legal activity on the site, should deter at least some of this 'illegal' diving," he added.

But the discovery, the strongest sign yet that Philadelphia-based Sovereign Exploration Associates may have discovered the remains of the legendary British frigate HMS Fantome or other ships from its fleet, sets the stage for a possible international legal showdown involving the salvage company, the British government and heritage officials in Canada and the U.S. over the future of the wreck site.

CanWest News Service has learned the British government has asked Canada to halt exploration at the possible Fantome site and insisted that nothing should be taken from the area without permission from London.

Wendy Barnable, a spokesperson with the Nova Scotia government's Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Heritage, said Wednesday the province has received a letter, via federal officials in Ottawa, in which Britain argues that the Fantome -- along with a sunken 18th-century British treasure ship, HMS Tilbury, also being sought by Sovereign off the Cape Breton coast -- "remain the property of the British government and can't be disturbed without their consent."

Describing the British intervention as unprecedented, Barnable said provincial heritage officials are studying the "very complex" issue and have, in the meantime, advised the U.S. salvager to seek British approval to continue its explorations.

In a statement announcing its latest finds, Sovereign said: "Our divers observed flatware, artifacts, ship fittings and thousands of coins. While our science team has not positively identified the vessels on the site, the new data combined with last year's recoveries clearly establish the site as one of significant historical importance."

The search for the Fantome has been controversial and jurisdictionally complex because the British wreck lies in Canadian waters but is believed to hold gold and other treasures looted during a famous 1814 raid on the White House, treasury headquarters and other buildings in the U.S. capital. The same naval operation also inspired the "bombs bursting in air" imagery of The Star-Spangled Banner, the U.S. national anthem.

"The Malacca Strait is full of rocks, reefs and small islands. Nobody knows exactly how many shipwrecks are there, but we would find out," the 49-year-old former engineer told Reuters in a recent interview. He is working with investors on a $50 million plan to salvage wrecks in Indonesia and Vietnam under national licenses akin to production-sharing contacts for oil. The plan also calls for the construction of museums and archeological conservation centers in Vietnam and Bali. The potential of more discoveries in the Strait of Malacca has lured many treasure hunters. Walterfang is one of them, and perhaps the most successful, so far.

His latest find, in 1998, was a blockbuster. It was the wreck of an Arab ship laden with more than 60,000 ceramic pieces and gold and silver artifacts from China's Tang dynasty (618-907), possibly bound for a grand wedding in Arabia. Besides Walterfang's finds, other notable discoveries include a Dutch warship that sank off Malaysia over 400 years ago and salvaged in 1995. Experts recovered a bronze cannon from the Nassau, which sank after a battle with Portuguese warships.

The British merchant ship Diana, which sank off Malacca in 1817, was discovered in 1993, yielding Chinese plates, bowls, candlesticks and other artifacts that fetched 2.2 million pounds ($4.1 million) at an Amsterdam auction two years later. John Miksic, Southeast Asian history expert at the National University of Singapore, said there could be more breathtaking finds ahead after the Tang Treasure.

A ship of Admiral Zheng He's "Treasure" fleet in the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) would make a sensational find. Zheng led seven armadas through Southeast Asia and beyond to spread Chinese influence from 1405 to 1433. Red-and-white porcelains from the period would be extremely precious, Miksic said. A red-and-white jar from the early Ming era was recently sold at auction for $10 million, Miksic added.

Walterfang said Indonesian fishermen had been a key source of information and would continue to be. He says he keeps good relations with them through an Indonesian in-law. He was bitten by the treasure bug after fishermen showed him samples from shipwrecks on one of his diving trips in the 1990s, spurring him to quit his job at a German cement company.

