Many of us have always been fascinated with ships, whether the RMS Titanic tragically sunk on her maiden voyage, the RMS Lusitania, which was sunk when a German U-boat torpedoed the passenger liner on her Atlantic crossing or Blackbeard’s Queen Anne’s Revenge that sunk off the coast of Beaufort Inlet when it ran aground.
For many of these ships, there is the hope of recovering lost treasure; items that featured prominently in the lives of a ship’s inhabitants that were thought forever gone. While some vessels remain a mystery, and others are far too below the ocean’s surface to safely explore, others have been discovered with fascinating pieces of history intact.
Although it may remain the ultimate fantasy for many to find pirates’ treasure, some have made it their mission to locate these lost shipwrecks. From archaeologists who aspire to find historical artifacts of great value to treasure hunters who dream of locating gold and other riches that went down with the ship.
According to the Smithsonian, there are more than an estimated three million undiscovered shipwrecks across the globe. Whether they were trade ships battered by hurricanes, passenger ships that sank while carrying aristocrats and their safe boxes, or battleships that went down with hundreds of sailors aboard, shipwrecks have always fascinated the public, and for good reason. They are time capsules containing a rich history – and often literal riches – just waiting to be discovered.
24/7 Tempo has compiled a list of the most famous shipwrecks ever discovered by consulting dozens of historical articles on shipwrecks and their discoveries from a variety of sources. We have listed a variety of these – from ancient Roman trading vessels to WWII battleships – including the most famous shipwreck of all, the Titanic. (Here are 57 fascinating facts about the Titanic.)
Thanks to modern technologies such as underwater robots and sonar, scientists, explorers, and salvagers can now locate these underwater wrecks and their buried secrets. To date, billions of dollars worth of gold, silver, and other valuable artifacts have been recovered from shipwrecks, and considering that 95% of the ocean is still unexplored, there could be billions more worth of treasures lying on the ocean floor.
Antikythera shipwreck
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The Antikythera shipwreck, which sank in the 1st century B.C., was discovered by Greek sponge divers in 1900 off the coast of the island of Antikythera, near Crete. Divers had first discovered the arm of a bronze statue and were then able to salvage numerous artifacts, with the help of the Greek Education Ministry and the Royal Hellenic Navy.
Treasures worth an estimated $160 million and dating back as far as the fourth century B.C. have been recovered from the ship, including several marble and bronze statues – one named “The Philosopher”, the Youth of Antikythera (Ephebe) of c. 340 BC, and marble sculptures including Hercules, Hermes, and Apollo, three marble statues of horses, and jewelry, among others.
The most interesting is an artifact considered to be the world’s first analog computer, the Antikythera Mechanism. This sophisticated bronze device featured multiple gears that could predict eclipses and the movements of celestial bodies.
Nuestra Señora de Atocha
In 1622, the large, multi-tiered Spanish ship, Nuestra Señora de Atocha, sunk off the Florida coast, near Key West, along with at least eight other Spanish ships. Destroyed by a hurricane, the Nuestra was loaded with goods from various ports in Central and South America, as well as the Caribbean, en route to Spain.
The loss of their cargo, which today is believed to be worth $450 million, was a severe blow to Spain’s economy. Discovered by U.S. treasure hunter Mel Fisher in 1985 after over 15 years of searching, the shipwreck contained copper, gold, silver, and gemstones, some of which have yet to be retrieved.
Panagiotis
Navagio Beach and Shipwreck of the Panagiotis at Smugglers Cove Zakynthos
Reputed to be a smuggling ship used to ferry cigarettes, alcohol, and maybe even humans from the Greek island of Cephalonia to Albania, the coaster Panagiotis mysteriously washed ashore on the Greek Island of Zakynthos in 1980. Although many rumors exist as to how the ship ended up abandoned on the island, the ship’s captain claims that it was a combination of bad weather and mechanical failure. The rusted hull is now a popular tourist attraction in what is known as Shipwreck Cove, accessible only by boat.
RMS Republic
In January of 1909, the steam-powered ocean liner RMS Republic, carrying passengers from New York City to ports in the Mediterranean, was traveling through dense morning fog off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, when it was struck by the Italian steamship Florida. Only six people died and the other passengers were able to evacuate to Florida and another rescue ship, the Baltic.
