Pirates and Permits: Legends and Archaeology

There is something attractive in the idea of a lost piece of history, of something out of place with its modern surroundings. The idea of a mystery and its pursuit excites and inspires. For decades, Imperial Valley has carried the story of the “Lost Ship of the Desert” — a Spanish galleon trapped inland when the waters around it dried up. This January 2019, students from McKinley School came to Imperial Valley Desert Museum for a day of pirates and archaeology as they learned the stories and science behind it and searched for this lost ship. Named Deputy Archaeologists for the day and armed with honorary dig permits, more than 150 students set out to literally get their hands dirty, discovering fact from legend and archaeology from treasure hunting.

Lost ship of the desert

Beginning with Juan Cabrillo in 1542, European explorers have been a presence in California for more than 450 years. Since then, Spanish troops and missionaries explored its lands by foot and sea. Of those expeditions, stories tell of a Spanish ship — in some cases a privateer loaded with black pearls and treasure — that sailed up the shrinking Colorado river in the early 1700s, and became trapped inland as the waters dried up behind it.

Early Europeans to California faced an unknown landscape much different from what we now know and see. These early explorers, soldiers, and missionaries relied heavily on the local tribes for their early survival in a strange land.

Most different was the land of Imperial Valley — then filled with water as the ancient Lake Cahuilla. Lake Cahuilla was a massive body of water spanning Imperial Valley from Ocotillo to the Dunes, from Palm Springs to Mexicali and beyond. Fed by the freshwaters of the Colorado River, Lake Cahuilla would form as the result of the river changing its course to flow inland, into the low-lying lands of Imperial Valley. Lake Cahuilla was a recurring lake: it would appear as a result of heavy rains or snowmelt forcing a change in the river, and disappear a generation later as the Colorado changed its course again to flow back out into the Gulf of California. It’s in the narrow window of the last fill around 1700, as the lake was receding and the Colorado had begun to shift, that the story of the ship takes place.

Over the years, various artifacts and materials have been discovered that could point to this lost ship. In Laguna Salada in the 1970s, Morlin Childers, Jim Atkins and Jim Bailey discovered a tall pole with metal hitch, taken to be part of the ship’s mast. Discovered by Robert Marcos, a Kumeyaay petroglyph outside of Ocotillo could even capture the ship itself in rock art. However, the evidence is not yet concrete and efforts to separate fact from fiction are still ongoing.

Permits, not pot-hunting

Over the years, many have searched for the lost ship of the Yuha Desert. Their efforts span the generations and have adapted to an ever-changing landscape of archaeological technology, techniques, and laws. Today, laws like the Archaeological Resources Protection Act (1979) exist to protect this history and its evidence. Illegal excavation or taking of artifacts from public lands carry heavy penalties: up to $100,000 in fines and five years in prison. When coming up with the idea of a pirate and lost ship-themed party at IVDM then, it was not as easy as digging for buried treasure. Education on the importance of the past and the need to respect and preserve it had to be included – moving students away from the dangers of simple treasure-hunting to something fun, scientific, and permitted: archaeology.

Pirate party

Coming out to Imperial Valley Desert Museum, more than 150 students joined its staff in exploring the story and evidence of this lost ship. With teachers and staff in costume alike (some as pirates, others in something closer to Indiana Jones), students spent the day readying their archaeologist gear with painted hats, learned how the lands of Imperial Valley are constantly changing and walked the trails in search of lingering clues, and helped the museum’s professional archaeologist excavate history in a test “dig.”

With paintbrushes and cups, honorary dig permits and professional supervision, students worked together to unearth a ship’s worth of buried history: gems, swords, navigational tools, and gold coins. Though saddened that no, they couldn’t keep them, students were later surprised to see the real fruit of their work: the return of those artifacts back to the museum for cleaning, research, and display! Before leaving, students were amazed to see the dusty objects polished and presented in a (very) temporary museum exhibit — showing that history is a public thing, and deserves to be kept local and free for the benefit of its local communities.

The imperial valley Desert Museum is located in Ocotillo. it is open Wednesdays through Sundays 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

PHOTO COURTESY OF IVDM A petroglyph found in imperial valley (left) may depict a Spanish ship, like the San Salvador at the Maritime Museum of San Diego (right).

PHOTO COURTESY OF IVDM ivDM Director, David Breeckner, uses a sieve to separate sand from artifact.

PHOTO COURTESY OF IVDM Students use brushes to carefully search for lost history.

PHOTO COURTESY OF IVDM 300 years ago, imperial valley was under the waters of the ancient Lake Cahuilla.