KENT, ENGLAND—According to a BBC report, Historic England scholars continue to make discoveries related to the wreck of the Dutch ship Rooswijk, which foundered on a sandbank off the coast of Kent in 1740. Recent analysis of coins recovered from the site show they bear holes in them that suggest crewmen sewed them into clothing in order to smuggle them to the Dutch East Indies. Historians have also managed to discover the names of 19 of the 237 crewmen who went down with Rooswijk. Among them was a Norwegian sailor named Pieter Calmer who had already survived one shipwreck at the Cape of Good Hope. "It's extraordinary that after more than 270 years we now know the names of some of the people who may have lost their lives with the Rooswijk," says Duncan Wilson, chief executive of Historic England. "Seafaring was a dangerous way of life and this really brings it home." To read in-depth about a 17th-century Dutch shipwreck and its shipment of luxury goods, go to “Global Cargo.”
