Vol. 1 No. 4 (2022): El Ángel, witness to the commercial exploitation of a dye factory and the transition towards mixed shipbuilding

The waters of the Caribbean coasts of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras, are home to one of the most important ecosystems in the world, the Mesoamerican Reef System. Within it, Banco Chinchorro shelters an important cultural wealth represented by at least 70 sites with vestiges of naval accidents and objects of various origins, abandoned, discarded or lost between the 16th and 20th centuries. In particular, the remains of a shipwreck known as El Ángel stand out, which lies with its bottoms (lower part of the hull) and cargo (palo de dye), partially buried in a sandbank. The researchers, led by Laura Carrillo Márquez, study it to learn about the history of the ship and the society of its time; delve into its construction characteristics and understand the processes that led to its sinking and those that they have transformed it. Likewise, the remains are analyzed as one of the events that throughout five centuries have added to the conformation of the maritime cultural landscape of Banco Chinchorro.