Fishermen in parts of Indonesia, such as East Sulawesi, dive in shallow waters without oxygen tanks in search of seafood and occasionally stumble on the odd treasure, he said. Their ceramic samples led to his finds in 1997 of a 10th-century vessel, known as the Intan Wreck, in the Java Sea and a 15th-century ship, the Maranei/Bakau Wreck, near Belitung island, off southeastern Sumatra, the next year. Soon after, he found the Tang treasure near Buton island off southeast Sulawesi. Intan yielded thousands of Chinese ceramics, Indonesian gold jewelry, bronze artifacts and Arabian glassware, while Maranei/Bakau held a mixed cargo from the Ming dynasty.

"All the ships found in Indonesian waters were representing actually the time capsules of those periods," said Walterfang, who is married with five children in New Zealand. Walterfang's slides of the Tang Treasure showed glittering gold cups and plates, a Chinese-inscripted bronze mirror, white glazed stoneware and a tall green vase with a dragon lid.

Some initially questioned the value of the finds as many were corroded and covered by limestone or coral, he said. "The scientific and academic community just didn't know how to handle it because it was just too good to be true that there was such a cargo from the Tang dynasty."

Walterfang shrugged off advice that the artifacts be auctioned immediately, choosing to ship all the cargo to New Zealand for conservation, in a costly, six-year process. "I decided to go to New Zealand, far away from the media, far away from the world and tourists, to conserve it first." Specialists restored artifacts with chemicals injected millimeter-by-millimeter under microscopes, he said. They spent four years and $350,000 to conserve one silver flask alone.

The Maranei/Bakau Wreck is still under conservation in New Zealand and will end up in a future Bali maritime museum, he said. The Intan Wreck has been handed back to Indonesia as part of compensation for the Tang Treasure, which will be exhibited soon at the Hua Song Museum in Singapore. Walterfang said he also gave Jakarta $2.5 million plus a deal to help conserve some of the existing finds and cover the costs of sending four Indonesians for conservation training abroad.

Underwater archaeologists found an object, perhaps 100 feet long, buried under sand in water near South Island, off Georgetown County. The discovery was announced by Jim Spirek, of the S.C. Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology. It was reported in today's editions of the Myrtle Beach Sun-News.

According to the Sun-News, the object was discovered about noon Wednesday. Divers plan to return to the site in September, to look for additional items. Spirek told the Sun-News that the object could be part of the wreckage from the Chorruca, a Spanish galleon that sank in 1526 in Winyah Bay. The Chorruca was a lead vessel in the expedition headed by Lucas Vazquez de Ayllon, a conquistador born in 1475 in Toledo, Spain.

De Ayllon had settled on the island of Hispaniola (the island where today's Dominican Republic and Haiti are located) and was a successful business owner there. In 1523, he was asked by King Charles I of Spain to look for a route from the Atlantic Ocean through the newly discovered American continent to the Pacific Ocean.

De Ayllon tried to find such a passage along the Carolinas coast and is thought to have landed in the Cape Fear area. He also is credited as being the first European to discover Chesapeake Bay. In 1526, he headed an expedition of 600 colonists hoping to begin life on the South Carolina coast.

During that expedition, the Chorruca sank. The colony did not last long. There was a fight over leadership, during which African slaves reportedly escaped and joined nearby Native American tribes. A fever epidemic broke out, killing de Ayllon and many others. About 150 survivors gave up the effort in late 1526 and returned to Hispaniola.

Abt is the daughter of the late and renowned treasure hunter Mel Fisher, and the director of Sebastian's Mel Fisher Treasure Museum, where the gold bar went on display Friday. "We're very excited," Abt said about the recent discovery. "It's got beautiful markings on it. I would say it's worth at least $25,000." Roman numeral markings on the bar indicate it is 19 1/4 karats, she said.

Abt said Milne's crew found the bar in less than 20 feet of water near John's Island, south of the Sebastian Inlet. At the same site, the crew also found a copper "maravidi," a coin used by Spaniards in the 1700s, and a bronze cross.

The site is part of the ocean bottom that contains remains of ships from a 1715 Spanish fleet that sank during a hurricane while sailing back to Europe, loaded with treasure from Central and South America. The Mel Fisher Center holds state salvage contracts on the shipwrecks and has recovered treasure from them for the past 40 years, Abt said.

