Description

pp. 260, ” In 1954, young Phillip Playford stood at the top of precipitous cliffs on a remote part of Western Australia coast, looking down on the Wooden wreckage scattered below. he had been drawn to this spot, a figurehead and other relics, found many years before. Playford later proved that this site was the grave of the Zuytdorp, a great ship of the Dutch East India Company, which had disappeared in 1712 en route from Cape Town to Batavia (Jakarta), carry a rich cargo of silver coins. Phillip Playford brings to life the Zuytdorp story; the ship’s disappearance, discovery of the wreck, looting of its treasure, hazardous underwater exploration, and evidence that many people struggled ashore but never returned to civilization. He also explores the intriguing mysteries that remain. Did the survivors join the Aborigines, become some of of Australia’s first European ‘settler’? and who looted the treasure of the Zuytdorp, its fabled ‘carpet of silver’? Dr Phillip Playford has an international reputation as one of Australia’s foremost geologists, and also his historical research. His special interest in early Dutch shipwrecks dates back to 1954, when he located the Zuytdorp wreck site during geological work south of Shark Bay. In 1996, the Western Australia Government recognized him formally as a co-discover of the Zuytdorp, the first of four early Dutch wrecks to be found and identified on the Western Australian coast. “