Can We Identify the Ship Through a Multidisciplinary Approach? The Case of the Ribadeo 1 Wreck (c. 1597)

During dredging works in the Ribadeo estuary (Northwest Spain) in 2011, a large and well-preserved shipwreck was discovered. Construction features suggested a date for the ship in the late sixteenth century, making this wreck a remarkable find for Spanish heritage, as it is one of the best-preserved shipwrecks from that time ever found in Spanish waters. Dendrochronological research on 32 samples retrieved in 2012 failed to produce dates for the timbers; hence the exact date of the ship and its possible construction area remained unknown. In 2015, additional archaeological survey works were planned on the site in order to document further exposed parts of the shipwreck, and to collect additional samples for dendrochronological research. Simultaneously, historical research was conducted in Spanish archives to search for documents referring to the wreckage of ships in the Ribadeo estuary in the sixteenth and early seventeenth century.

The results of this multidisciplinary research have led to the hypothesis that the shipwreck could be the Santiago de Galicia galleon , built in Castellamare di Stabia, near to Naples (Italy), in the late 1580s or early 1590s, and sunk in Ribadeo in 1597 CE. Dendrochronological dates obtained for two planks date the construction of the ship after 1580. Construction features of the shipwreck have been compared to those reported in sixteenth-century documents for the Santiago de Galicia galleon , and the potential limitations of our methods to identify the shipwreck, as well as the provision of timber in Naples in the context of dendrochronological findings are discussed.