She said Milne's crew will continue to work the trail that revealed the recently-found gold bar in hopes of finding more treasure before stormier fall weather sets in. "We've been working that site (near John's Island) pretty diligently this summer," she said. "It's one of the top three sites as far as production of treasure."

The site is one Mel Fisher began exploring in the early 1960s before he began looking for the wreck of the Atocha, a 1622 galleon laden with 40 tons of silver, gold and copper off the coast of Key West. He found the Atocha in 1985 after a 16-year search, Abt said.

The place where the gold bar was found Aug. 11 is named the Corrigan site, after a local ranching family who once owned one of only two cabins on the beach between Sebastian and Vero Beach, Abt said. She said the other cabin belonged to the late treasure hunter Kip Wagner. In 1961, Wagner discovered a ship believed to be the Nuestra Senora de la Regla — the lead vessel in the Spanish flotilla — and helped salvage about $1.6 million in silver coins.

Salvagers haven't identified the ship where the recently-discovered gold bar came from, but it might be the Regla, Abt said. Under state law, The Mel Fisher Center gives 20 percent of the value of artifacts it finds to the state at the end of each year.

"The discovery of a Columbus shipwreck, let alone the finding of the flagship Mariagalante, would be a tremendous contribution to maritime archaeology," said Charles Beeker, director of Academic Diving and Underwater Science Programs in IU Bloomington's School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation. "Perhaps more important would be the cargo. Were the ships laden with native Taino Indian artifacts heading to Spain? Such a find would shed new light on the nature of the contact period between the Old and the New Worlds."

Earlier this summer, Beeker and Geoffrey Conrad, director of IUB's Mathers Museum of World Cultures, took a team of faculty and graduate students to the Dominican Republic to explore intriguing magnetometer anomalies the IU researchers had discovered 10 years ago. The readings suggest large objects buried under silt and mud, and within coral colonies. The readings indicate also that the objects are scattered -- similar to how a shipwreck, or several for that matter, would appear -- in a 75-square-meter area.

In the years since the anomalies were discovered and mapped, Beeker, Conrad and their graduate students have returned yearly to the Dominican Republic to complete a variety of projects related to tourism, conservation and the archaeological exploration of village sites and ceremonial wells related to the Taino Indians.

La Isabela Bay was the site of the first permanent Spanish settlement established by Columbus, and the Taino were the first indigenous people to interact with Europeans. Beeker said much of the history of this period is based on speculation, something he and Conrad are trying to change.

Their research teams are multinational and multidisciplinary, tapping such resources as the Anglo~Danish Maritime Archaeological Team (ADMAT) -- a nonprofit educational organization -- and the Genetic Anthropology Laboratory in IUB's Department of Anthropology. The latest research team included ADMAT as well as four professors and 10 graduate students from HPER, the School of Public and Environmental Affairs and the IU departments of anthropology, biology and mathematics.

Among their latest efforts, they retrieved a 300-pound kedge anchor that could be from the Columbus era. The anchor, which is being conserved at the laboratory of the Oficina Nacional De Patrimonio Cultural Subacuàtico (ONPCS), was encrusted with dead as well as live coral within the area of interesting magnetometer anomalies. The live coral was removed from the anchor and cemented onto nearby coral colonies. "We're strong advocates that you need to respect the biology when you excavate," Beeker said.

Beeker and Conrad's team used a water dredge to dig down to the most prominent magnetometer anomaly pinpointed. The pump, which acted like a vacuum cleaner, was able to dig an 8-foot hole through the silt and mud, with the magnetometer reading getting stronger as they went deeper. The team ran out of time, however, and had to postpone the search until later this summer. They are optimistic. When they return, they plan to determine which shipwreck they found, not whether one actually is buried in the bay.

