MAHS in the Netherlands Antilles

No intact structural remains have been found.   But while little clearly identifiable wreckage can be seen on the harbor bottom, the debris field is at least 20 meters in width and extends for a length of over 100 meters along the edge of the modern shipping channel.

The artifacts consist mainly of small items, such as fragments of the copper sheathing that protected the hull of the Alphen from shipworms, and copper tacks that held the sheathing to the wooden hull.   In addition, there are a few large, recognizable artifacts, including cannon that range from 6- to 24-pounders.   Several of the cannon have been removed from the harbor, conserved, and are on display at the Curaçao Maritime Museum.

Among other artifacts from the site were creamware ceramics, 18th-century Dutch wine bottles and case bottles, pipe bowls and stems, musketballs, and fragments of rope, blocks and other elements of rigging.   The Alphen artifacts occurred in mixed depositional context, judging from the number of 19th- and 20th-century items found in the same deposits.   The site lies in a dynamic setting, the sediments consisting of loose, coral rubble and coarse-grained coral sand that are easily disturbed by the force of currents and eddies created by the modern shipping that moves continually overhead.   Moreover, the surface of the site slopes considerably, from the edge of the relatively flat terrace to the shipping channel west of the baseline (see the profile map of the harbor bottom).   Thus, it appears that sediment and artifacts, both modern and historical, are working their way persistently downslope to the west and becoming intermixed in the process.


Below are some of the artifacts from the site that are on display at the Maritime Museum.

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