7. Great Basses Wreck
Est. Value Today: $8,000-$9,000* (Rupee Hunks)
Year Disappeared: Early 1700s
Year discovered: 1961
The Great Basses Reef is located a few miles off the coast of Sri Lanka, and it is home to the Great Basses wreck. This early-1700s shipwreck was discovered in 1961 by Mike Wilson and Arthur C. Clarke. The ship was identified as having belonged to India’s Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb.
Great Basses Wreck © Sir Arthur C. Clarke/Wikimedia Commons
The ship, which would later become the subject of Clarke’s novel, The Treasure of the Great Reef, was full of cannons, silver rupees, and other artifacts. The rupees alone are worth thousands, though they were, strangely enough, fused together when they were found into hunks of solid silver.
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