A Dive in History, Portugal

Alexandre Monteiro

Introduction

If the great classical civilizations are immortalized through their artistic and monumental heritage, a significant part of the Portuguese cultural heritage will be forever linked to the sea and the period of maritime expansion, discoveries, and the first true globalization.

Characters from the Portuguese tragic-maritime history, dozens of ships and caravels were wrecked in sight of land, dragging crews, dreams, aspirations, miseries and treasures with them.

Not only scientific but also historical treasures, vestiges of our ancestors’ way of life, everyday objects, everyday tools.

From gold coins to iron cannons, from silver ingots to bronze astrolabes, from tin dishes to Portuguese oak ships, from the bones of 16th century sailors to the oral tradition of the sea people – all of this is at the bottom of the Portuguese sea and in the memory of our people.

We want to use Portuguese technology to find and rescue these forgotten traces from the depths, we want to promote a rigorous scientific investigation that locates, inventories and places these shipwrecks that have been lost so far for all of us citizens.