Tiny crystals from a 17th-century shipwreck hold secrets of a global supply chain at the dawn of capitalism

Stern section of the Batavia hull and gateway replica. Vunz/Wikimedia Few episodes occupy a darker place in maritime history than the wreck of the Batavia. Wrecked off the mid-west coast of Western Australia in June 1629, 159 years before the First Fleet entered Sydney Harbour, the disaster offers a stark alternative to romanticised tales of exploration. Batavia’s story is instead one of greed, mutiny, heroic resistance and mass murder, exposing the violence and ambition that accompanied early…