Diamond coast shipwreck gets spot in National Geographic

THE centuries-old shipwreck that was discovered in Namdeb’s Mining Area 1 near Oranjemund in May last year has earned itself a place in the latest issue of National Geographic magazine.

The gripping story of the discovery of the remains of a ship that, loaded with a treasure of gold and silver coins, ivory, copper and other trading goods, met its end on a desert beach in one of the world’s richest diamond areas close to 500 years ago, is told in an article in the October 2009 issue of National Geographic.The article continues the international headlines that have been devoted to the shipwreck since its discovery during mining operations by Namdeb on April 1 last year.’It is by far the oldest shipwreck ever found on the coast of sub-Saharan Africa, and the richest,’ it is stated in the article.The wreck is now accepted to be the remains of a Portuguese ship that was sailing to India when it foundered on the Namibian coast after a huge storm at sea.Portuguese maritime archaeologists have now concluded that the wreck is probably that of the Bom Jesus – the ‘Good Jesus’ – which was part of a fleet of trading ships sent from Portugal to India in 1533.That fleet left Lisbon on March 7 1533. The Bom Jesus, which according to the article was owned by Portugal’s King João III, was part of the fleet.Although most of the Portuguese empire’s shipping records and maps were destroyedin an earthquake, tsunami and fire that struck Lisbon in 1755, a search through remaining historical records and clues given by the coins found with the wreck have led to the conclusion that the wreck is probably that of the Bom Jesus.According to surviving historical records 21 Portuguese ships were lost on the way to India between 1525 and 1600, it is stated in the article. The Bom Jesus is the only one of these ships to have been recorded as having been lost anywhere near Namibia.The coins found with the wreck also provided vital clues about its origin.Among the some 2 500 gold coins found at the site were rare Portuguese gold coins which were minted only between 1525 and 1538, after which they were recalled, melted down and never reissued. That places the ship in that time frame of 13 years.About 70 per cent of the gold coins were Spanish coins known as excelentes. A letter found in the Portuguese royal archives could explain that. The letter, dated in February 1533, shows that King João III had sent a knight to Seville in Spain to pick up gold from businessmen who had invested in the Portuguese fleet that was about to sail to India.’These were the pride of Portugal, the space shuttles of their day, off on a 15-month odyssey to bring back a fortune in pepper and spices from distant continents,’ it is stated in the article about the fleet that sailed from Lisbon on March 7 1533. The sailors on the Bom Jesus set off on a journey in search of great riches. The fate that they were to suffer when they became shipwrecked on that section of the Namibian coast was an ‘exquisite irony’ of their prayers for success, the article points out. If the there were any survivors of the shipwreck, they would have found riches, but not the kind they were looking for: they would have been on a desert coast fabulously rich in diamonds, but it was a place from which none of them ever returned home to Portugal.

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