Beeker said that several ships sank in La Isabela Bay during a hurricane in 1495. Researchers estimate that eight or nine vessels were lost in the bay, including smaller caravels and one or two larger store ships, or naos. One of the lost naos is believed to be the Mariagalante, Columbus' flagship on his second voyage to the New World. Documents indicate some of the ships carried cargo when they left for Spain, but Beeker said the contents are unknown.

Conrad and Beeker described the La Isabela Bay research project as a long-term investment by IU, which has funded much of the research. They also believe it is a project for which the land excavations and exploration of Taino village sites are as important as the underwater explorations.

"Everyone knows the name 'Columbus,'" Beeker said. "We want people to know Taino, too."

Bidders crowded the room to see history made in the auction world as the estimate was doubled then tripled and continued to climb in price. Towards the end two bidders were left in the fight for the coin, one in the room and one on the phone. At £390,000 a new bidder appeared and the coin received open applause from the room when he purchased the Double Leopard for a hammer price of £400,000.

"We knew that there would be huge interest," said Jeremy Cheek of Spink Auctions, "but this surpassed all our expectations." Spink is the leading auction house for record prices of coins. It is in the privileged situation to have sold seven of the top ten coins auctioned over the years, including the top two.

This coin is the third known specimen of its kind. The two other examples, found in the bed of the river Tyne in 1857, are now both in the British Museum. No other specimens were known until this coin was discovered and dug up earlier this year by a metal detectorist in the south of England. This is therefore the only example in private hands. It is a slightly different variety to either of those in the British Museum.

The finder was working with the permission of the landowner who has a joint interest in the coin - the proceeds of the sale will be divided between them. In order to protect the site the find spot is not being disclosed.

The Gold Double Florin, authorized on 14 December 1343, was to circulate at a value of six-shillings. The first coins were struck in early 1344, but the coinage was not a success. The Double Florin was replaced by the Gold Noble, authorised on 9 July 1344, and therefore this magnificent coin was only legal tender for a brief seven months.

The obverse shows a full length portrait of Edward III enthroned beneath a Gothic portico. The King is crowned and holds an orb and sceptre. Two crowned Leopards sit at either side, and the surrounding fields are decorated with fleur de lis. The reverse is filled by a floriate cross with crowns at the four points, within a quadrilobe with four Leopards in the angles.

The Double Florin was the first large gold coin of England. It was intended primarily for foreign trade. The denomination was based on the gold Florin of Florence, and the design was derived from a French gold coin ("masse d'or") of Philip IV of France (1285-1314).

Edward's issue of large gold coins was emblematic of the might of England during his reign (1327-77). Edward ruled not only England but also much of France which he claimed through his mother Isabella, daughter of Philip IV. It was Edward's brilliant son, the Black Prince, who secured English interests on the continent with his stunning victories at Poitiers and Crecy.

The ring, which is beautifully worked, engraved with mysterious lettering and surmounted by a diamond that had almost certainly travelled along the Silk Route from India to Europe, was found on a rainy morning in 2002 by John Wood, a retired tool engineer from Manchester. Armed with his metal detector, he had been given permission to explore ploughed fields at Manley Old Hall on the edge of the Delamere Forest in Cheshire.

A farm worker had told Mr. Wood that he wasn't likely to find anything as the fields had been scoured by treasure hunters on numerous occasions. But within two minutes his detector gave a signal and Mr. Wood dug up what a friend described as "looking like one of those gifts from a fairground."

On cleaning the ring Mr. Wood found the inscription loyaute sans fin (loyalty without end), the letter E engraved three times, each time followed by three stars, and, either side of the diamond, the two initials V and A. The engravings suggested at first that the ring was a love token but puzzled experts that Mr. Wood showed it to.

He was also disappointed that when he registered it for treasure trove, the Government's treasure valuation committee, which concluded that the ring was 14th century, valued it at just £3,000. He appealed and the valuation went up to £60,000. But it was research by Helen Molesworth, a specialist in Christie's jewellery department, that cracked the engraved code.

