FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Lisa_Anne]

Hi All,

I'm new to this web site but I want to tell a story.

The history of these ingots is as follows:
I have a friend in Ukraine, the city of Nikolaev. He is a diver. Last summer he dived in the Black Sea and took photographs of fish and accidentally found 3 pieces lead of ingots on the bottom.

Weight approx. 46 kg ... approx. 100 lbs. Bar dimensions - see Photo.

Ingot inscription: NS DE MONSERRA


Can anyone help determine which ship is lost it?
What company made them? I think, this ingots- mine of Our Lady of Monserrat (known as Cabezo Rajao)

I would be very grateful for any information about them.

Deutschland:
Hilfe benötigt, sehr alter Bleibarren - NS DE MONSERRAT

Die Geschichte dieser Bars ist wie folgt:
Ich habe einen Freund in der Ukraine, der Stadt Nikolaev. Er ist Taucher.
Letztes Jahr tauchte er und fand in geringer Tiefe -3 Stück Barren.
Gewicht ca. 46 kg ... ca. 100 lbs. Abmessungen des Barrens - siehe Photo.

Barreninschrift: NS DE MONSERRAT

Kann jemand helfen festzustellen, welches Schiff verloren hat und wo es gesunken ist?

Many Thanks,
Lisa

[James Catmur]

We tend to focus on minerals, not mining history. That is not to say that mining history does not interest us but you might be better off asking a mining history site?

[Lisa_Anne]

Thank you for your answer.
I wrote a message to the site and the Museum of History and the Museum of Archeology.

Historical Museum of Barcelona.
History Museum- Madrid
https://www.esmadrid.com ›

https://www.museodelprado.es/en/museum/history-of-the-museum
(links normalized by FMF)

But, unfortunately I have not received any response.
Maybe on this forum someone is interested not only in minerals but also in history and archeology?
I would be grateful for any help!

[Peter Lemkin]

I would suggest you contact these people and tell them your story. The area, I see, has been mined for Pb since Roman times and it seems ended about the First World War - leaving the area one of the most highly polluted with Pb. Since this group are doing research on it [and online you can find others doing different aspects of scientific work in the area] they might have the interest and know others who are more specifically interested in what your friend found...

THE MINEU PROYECT, AN EXAMPLE OF ECO-TOURISM IN A MINING LANDSCAPE: THE SIERRA MINERA OF LA UNIÓN, MURCIA, ESPAÑA. M. ORTEGA1, J. I. MANTECA MARTÍNEZ2, J. CALVO LOPEZ1, M. C. BERROCAL3 1Depto. de Arquitectura y Tecnología de la Edificación. Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena, matilde.ortega @ upct.es, jose.calvo @ upct.es; 2 Depto. Ingeniería Minera, Geológica y Cartográfica. Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena. nacho.manteca @ upct.es; 3 UNED, Centro Asociado de Cartagena. berrocal @ um.es ABSTRACT The Sierra of Cartagena-La Unión (Murcia, España), with more than 25 centuries of mining history, constitutes one of the most relevant examples in Spain of mining landscape, deeply modified by the human activity and testimony of this regional historic evolution. The mining activity was languishing from the decade of the Seventies of last century and stopped definitively in 1991. After years of pillage and abandon of the Geo-mining patrimony administration, has been aware of that the patrimony must be recovered and placed in value, to be used as tourist and cultural, revitalizing resource of the socioeconomic activity of the region. Among the different projects, we are going to focus on the present work on the performances realized in the context of the European project Mineu. The tarjet of this project was to develop the draft of a "good practices manual" for the recovery of the mining heritage. In the project there have taken part multidisciplinary teams (Mining engineers, geologists, archeologists, architects, experts in tourism) of several countries (Slovakia, Germany, Italy and Spain). As "pilot zone" for the application of the obtained conclusions, there chose a sector of the Sierra of Cartagena - La Union, named “Cuesta de las Lajas” (Slope of The flagstones), specially richly from the patrimonial point of view. The economic funds of the Mineu project, has allowed the materialization of some of the proposals selected by the experts. Among them it is necessary to emphasize the safety related ones, due to the level of inherent risk in these mining zones. Actions of excavation have taken to themselves to end first and the extraction of rubble, which have put in evidence elements hidden by ruins. After the industrial-architect elements cataloguing (washers, shafts, galleries, hoppers, etc...) and landscape (rafts, mine dumps), there has been projected a net of paths that connect between the diverse elements and allow a visit along this portion of territory, focused as a natural museum outdoors, or ecomuseum. The development of the Mineu project and his application to a pilot zone of the Sierra of Cartagena - La Union, proposes as a model of performance for the respectful recovery of mining heritage, and puts of manifest the interest of the multidisciplinary approach in this type of works. This example encourages us to realize performances of recovery in a moment in which the region of Murcia is immersed in a great constructive explosion that seems does not respect too much the natural patrimony, since already it has happened in other coast European regions.

