The wickedest city on the world

Hidden beneath the waters of Jamaica's Kingston Harbour lie the ruins of the biggest pirate city of all time, Port Royal. With its reputation for extravagance, liquor and whores it was known as the "wickedest city on earth". On June 7th 1692 an earthquake followed by a tsunami destroyed the city; two thirds sank in minutes beneath the sea and 5,000 people died in the catastrophe and its aftermath. Since Port Royal's rediscovery in the C19th, numerous excavations of the site uncovered ruined buildings and pirate treasure. But now, Archaeologist, Dr Jon Henderson, uses the latest high tech scientific survey to reveal the full extent of the 33 acre sunken city for the first time. It will offer new visualisations of Port Royal and its devastating end. We will virtually drain the city and rebuild it in CGI to solve some of its long-standing mysteries. How did the home of the original pirates of Caribbean become the mercantile capital of the New World? Where do its sunken C17th forts now lie? And how the sand, on which Port Royal was built, was a geological catastrophe waiting to happen.

01:00

More from this show  (6 videos)