Delamere Forest was one of the favourite hunting grounds of Edward III, then pursuing England's claim on vast swathes of France in the Hundred Years War. One of Edward's closest allies on the Continent was a wealthy Flemish textile manufacturer, Jacob Van Artevelde. Jacob, a strong supporter of English claims in France, and the English king were close. They were each a godfather to one of the other's children.

The three Es, Miss Molesworth concluded, signified Edward and the V and A his Flemish friend. The ring was probably a gift by the king thanking his loyal friend. Miss Molesworth said yesterday: "It is only a theory but it is a very viable possibility." She went on: "I can't tell you how rare this ring is. It is the most exciting piece I have handled in my career. Diamonds were very rare for the time. The goldwork is exquisite and, historically, we are potentially dealing with a royal ring." Setting a diamond, a great rarity in 14th century Britain, in the ring, indicated that the piece could only have been made for someone from "the very upper echelons of society then," said Miss Molesworth.

Under the terms of Mr. Wood's registration of his find under the Treasure Act, it is believed that he has agreed to share the proceeds of the sale 50-50 with the landowner. The ring was sold to an anonymous British collector and fetched double its estimate.

Mr. Wood took up metal-detecting six years ago "as something to do while fishing." He thought that he might search the land beside the river banks while waiting for bites on his line. The ring was the find of his short career. On previous trips he has found a George III half-guinea which he sold for £55 and a Henry VIII coin worth £145. He estimates that he has found at least 2,000 modern pound coins that have been dropped. "We always make sure the farmer gets half the proceeds of anything we find, and a bottle of Scotch."

The vessel could date to the mid-1500s, when the first Spanish settlement in what is now the United States was founded here, the archaeologists said. But the exposed portion looks more like ships from a later period because of its iron bolts, said Elizabeth Benchley, director of the Archaeology Institute at the University of West Florida.

"There are Spanish shipwrecks in Pensacola Bay," Benchley said. "We have worked on two — one from 1559 and another from 1705. But no one has found one buried on land. This was quite a surprise to everybody."

Construction crews came upon the ship this month while rebuilding the base's swim rescue school, destroyed during Hurricane Ivan in 2004. The exposed keel of the ship juts upward from the sandy bottom of the pit and gives some guess of the vessel's form. Archaeologists estimated the rest of the ship is buried by about 75 feet of sand.

During initial work to determine the ship's origin, archaeologists found ceramic tiles, ropes and pieces of olive jars. The settlement was founded in 1559; its exact location is a mystery. The Spanish did not return until more than a century later in 1698 at Presidio Santa Maria de Galve, now the naval station. The French captured and burned the settlement in 1719 but handed Pensacola back to Spain three years later. Hurricanes forced the Spanish to repeatedly rebuild.

The Navy plans to enclose the uncovered portion of the ship, mark the site and move construction over to accommodate archaeological work, officials said. "We don't have plans to excavate the entire ship," Benchley said. "It's going to be very expensive because it's so deeply buried and we would have to have grant money," she said.

John Newman, from Suffolk County Council's Archaeological Service, said the treasure, which would originally have been adorned with a silver wash, was of the usurper emperors Carausius (287-293 AD) and Allectus (293-296 AD).

"This appears to be the largest hoard of legitimately minted coins of the two usurpers from Britain to date," he said. "The coins are made up of 258 of Carausius, and 347 of Allectus, minted at London and possibly Southhampton or Colchester, which was the first time official mints were set up in Roman Britain."

During a treasure trove inquest in Bury St Edmunds yesterday, coroner for Greater Suffolk Peter Dean heard how metal detectorist Paul Flack contacted Suffolk County Council after discovering 30 of the coins, which he correctly identified as being of Roman origin.

"We were able to mobilise a small team of archaeologists - funded by the Portable Antiquities Scheme - who excavated the area and found the remaining coins," said Mr. Newman. "We ascertained the coins had originally been placed in a pottery jar and then buried on the edge of a Roman period ditch, close to an area of known settlement - probably a moderate farm - but had been scattered by the plough lines running through the field. "A pile of flints was also discovered which may have been used to mark the spot where the coins were."