Among the lost ship’s cargo were relief supplies for victims of an earthquake in Italy, $60,000 in military supplies, and possibly $1 billion worth of gold coins. Treasure hunters have yet to recover the rumored gold.
Erebus
While searching for the Northwest Passage in 1848, Royal Navy Officer John Franklin and all his crew, along with their two ships, the bomb vessels, HMS Erebus and Terror, mysteriously disappeared. The fate of Franklin and his vessels remained a mystery for over 160 years, although multiple expeditions attempted to find them. Finally, in 2014 a Canadian search mission found the Erebus in shallow water, almost fully intact, along with a note stating that Franklin had died before the two ships were abandoned.
USS Arizona
An aerial view of the USS Arizona Memorial with a US Navy (USN) Tour Boat, USS Arizona Memorial Detachment, moored at the pier as visitor disembark to visit and pay their respects to the Sailors and Marines who lost their lives during the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
Originally launched in 1915, the USS Arizona (B-39), a Pennsylvania-class battleship, had a long and varied career but is best known as the U.S. battleship bombed by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The bombing detonated a powder magazine, causing the ship to explode and sink, killing over 1,100 crewmen. The shipwreck remains in Pearl Harbor and is a National Historic Landmark and part of a memorial visited by millions of people every year.
Graf Zeppelin
Launched in 1938, the Graf Zeppelin was Nazi Germany’s only aircraft carrier. It was originally scuttled in 1945 ahead of the advancing Russian Army and at the end of WWII, the Soviet Union raised the Graf, only to use it for target practice, which is where it sank once more in 1947 off the coast of Poland, in the Baltic Sea.
It was discovered in 2006 by a Polish oil company. The Polish Navy then gathered images of the wreck with remote-controlled underwater robots to confirm that the underwater hull, irretrievable due to its depth, was actually the Graf Zeppelin.
Dimitrios
The Dimitrios was a small cargo ship that was mysteriously abandoned on the Greek coast and washed up on Valtaki Beach, Greece in 1981 where the rusted hull remains to this day. Various rumors exist as to how it ended up there, including that it was burned to hide evidence of its use as a smuggling ship, or that it was abandoned at a nearby port and drifted to the beach.
Queen Anne’s Revenge
Believed to have been built by French shipwrights, Queen Anne’s Revenge was originally a Royal Navy ship, then a French slave ship until it was captured in 1717 by the legendary pirate, Blackbeard, a.k.a. Edward Teach. Blackbeard used it for less than a year before it ran aground in Beaufort Inlet off the coast of North Carolina in 1718. Blackbeard escaped the wreck, which went undiscovered until 1996. So far over 30 cannons and 250,000 artifacts have been removed from the wreck.
HMS Victory
During a 1744 mission to relieve a convoy of British ships blockaded by the French, the 100-gun Royal Navy ship HMS Victory sank in a storm in the English Channel, taking all of its 1,150 crewmembers down with it. Its exact location remained a mystery and the topic of much debate until the sought-after wreck was finally located in 2008, along with a few of its 100 bronze cannons. It was rumored that the ship was also carrying gold, but none has been recovered.
Whydah Galley
A slave ship built in 1715, the Whydah Galley was captured by the pirate “Black Sam” Bellamy during its maiden voyage, shortly after it left Jamaica. In 1717, two years after Bellamy took control, a nor’easter around Wellfleet, Massachusetts, sank the ship off the coast of Cape Cod, killing all but two of its crew. The ship’s remains were discovered in 1984, along with over 200,000 artifacts and treasures worth $400 million.
Roman transport ship
A Roman vessel containing 300 wine jars was located off the Albanian coast in 2011 by a joint U.S.-Albanian archeological mission. The nearly 100-foot-long wreck is thought to have been carrying wine from southern Albanian vineyards. The ship is believed to have sunk sometime in the 1st century B.C. The wine vessels, known as amphorae, were found remarkably intact, but unfortunately, their stoppers had long since disintegrated, allowing the wine to leak into the sea.
