Porcelain fragments and a large chunk of beeswax, believed to be from the shipwreck.
Uncovering Oregon’s Earliest Mystery: The Nehalam Beeswax Shipwreck
Becky Raines, Business and Marketing Assistant
The discovery reads like an action story: Archaeologist and Museum of Natural and Cultural History research affiliate Scott Williams and his crew had 90 minutes to get in and out of a treacherous cave on the Oregon coast.
The cave, blocked by hazardous rocks and crashing waves, hid a treasure: a long-lost ship mast. The crew hustled to recover the mast with water rescue equipment.
In June 2022, Williams worked with volunteer archaeologists, first responders and state officials to recover several large pieces of timber belonging to a shipwreck known as the Beeswax Wreck, one of the wrecks that inspired the film “The Goonies.” Easy to miss in the excitement was the decades of research preceding the day’s urgency.