“Hand-struck, irregularly shaped coins—known as cobs in English and macuquinas in Spanish—served as the primary currency in the Americas for more than two centuries,” Daniela Vargas Ariza, a maritime archeologist and the study’s lead author said in a statement.

New research revealing details of gold coins found aboard a shipwreck off Colombia provides further evidence that the vessel was the San José galleon, a 300-year-old Spanish warship believed to contain artifacts worth billions of dollars.