There may be 250 sunken treasure ships off the coast of Portugal.

There may be hundreds of sunken treasure ships off the coast of Portugal, Alexandre Monteiro, an archaeologist at the New University of Lisbon said.

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“We know that there are 250 treasure ships and that sooner or later anyone can find one of them,” the Observador newspaper quoted him as saying.

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The state cannot yet ensure the protection of the find from hunters for valuable treasure, the scientist complained.

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According to a database compiled by the historian, a total of 8,260 ships have sunk near Portugal since 1500. According to Monteiro, one of them may be a Spanish ship that was wrecked in 1589 off the Troy Peninsula while transporting 22 tons of gold and silver.