USS Juneau
In 1942, during the WWII Battle of Guadalcanal, the USS Juneau was sunk by a Japanese torpedo off the Solomon Islands, taking 687 people with it. Among the dead were the Sullivan Brothers – five brothers from Iowa who fought together in the war. The Juneau was discovered in 2018 by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen using his research vessel, the Petrel.
Two Brothers
Captain George Pollard – whose ship the Essex was sunk by a whale in 1820, inspiring the novel “Moby Diсk” – lost another whaling ship to a storm west of Hawaii in 1823. Pollard and his crew escaped from the Nantucket whaling ship Two Brothers as it went down and boarded their consort whaleship, Martha. The shipwreck was discovered on a reef in the French Frigate Shoals, 600 miles northwest of Honolulu in 2008. Whaling artifacts such as harpoon tips, anchors, and a blubber hook have been retrieved from the site and the surrounding waters.
Hiei
In 1942, the 31,000-ton Hiei was the first Japanese battleship to be sunk by the U.S. during WWII in Guadalcanal. Discovered in January of 2019, it was one of many discoveries made by researchers aboard the late Paul Allen’s R/V Petrel, the Hiei was found upside-down and split in two off the coast of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.
Frank W. Wheeler
On September 29, 1885, strong winds battered the Frank W. Wheeler, a new schooner-barge, as it was being towed by the steamer Kittie M. Forbes near Grand Island in Lake Superior. Its captain and crew escaped into lifeboats 15 minutes before the ship sank.
In 2021, a team of researchers for the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society found the Frank W. Wheeler, along with two other downed vessels, using a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) and marine sonic technology. The Wheeler’s hull and cabins, along with many artifacts, rest 600 feet underwater and have been remotely explored and documented.
Thistlegorm
Launched in 1940, the British cargo ship SS Thistlegorm – Scottish for blue thistle – was used to transport weapons and supplies to British forces during WWII. It was sunk by German bombers in the Red Sea near Ras Muhammad, Egypt in 1941. The wreckage was first filmed by the explorer Jacques Cousteau in 1955 when he raised multiple items from the site.
Thistlegorm’s massive propeller, anti-aircraft guns, and cache of spilled tanks and munitions make it a popular scuba diving location.
SS Central America
In 1857, the sidewall steamer ship SS Central America was traveling to New York City from Panama when it was struck by a hurricane off the coast of South Carolina. The ship was loaded with 572 passengers, according to the ship’s manifest, and almost 10 tons of gold that was discovered in California during the Gold Rush, earning it the name Ship of Gold.
It took the ship nearly two days to sink, during which time a passing ship was able to rescue around 149 of its passengers. The shipwreck was discovered in 1988 along with $150 million worth of gold.
USS Monitor
The USS Monitor, an ironclad warship famous for its Civil War standoff with the CSS Virginia (which was powered by the original engines of the USS Merrimack), sank in a storm while being towed by the USS Rhode Island off the coast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina in the winter of 1862. In 2002, after six weeks of work, divers were able to recover the ship. Various pieces of the Monitor are on display at the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Virginia.
Lusitania
Launched in 1906, the ocean liner RMS Lusitania was the largest ship in the world for a brief few months until being replaced by the RMS Mauretania. This ship operated in the transatlantic passenger trade and was known for its speed, setting a record for the fastest Atlantic crossing in 1907. In 1915, after 202 successful Atlantic crossings, it was torpedoed by a German U-boat and sunk in just 18 minutes, taking the lives of almost 1,200 passengers and crew when the ship sank off the coast of Ireland. Many of the ship’s artifacts have been recovered throughout the years and are on display at museums around the world.
La Belle
In 1684, the French ship La Belle, along with three other ships belonging to the explorer Robert La Salle, set sail for the Mississippi River with 300 settlers aiming to colonize the area. The ships veered hundreds of miles off course into the Matagorda Bay off the coast of Texas. La Belle sank in the bay during a storm in 1686 and wasn’t discovered until 1995 by marine archaeologists.
The hull has been recovered, along with many artifacts including tools, trade goods, weapons, and personal items of the would-be settlers, all of which are displayed in the Bullock Museum in Texas.