The head person and the one who posted it on the internet is this man [the article available on internet is in Spanish]: josé Manteca, Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena
Department Mining, Geological and Cartographic Engineering

[James Catmur]

A quick search on

complejo del Cabezo Rajao montserrat "lingotes"

suggests:

https://www.foro-minerales.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13319

https://mti-minas-murcia.blogspot.com/2007/05/complejo-del-cabezo-rajado.html

https://listarojapatrimonio.org/ficha/cabezo-rajao/

http://www.patrimur.es/documents/1806272/1815008/patrimonioindustrial.pdf/0ac31050-12b4-4257-a17a-133ee134623b

See if that leads you anywhere

[Lisa_Anne]

Thanks a lot Peter,
I think this will help a lot !!!


I also wrote a message to Dr. Sean Kingsley who participated with the Discovery Canal in the Channel uplift steel ship of the Channel. There they found ingots similar in shape. But the stamp was different.
Unfortunately, he did not answer anything on the stamp from my ingots.
Just this:

"To continue, the Nuestra Señora de Monserrat mine was a concession that was part o the La Union-Cartagena lead mines in Cartagena, Spain. See attached.

It was operative from the mid-19th to mid-20th century.

See the attached article on similar shaped ingots we found off England. "

Dr Sean Kingsley
Director, Wreck Watch Int.
wreckwatch.......org

part of the article:
"At the start of the Atlas Shipwreck Survey Project in 2005, Odyssey Marine Exploration discovered outside UK territorial waters the
wreck of a 64m-long steel ship in the western English Channel containing a cargo of lead ingots (site T1M31b-5). Further seasonal
monitoring continued in 2008 and 2012. The ingots are stamped with the maker’s mark of ‘T.S. Co LD. SPAIN’, an abbreviation of
T. Sopwith and Company Limited. The ingots were manufactured at Linares in Andalusia between 1880 and 1907, when Thomas
Sopwith Jnr was one of numerous entrepreneurs who exploited southern Spain’s mineral wealth. Spain emerged as the world’s largest
producer of lead in the last quarter of the 19th century".....


And also, I cannot find any information about these ingots.
What was the name of this Spanish galleon?
Which ship transported them (lost)?
What year was that?
What company made them?

This information will be very helpful.
I would be very grateful for any information about it as well.

Thank you,
Lisa

[James Catmur]

Lisa

I have asked for help from the Spanish side - they may know more about this mine

James

[Lisa_Anne]

Hi James,

Thank you very much for the links.
This is very interesting and I will definitely study it.
But, this information is a little outside the scope of my research.
In addition, a quick scan did not show me a single photograph of the ingot that this mine produced.

I was very grateful for the Spanish side's help.

[James Catmur]

An internet search suggests this is being asked for non-scientific, commercial reasons - we are a non-commercial site so have locked the discussions on both the English and Spanish sides