ANCODS - Back in Australia

ANCODS - the Agreement between Netherlands and Australia Concerning Old Dutch Shipwrecks  - originally had the artifacts found and recovered from the four Dutch East India Company (VOP) ships (inc the BATAVIA) lost off the coast of WA split evenly between the Netherlands and Australia. In 2006 , on the 400yr anniversary of the first connection between our countries, the Netherlands government announce that it would give its share of the treasure to Australia.

A plate recover from The Batavia

This extraordinary gift was handed over in a simple ceremony at the National Maritime Museum tonight.





One of the crates was opened and displayed giving the guest an extraordinary experience to get up close an personal to object from the 17th century.

These simple everyday objects are in remarkable condition and each has an extraordinary story to tell.






The collection will be in the custodianship of the Western Australian Museum in keeping with the practice of keeping object near where they were excavated.

One of the more interesting objects were chain shots. They are basically two shot balls joined together with a spring.  Fired from a musket  they were a lethal and terrifying weapon as the spring stretched out and the balls traveled towards their target.At the time they would have been state of the art weaponry!

posted by Michael Huxley