Accession Number

2004.006.0005

Creation Date

circa 1622

Description

An olive jar from the wreck of the 1622 ship Buen Jesus. Buen Jesus was a 120-ton “patache” swamped in the deep waters of the Florida Straits in the same hurricane that claimed the galleons Atocha and Santa Margarita. The site was partially excavated by Seahawk Deep Ocean Technology in 1990-91, and a portion of the Buen Jesus artifact assemblage is now in the MFMM collection. The bulbous earthenware amphora, likely used to carry wine, is 56 cm tall x 30 cm wide.

Exhibition Label

Case/Object Caption (2023):

Olive Jars
Earthenware (c.1620)
Gift of Jamestown Inc., Museum Purchase Fund
1986.008.0841, 1986.008.0852, 1986.008.0891, 1986.008.1106-7,
1986.008.1110, 2004.006.0002-11

Spanish galleons are particularly known for their profusion of earthenware containers. Varying in size, these held items that ranged from water and wine to medicine and even olives. Sealed with a wooden bung at the top, they were watertight, and their shape made it easy to stack them on a lower deck, leaning against each other and not likely to roll.

Some people marked their jars with their logos to make sure they received the right goods. While many broken jars were found on the wreck sites of the Nuestra Señora de Atocha and the Santa Margarita, the intact jars came from a smaller ship in the fleet, the Buen Jesus.