We’ve Finally Found Magellan’s Lost Colony in South America

Using Lidar and GPR (Ground Penetrating Radar), a research team has located the first physical evidence of Port Famine (Ciudad del Rey Don Felipe)—the “lost” 1584 Spanish colony in the Strait of Magellan.

Lead archaeologists Simon Urbina and Soledad González Díaz, in partnership with the Universidad de Magallanes (UMAG), have reconciled the forgotten 1500s journals of Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa with modern remote sensing to find the site exactly where it was lost 440 years ago. This is a forensic hunt for an outpost left for dead on the edge of the world, validated by the discovery of the original foundation stones and a Potosí-minted silver coin.

Using first-hand historic accounts, I’ve also revisualized and retold the story of the founding & collapse of the lost colony as well.

PRIMARY SOURCES & ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECORD: