The wreck could be the oldest sub-Saharan shipwreck ever discovered, according to Namdeb.

The company's spokesperson, Hilifa Mbako, announced on Wednesday that Bob Burrell, the head of Namdeb's Mineral Resource Department, found some rounded copper ingots and the remains of three bronze cannons at a mining site in Mining Area One on April 1.

It is understood that the wreck was found in the Oranjemund mining area.

Mining operations at the site were halted and Dr Dieter Noli, an archaeologist and expert on the Sperrgebiet, was brought to the site, according to Mbako.

Noli identified the cannons as a type of Spanish breechloader that was popular in the early 1500s.

With the support of Dr Bruno Werz of the Southern African Institute of Maritime Archaeology, a team has been excavating the wreck site.

"The site yielded a wealth of objects including six bronze cannons, several tonnes of copper, more than 50 elephant tusks, pewter tableware, navigational instruments, weapons and thousands of Spanish and Portuguese gold coins, minted in the late 1400s and early 1500s," according to Mbako.

Other company sources said human remains and ornaments linked to royalty found on board the ship raised speculation it could be the caravel of Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias which went missing off the Cape of Good Hope in 1500.

Dias, a Portuguese nobleman, was the first European navigator who sailed around the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, thereby opening the lucrative trade route between Europe and the Far East.

He had also visited the bay of Walvis Bay in December 1487, and planted a stone cross at Luederitz in July 1488, while on his return journey to Portugal after having gone past the Cape of Good Hope and back.

The coins found at the site were minted in the late 1400s or early 1500s.

Some of the coins bear depictions of the Spanish King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella I, who reigned over Spain in the last part of the 1400s and early in the 1500s, Namdeb reported.

Mbako said the Portuguese government was alerted to the find and they expected a team of experts to be dispatched to the site for further investigations.

"The shipwreck holds more questions than answers," he said.

"If this proves to be a contemporary of the ships sailed by the likes of Dias, (Vasco) Da Gama and (Christopher) Columbus, it would be of immense national and international interest and Namibia's most important archaeological find of the century," Mbako stated.

Access to the area is strictly controlled under Namibian diamond laws.

According to Mbako, archaeologists, together with the National Heritage Council of Namibia, are keeping an independent inventory of the items that are being recovered from the site, while Namdeb has provided temporary storage for the recovered artefacts.

Own Report, Nampa-Reuters

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