The coins, which are currently being kept at the British Museum where they will be cleaned and conserved ready for valuation by the Treasure Valuation Committee, were probably worth around four or five months wages for a labourer at the time they were buried.

Dr Dean commended Mr. Flack for helping to save the "great historical value" of the coins by reporting his find to the council immediately. "This is a find that should be considered treasure under the Treasure Act," he said. Local museums have now expressed interest in buying the coins. Peter Merrick, chairman of Friends of Mildenhall Museum, said he would be making enquiries to determine exactly where the coins were discovered.

Experts described the coin as "the find of the last 100 years." But the museum is angry at the size of its outlay, claiming that it should have been able to acquire it for two thirds of the price, and has called for reforms to art export laws.

Made from more than 85 per cent gold, weighing 4.33g and showing almost no sign of wear, the coin was struck in 805-810 during the reign of Coenwulf, the King of Mercia, East Anglia and Kent, the most powerful ruler in Britain at the time and a significant figure in the gradual unification of England.

The coin carries his name, title and an image of him and, on the reverse, the intriguing inscription DE VICO LVNDONIAE (From the trading place of London). Besides being in almost perfect condition, it's significance, says the museum, is that it is the earliest gold coin in the name of an English ruler intended as part of a circulating currency.

Many dozen Anglo-Saxon silver pennies have been unearthed but the Coenwulf mancus is only the eighth British gold coin - the museum now owns seven of them - cast between 670 and 1257 to be found. Earlier gold examples, including one from the reign of Offa, Coenwulf's predecessor as ruler of Mercia, were ceremonial coins.

Little is known about Anglo-Saxon coinage - and less still about Coenwulf who ruled Mercia from 796 to 821. But despite the enormous value of the coin, Gareth Williams, the museum's Anglo-Saxon coin curator, said yesterday that he was convinced that it was used as currency because of the unexpected inscription.

Coenwulf was, like rulers before and after him, in thrall to the language and culture of the Romans who had left Britain three centuries earlier. His decision to use the word vicus, meaning a trading centre, on the coin rather than civitas, the city seat of authority, is a strong indication that the coin was for trading.

The mancus was found several inches below a footpath on the bank of the Ivel near Biggleswade in 2001 by a metal detector enthusiast out walking with his dog. But how the coin came to be there is anybody's guess. "It would have been a grievous loss," said Mr. Williams. A recent dig near the river - not yet written up by archaeologists - has unearthed the remains of an Anglo-Saxon market place which may have been the destination of whoever lost the coin.

The image of Coenwulf, a bloodthirsty figure who stole the throne from Offa's son and then invaded East Anglia and Kent to create an empire stretching from the South Coast to the Welsh borders and the Humber, is not likely to be a good likeness, said Mr. Williams. "The rulers of the time chose to make themselves look like Roman emperors."

He went on: "It may be very expensive but it is an absolutely top discovery. It is beautifully preserved. It has no wear or tear and must have been freshly struck when it was lost. It's condition is so exceptional that we were suspicious at first. We had to test it quite thoroughly before we were convinced."

The mancus first came to public attention when the anonymous finder and the owner of the river bank, put it into auction at Spink in London in October 2004 with an estimate of £150,000. The British Museum bid but dropped out below £200,000 and it sold to an American dealer, Allan Davisson, for £230,000.

Mr. Davisson applied to take it to America but the Government issued a temporary export stop. This gave the museum six months to match the selling price. If it failed to do so, the export could go ahead. But in the meantime, Mr. Davisson disclosed that he had had an offer of £357,000 from a private collector in the United States and this was the price he wanted "matching."

The museum said yesterday: "This jump in price was very unfortunate and we think that this is a loophole that should be closed. We have always understood that the 'matching price' was the initial sale. We have started talks with Government because we feel this needs to be addressed in future."

