Museo de Arqueologia Subacuatica, Fuerte de San Jose el Alto

The only underwater archaeology museum in the region, this collection occupies the casemates of the 1792 Fuerte de San Jose el Alto and displays cannon, anchors, astrolabes, ceramics and coin recovered from wrecks on the Campeche Bank, the shallow offshore shelf that claimed numerous ships of the Spanish treasure fleets over three centuries of colonial navigation. The galleries explain the salvage techniques used to recover these objects from the seabed, the colonial shipping routes that connected New Spain to Havana and Seville, and the pirate raids along this coast that ultimately convinced the crown to fund the fort itself. This last connection gives the museum a double narrative, tying the underwater archaeology on display directly to the defensive structure housing it, since the fort was built to prevent precisely the kind of raiding that also endangered merchant shipping offshore. The exhibition sequence moves from an introduction to underwater archaeological methods through thematic rooms on specific wreck sites and recovered cargoes, ending on the fort's gun platforms above the coast, which give a direct view of the waters the collection describes. Restoration of the fort preserved its dry moat and gun platforms while converting interior chambers for museum display.