The Sultana
The sinking of the commercial steamboat Sultana is still considered one of the worst maritime disasters in the United States. Designed to carry no more than 376 passengers, the Sultana was overloaded with 2,137 people – many of them Union Army prisoners of war who were being shipped back north – when three boilers exploded and sank the ship in 1865 in the Mississippi River near Memphis, Tennessee.
Its burning hull drifted six miles to Marion, Arkansas where it eventually sunk. Over 1,200 passengers died in the wreck. As the river changed course multiple times over the next century, the remains of the Sultana were found buried under an Arkansas soybean field in 1982, about four miles from Memphis.
USS Hornet
The USS Hornet, the aircraft carrier that launched the famed WWII Doolittle Raid against Tokyo and participated in the Battle of Midway, was later sunk in the Solomen Islands by Japanese torpedoes during the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands. Though 2,000 sailors were able to escape, 140 died on the sinking ship.
In another discovery made by Paul Allen’s R/V Petrel, the USS Hornet’s remains were located more than three miles underwater off the Solomon Islands.
Vasa
Vasa
The Swedish warship Vasa, built around 1628, was the most high-tech warship of its time. Even though it was one of the Swedish Navy’s greatest achievements, and was one of the most powerfully armed vessels at that time, it wasn’t very stable, built with too much weight in the upper portion of the hull, making her top-heavy.
This instability, together with strong winds, caused the ship to sink less than a mile into its maiden voyage off the coast of Sweden, to the horror of the Swedish public who’d gathered to watch it set sail. The ship’s nearly intact wooden hull, along with thousands of artifacts, was recovered in 1961 and is now a popular tourist attraction.
The Mary Rose
A warship of England’s King Henry VIII, the Mary Rose was first launched in 1511. It served in many battles against Scotland and France and in 1536, was rebuilt substantially but in 1545, during an attack on a French fleet, the ship sank in the Solent off the Isle of Wight.
It was discovered in 1971, close to the Isle of Wight, and has since become one of the most expensive projects in maritime archaeology. The ship’s wreckage, over 26,000 artifacts, and half the crew’s bodies have been recovered. A museum at the Portsmouth Dockyards has the ship’s hull and many artifacts on display.
RMS Titanic
The RMS Titanic, a British ocean liner featuring state-of-the-art technology was the largest ship at the time and was declared by its owners to be “practically unsinkable”. It sank during its 1912 maiden voyage from England to New York City after striking an iceberg 400 miles east of Newfoundland, Canada.
Over 1,500 passengers and crew perished, and about 700 survived. In addition to the massive casualties, the ship went down with about $200 million worth of gold, silver, diamonds, and other riches. The Titanic’s hull, which had split in half, was finally found in 1985, and hundreds of artifacts have been recovered from the wreckage.
The Centaur
The Australian hospital ship AHS Centaur, which was a clearly marked WWII hospital ship traveling from Sydney to Port Moresby, was struck by a Japanese torpedo in 1943 off the coast of Queensland, Australia. It is unclear why it was targeted. Of the 332 passengers, 64 survived and were rescued by an American ship after waiting 35 hours on liferafts. The ship’s wreckage was discovered in 2009 and the site is protected to prevent souvenir hunters from raiding the remains.
Batu Hitam
This ancient Arabian ship, also known as the Belitung shipwreck and the Tang shipwreck, is likely to be up to 2,500 years old. It was likely traveling from China to Africa when it sank in 830 BCE about one mile off the coast of Belitung Island, Indonesia.
The ship was carrying what may be the largest collection of Tang Dynasty artifacts ever discovered – over 60,000 pieces – when it was found in 1998. Valued at about $90 million, the treasures recovered from the shipwreck are mostly ceramics and pottery, including bowls, spice jars, and funeral urns.
Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes
The Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes, a Spanish frigate sunk by the Royal Navy in 1804, may just be the most valuable shipwreck ever discovered. It was sunk off the coast of Portugal in the Battle of Cape Santa Maria and was discovered in 2007. About $500 million in gold has been recovered from the wreck.
The Spanish and Peruvian governments have both claimed ownership of the gold, and in 2012 a U.S. Supreme Court case granted Spain rights to the treasure. Along with other artifacts from the shipwreck, the gold is now on display in museums across Spain.