The Taj Mahal Sunken Treasure

Sailing with the equatorial Trade Winds, the trader rounded the southern tip of India and pointed her bow at Ceylon (Sri Lanka), a tiny island dangling off the southern tip of the Indian continent. 

A portion of the last 425 rupees not in museums or private collections.

There, she possibly laid anchor at Galle, a major seaport linking Europe, Africa and Arabia to Oriental riches. Ceylon, or Serendib, as the Muslims called her, was legendary for her precious gems, which could be used to barter goods from the Far East.

After taking anchor at Galle, while rounding the southern tip of Sri Lanka, the trader, possibly caught in a typhoon, met her fate on Great Basses Reef.

There is no record of survivors . . .

In 1961, Sir Arthur C. Clarke, Nobel Prize nominee for the invention of satellite communications, and Oscar nominee for 2001: A Space Odyssey, was living in Ceylon.  While scouting an underwater location for a movie, several of his dive associates discovered the remains of a shipwreck on Great Basses Reef.  Buried among the debris were concreted masses of silver rupees. Flowing across the obverse, just below the date, is the poetic couplet “Shaw Aurangzeb Alamgir, the ruler, throne adorner, world grasper, struck coin in the world like the shining full Moon.” Further translation indicated that the coins had been minted in Surat, India, in the Muslim year AH 1113, or the latter part and beginning of the Gregorian years 1701 and 1702, during the 45^th and 46^th regnal years of Emperor Aurangzeb. 

The treasure discovery is detailed in Clarke’s 1964 The Treasure of the Great Reef and Indian Ocean Treasure.  It is the only known sunken treasure from the Taj Mahal dynasty.

Presently, there are only four coin masses left in existence.  To preserve historic integrity, one rests in the Smithsonian Institution and another is placed in the “Clarkives” in Taunton, England, commemorating Clarke’s underwater adventures.  A third was in the museum in Colombo, Sri Lanka.  Ironically, the sea reclaimed it during the tsunami of 2004.  Therefore the only remaining coin mass currently on tour in the US is presently headed back to Sri Lanka to replace its twin in the rebuilt Colombo museum.  There are now only 425 individual rupees available to collectors.  Most are still remarkably preserved and as uncirculated as the day they left the counting house in Surat, 30 years before George Washington was born.

Research conducted in 1993 by Robert W. Hoge, then curator of the American Numismatic Association, reveals only one published example of the AH 1113, regnal year 46, issue rupees in the Catalogue of the Coins in the Indian Museum, Calcutta, 1908. And until the Great Basses discovery, no other examples were known to exist. 

Due to adverse weather conditions on the treacherous reef, only ten coin masses were recovered in 1961/63.  Clarke’s partners believed that a far greater amount was left on the bottom.  Divers only have access to Great Basses Reef a few days a year, due to rough seas generated by Eastern and Western monsoons and political tension in the area.

Sir Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Lewis Knecht, Capt. Carl Fismer with the Taj Mahal Treasure in Clarke's family home near Taunton, England.

Capt. Carl Fismer, master treasure salvor and owner of the US collection of Great Basses rupees formerly owned by Smithsonian curator, Mendel Peterson, speculates that a majority of this Surat mint run has been lost on the reef.