Location - Caribbean coast of Panama
Directed by - Donald Keith and Toni Carrell
Searching for - La Gallega, a ship abandoned by Columbus in 1503
“The sherds were small and not nearly as impressive as the black thunderheads advancing toward us down the north side of the Panamanian cordillera. Archaeologist Jacinto Almendra plucked the sherds from the wet screen through which we sifted each bucket of muck dragged from the bottom of a place the locals called el pozo viejo, "the old well." The translucent glaze glistened honey and green. "Barro miel," said Jacinto as he grinned and nodded at one of the sherds. Honey-colored ware.”
“Known on the other side of the Atlantic as melado ware, and found on this side only in the earliest Spanish settlements, it was exactly what we were looking for. It was a late September afternoon in 1988 and we were at Rio Belen in Panama, searching for the caravel Gallega and the short-lived settlement of Santa Maria de Belen, both abandoned by Columbus during his fourth and final voyage to the New World in 1503. The modest sherds in the palm of our Panamanian colleague's hand were the first tangible evidence that, after looking for more than two years, we were on the right trail.” - Donald Keith and Toni Carrell, "The Hunt for the Gallega,” Archaeology Magazine, (January/February 1991, pp. 55-59)
Ships of Discovery (Columbus's Lost Ships)