Assessing the Damage and Remaining Archaeological Potential of Commercially Salvaged Sites at Mozambique Island: The Case of São Sebastião Fortress Shipwrecks

In the 15th century, Mozambique Island came to play an important role mediating maritime interactions in the Indian Ocean. The Island’s underwater archaeological heritage reflects this history but has been heavily impacted over the last decades by commercial salvage activity. This situation was assessed in 2014 by the Archaeology and Anthropology Department of Eduardo Mondlane University in cooperation with international partners. This paper focuses on some of the most disturbed underwater sites near São Sebastião Fortress, namely the remains of a 16th-century Portuguese ship lost in front of the fortress with a significant cargo, delineating the extent of the destructions perpetrated by treasure hunters and the limitations they impose on archaeological interpretations. This paper then explores the possibilities for still gathering archaeologically significant information from these sites, and discusses the related archaeological problematic, which is of unfortunately increasing relevance to underwater archaeology across the developing world.