Fred Leighton's gems make him giddy and they should, they're a far cry from the Mexican crafts he sold in the village in the 60s. Now he sells a far fancier selection on Madison Avenue.

Fred Leighton: "I bought what I liked. I learned through trial and error what value is." Fred designs some pieces, like the bracelet and earrings worn by Mariah Carey, but most are vintage, like the antique bracelet worn as a headband by Natalie Portman.

But Fred has a recent acquisition that he thinks were made for a queen, literally: a set of emeralds, two rings, a pendant, a necklace and earrings, which are thought to be from a shipwreck off the coast of Florida.

Legend has it they had been en route to the queen of Spain in 1715 when the fleet of ships sank in a storm. A diver found them in the 1970s and they only recently made it to Fred's store, and the earrings are his favorite.

Fred Leighton: "I've seen a lot of 18th and 19th century Spanish jewelry and I've never seen anything of the quality of these earrings."

The entire set has 309 emeralds, totaling a tad more than 232 carats. He estimates the value of this set at somewhere in the ball park of $2 million. But for Fred, selling this treasure will be such sweet sorrow.

Fred Leighton: "When you get something really beautiful, it's hard to give it up."

Part of the reason the emeralds are in such good condition is because they were found inside a silver box. The box was corroded, but the gems were unscathed.

The explorers will work with Dave Jordan, the Palm City native who spotted the cannons. Popin said the state Department of Environmental Protection has approved a permit needed to investigate 48 possible targets on the ocean floor. Those targets were identified with work completed in 2004 using technology called side-scan sonar and a magnetometer, which find buried objects and those on the sand surface.

This spring, Popin said they planned to be back in the area to check out the targets using a small boat with divers and a water dredge, which will allow the explorers to sift through the sand in search of small pottery bits, wood from a ship hull or possibly a pistol or, even better, gold.

"We can sift through it and see if there's anything of importance," Popin said. "We're not supposed to bring anything up except for identification. If we uncover something, we're supposed to put it back on the bottom."

If they do find interesting artifacts, the archaeologists will apply for a salvage permit to bring their 70-foot lift boat named the Polly L to excavate. Popin said the work this spring should take up to two weeks, depending on the weather. "Visibility is a big part of it," he said. "The pistol is exactly the kind of thing we'll be looking for."

The finders will now be rewarded for handing over the items at 'market value', which has yet to be decided. The Viking cast gold ingot, found in Wembury, was said to be particularly rare. The artefacts are certain to be sent to museums across the South West, including possibly Plymouth City Museum. All were found by metal detector enthusiasts, including three members of the South Hams Metal Detecting Club.

Plymouth coroner Nigel Meadows held a formal hearing to rule that the items were treasure trove and hand them over to the State. He read statements from the four finders, the landowners and experts from the British Museum in London who gave an expert opinion on their worth.

Mr. Meadows said after the hearings: "They're nice objects. They're not worth thousands and thousands, but they tell us a lot about our history." In each case a special committee will decide on the market value of the items and the cash will be split 50-50 between the finders and the owners.

The items are: A cast gold Viking ingot found with a metal detector by Michael Holland four inches under the surface of a ploughed field in Wembury on March 27. The bar would have been stored and used to make another object, such as a piece of jewellery.

A medieval gold finger-ring set with a sapphire and dating to the 13th century, found about five inches beneath the surface of a field near a church in Dunterton, between Tavistock and Launceston. It was found on April 17 by Clive A'Lee, a member of the South Hams club.

A post-medieval silver huntsman's whistle found in a field at West Charleton, near Kingsbridge, by Michael Long, also from the club, in 2003. It was reported only this year.

A silver gilt dress hook, part of a fastening for clothing, found on a farm near Ugborough on December 28, 2004, by Graham Fisher, again from the club. The report from the British Museum said the item was difficult to date.

All the items were handed over to Danielle Wootton, who is the finds officer for Devon and works in Exeter for the British Museum. Under the law, anyone who does not hand over an item they suspect to be valuable within 14 days can be prosecuted and be fined or even jailed.

