Man takes treasure to ‘History Detectives | Local New
by By John Baile
Jul 15, 2007 | 129 views | 0 0 comments | 4 4 recommendations | email to a friend | print
A Cedartown man who enlisted the help of the “History Detectives” television show hopes to learn the meanings of mysterious markings on a silver bar that he recovered from a 1600s Spanish shipwreck.

An episode, which airs Monday at 9 p.m. on WGTV (Comcast Channel 8), will feature Cedartown resident Chuck Sotzin, who searched for the treasure with noted treasure hunter Mel Fisher.

The Spanish ship Atocha was carrying about 40 tons of silver and gold from Havana back to Europe when the captain decided to risk traveling during the hurricane season because of enemy fleets known to be in the area.

The ship wrecked in 1622, and in 1985 Sotzin was a diver on the voyage to search the Florida Keys and find the lost treasure of the Atocha.

The hunt netted piles of silver and precious jewelry, and as his payment Sotzin kept two of the silver ingots from the wreck.

One of the bars of silver has a series of symbols and a slash taken out of it, and Sotzin has asked the researchers on the “History Detectives” to find out what these markings mean and possibly to find out where the bar of silver originally came from.

Click here to learn more about the show.
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