Previous searches for
Beatrice and the sarcophagus

Chronology and source status

“Published fieldwork” means that a participant or institutional report describes work carried out. A “reported proposal” establishes what was announced; it does not establish completion. Later recollection is identified as testimony.

1995 · Salvar al Faraón

On 14 May 1995, El País reported that the Jordi Clos foundation was preparing a search. Its director, Adolf Luna, described feasibility work and the need for sponsors. A companion article announced a prospective start on 10 June. These are contemporary accounts of a planned project, not published field results. CLOS95ACLOS95B

To establish its operational history, the next step is to obtain the foundation’s project file, applications, authorisations, contracts and any survey report. The announced start date must remain distinct from an independently documented sailing or dive date.

Later retellings often date the initiative to 1996. The surviving 1995 coverage supplies an earlier dated record. This private proposal and the institutional 1997 campaign should have separate entries unless their relationship can be established from their files. ARES13

1996–1997 · museum and navy

The 2023 official monograph describes sandstone blocks near La Podadera reported by navy divers. A possible connection to Beatrice was communicated in November 1996. Defence–Culture collaboration led to systematic dives and recording from March 1997. The investigators rejected the proposed attribution. A separate metal wreck was found beside the Dique de Navidad. ARQVA · pp. 15–17

Iván Negueruela’s earlier participant account, published in 2003, places the search between Las Algamecas and the Faro de Navidad. He describes limited museum personnel, collaboration with the navy diving centre, failure to obtain the expected result and discovery of the previously unrecorded Navidad wreck. NEG03 · pp. 163–164

The Navidad wreck was a separate discovery

Later excavation and archival work identified it as the steamship Vargas, lost in 1886. The campaigns at that site in 2001–2002 belong to that wreck’s investigation. They are not evidence that Beatrice or the sarcophagus was found. ARQVA · abstract; pp. 18 ff.

2007–2008 · the Cartagena seabed surveys

The participant paper in the ARQUA 2011 proceedings describes summer campaigns by the museum and Aurora Trust aboard MV Isis. Two areas were defined: the outer harbour near its entrance and a wider zone extending towards Cabo Tiñoso. Side-scan sonar, a sediment profiler and a remotely operated vehicle were used; selected anomalies were checked, including by divers where conditions allowed. The report discusses modern wrecks and a Roman merchant vessel. Its published findings do not identify Beatrice. AURORA11 · pp. 18–20

The Aurora Trust’s own project page also records Cartagena work under 2007 and 2008. It supplies institutional corroboration of the surveys, with photographs, rather than a Beatrice identification report. AURORA-PROJECT

The 2010 update and its limitations

On 2 July 2010, Paul Boughton reported that Aurora archaeology director Timmy Gambin said the surveys had produced no evidence of Beatrice and that the ship might lie outside the surveyed area. This is an attributed statement in an online update. The underlying correspondence and the full campaign datasets have not been examined here. BOUGHTON10

The published paper provides stronger evidence for the methods and stated areas than a repeated news summary. Its two zones do not justify treating the whole western Mediterranean, or every possible Cartagena location, as excluded.

2008 · Hawass, Ballard and proposed funding

A Times report, preserved in a History News Network digest dated 14 June 2008, described Hawass seeking National Geographic financing. It named Robert Ballard and also mentioned Franck Goddio as a possible collaborator. This is evidence of contemporary reporting about a proposal. It supplies no survey tracks, expedition dates or verified discovery. HAWASS08

No original project agreement, Spanish authorisation or field report for a Ballard-led Beatrice expedition has been examined in this archive. Accordingly, the entry is not classified as a completed or failed expedition. The genuine 2007–2008 museum–Aurora surveys retain their own institutional attribution.

2020 / 2025 · a recalled Madrid meeting

In a Casa Mediterráneo interview published on 27 February 2025, Nacho Ares says he attended a January 2020 Madrid meeting at which Hawass and then vice-president Carmen Calvo discussed a new project. He says it did not proceed after the pandemic intervened, and mentions renewed Egyptian interest. This is a first-person recollection of discussion, published five years later. ARES25

The account is useful for the history of the proposal. Meeting minutes, a signed project plan, confirmed funding and an operational report remain to be obtained. The interview does not establish that a new underwater campaign took place.

What the results establish

The extent of a negative result depends on the surveyed footprint, instrument settings, visibility, burial and the criteria used to investigate a target. Without the original logs and datasets, this review cannot calculate detection probability or delimit a definitive exclusion zone. These are methodological limits, not new claims about the ship’s position.

EA6646, the British Museum’s stone fragment, is separately catalogued. Its survival does not constitute evidence of a modern Beatrice recovery. BM6646 View the fragment photographs ↗

Records still needed

The following priorities concern the history and coverage of past investigations. An institution named here is a logical enquiry point, not a claim that a particular uncatalogued file is held there.

1. 1997 campaign documentation. Seek the original museum–navy agreement, dive logs, plans, photographs, object descriptions and final report through ARQVA and the navy diving centre. These would define the actual search footprint and how the initial attribution was rejected. SEARCH97-FILES
2. 2007–2008 survey data. Seek the museum–Aurora agreement, georeferenced tracks, coverage mosaics, target register, ROV footage and identification decisions. The published overview provides a starting point rather than the complete dataset. SURVEY08-FILES
3. Proposed expeditions. Obtain original planning and correspondence for the Clos, Hawass/Ballard and 2020 initiatives. Confirm whether each reached authorisation, funding or fieldwork before assigning an operational outcome.
4. Older claims and local reports. Locate original applications, refusals or participant records for the earlier initiatives mentioned in later accounts. A repeated story is not independent confirmation of a search. Open the earlier-initiative research register ↗

Review date: 14 October 2026. This page reports the scope of the sources examined; it does not claim that every private, military or unpublished investigation has been located.