Mr. A'Lee, a 43-year-old gardener from St Budeaux, has been metal-detecting for 15 years, and the ring is his most valuable find. He said: "The ring was very clean. It looked like it was put in the ground yesterday. I was gobsmacked. I was shaking when I dug it up." Mr. A'Lee was awarded two trophies by the club for the most important find of the year and has a framed photograph of the ring on his wall.

Despite the disappearance of the ship, the Rooswijk, the lost vessel and its treasure remained the property of the Dutch East India Co. When the company was taken over by the Dutch government in 1798, the Netherlands became the legal owners of the vanished bullion.

Last year a British sports diver, Cambridgeshire carpenter Ken Welling, found the wreckage. The Dutch Government was contacted, and the discovery was kept secret until this week, when Holland's Finance Minister, Joop Wijn, took possession of original wooden chests full of bullion. The silver was handed over at a ceremony in Plymouth Harbour aboard a frigate of the Royal Dutch Navy, the De Ruyter.

The loss of the Rooswijk in December 1739 was a financial disaster for the Dutch East India Co. and for Holland as a whole, as well as being a catastrophe in human terms. There were no survivors, and the world learned of the disaster because English fishermen, looking for potentially valuable storm debris found a wooden chest full of letters that identified the ship as the Rooswijk. It had sank just a day after sailing from the Dutch coastal island of Texel.

Underwater excavations have recovered all the silver bullion, and more than a thousand artefacts. Other cargo seem to have included substantial quantities of sheet copper, sabre blades and masonry, presumably for some construction project in the Dutch East Indies. Evidence of life on board was found in layers that reflected the vessel's social and architectural stratification.

When some time after the disaster the floor timbers had collapsed, the contents of each deck had simply fallen on top of one another.All the silver had been stored near the officer's dining area. The archaeologists knew how much they were looking for because the Dutch Government still has precise records of what was lost.

The silver, mainly in 1.9-kilogram bars, had all been mined in Spanish-ruled Mexico. Originally it had been carried by Spanish vessels from Mexico to Cadiz. It had then been sold to the Dutch and shipped to Holland, where it had been melted down and converted into silver bars bearing the imprint of the Amsterdam Chamber of the Dutch East India Co. The "re-branded" treasure was then loaded onto the Rooswijk, bound for Batavia, modern Jakarta.

There, some of it would have been converted into Javanese currency, while much would have been shipped to Siam (modern Thailand) or Bengal to be converted into local coinage. Before yesterday's handover to the Dutch, a full archaeological study has been carried out into the hundreds of bars recovered. Most were still in their original wooden chests. The discovery of so many silver bars complete with "packaging" is unique, and is helping archaeologists understand the scale and nature of the 18th-century international bullion trade, which financially underpinned most of the European colonial ventures of that time.

"This discovery is unique," said marine archaeologist Alex Hildredas. "It has provided a near complete assemblage of silver ingots cast for a single voyage, and would have been melted down to produce coinage if the vessel had not sunk."

In the colorful age of pirates, Blackbeard was flashiest of all. In a stroke of 16th-century marketing genius, the buccaneer wore bands of pistols, daggers and a cutlass during battle and tucked burning ropes under his hat to surround himself with smoke. "He created an image that is still remembered 300 years later -- beard, ribbons aglow, a face that looked almost like Satan itself," said Ben Cherry, who has studied Blackbeard and interprets the pirate at schools and festivals around the world. "He made everyone think he was a nasty guy, which is (his) success."

History records Blackbeard's flagship, the 40-gun Queen Anne's Revenge, ran aground near Beaufort Inlet in 1718. Archaeologists believe a treasure of information about the notorious pirate lies in a jumble of cannon and timber on the ocean floor there. But the sea still holds the secret of whether the wreckage was really the Queen Anne's Revenge and the site might be destroyed before the truth is known.

"We've only done 5 percent of the wreck, which means the rest is sitting out there in potentially great hazard from storms," said Phil Mas