This story started a century ago when a German Prospector stumbled upon a diamond in the Namibian desert. It was nothing short of a miracle. From there on the region was named "Forbidden territory." No need to say this unexpected finding whetted the curiosity of everyone who heard about them. A diamond company sent some miners to mine the region in search of diamonds. However, the real surprise came a century later when a miner found a copper ingot. The territory was concealing a huge treasure.
It all began in 1908. A German prospector made an unexpected discovery when he found a diamond in the Namibian Desert. The region was then labeled as “forbidden territory.” The incident was followed by Germans entry into the desert in search of more diamonds. However, little did anyone know that this mysterious desert was concealing something way more than that.
100s of years down the line and the territory has seen lots of mining by the Namibian government and diamond company DeBeers. They have been running a joint operation in the region. However, German prospector had no idea that the very place they were probing on was hiding an unimaginable mystery.
A miner while working found something unexpected buried inside the soil of the desert. Something that had been out of view for about half a millennia. The man was looking for diamonds when he stumbled upon some odd items that looked nothing like diamonds but held a great significance. The discovery was made in April of 2008.
The man was not sure what had he found as it was spherical in shape. It definitely not look natural. Perhaps, the object was a part of something bigger. Whatever it was, the object was very confusing. And he needed to find out what was it.
The man finally understood that he was holding a copper ingot in his hand. Interestingly, the ingot had a trident shaped mark on it. Well, this unexpected discovery really piqued his interest and he began looking for more ingots.
If we believe experts, in ancient times this ingot was taken in use for the trading of spices in the Indies. This took place at the starting of the 16th century. However, this assumption does not justify its presence in the middle of the desert. What was it doing there?
On further investigation, miners learned that the symbol was used by Anton Fugger who happened to be the richest financiers belonging Renaissance Europe. This much information was not enough to understand why was it there.
The miners unaware of the treasure hiding beneath the sand decided to find out more with the help of bulldozers. The earlier discovery of a diamond had already made this place very popular and now the discovery of ingot had only added to the mystery.
Workers found many things under the sand. They went on discovering pipes, wood, metal, and instruments that could be used on a ship. The miners who were working for a company called Namdeb Diamond Corporation could not understand what was that. They informed the company about their strange finding.
It was then Dieter Noli got a phone from the Namdeb Diamond Corporation. The company wanted him to work with them and unravel the mystery sprawling over the desert. Noli who initially got surprised by the finding sensed that this case was somewhat different. Well, the call did change his life.
The geologist told him about all the weird stuff they found on the surface of the beach. They had discovered woods, copper half-sphere, pieces of metal and maybe a copper or bronze pipes. They also sent him a mail bearing the picture of one of those "pipes." Luckily, Noli found out that it was a piece belonging to 16th-century artillery.
“I phoned [Chief geologist Juergen Jacob] back and told him that said pipes were in fact rather old breech-loading cannons. ‘How old?’ he wanted to know. ‘1535, give or take two months,’ I suggested. Since the ship wound up being from 1533, that was a pretty close guess!”
Chief archeologist, Dr. Noli said, “It just looked like a disturbed beach, but lying on it were bits and pieces.” He initially thought, “Oh, no no, this is definitely a shipwreck.”But how is it different from all the other ships." Well, keep reading to know more.
For your information, the area is occupied with many shipwrecks. However, all of these shipwrecks are recent as they sunk only in the last 120 years. The oldest shipwreck they could find in the region was The Vlissingen which was washed away in 1747 at Meob Bay.
Noli also said, “Once [there], the copper half-spheres had me flummoxed.” “But then I saw the wooden stock of a matchlock musket lying at my feet. Picking it up, I saw that the style of the stock – made to fit against the cheek, rather than against the shoulder – indicated that it was from the early century, matching the age of the cannons."
"Right then I knew that we had a ship from the early 16th century and that there would be a lot to find in very good nick, because if the stock of a musket survived, a LOT of other stuff would have done so as well.”
Once the man realized what had he found, he decided to go on with the investigation. He succeeded in convincing the Namdeb Corp. to let him and his team go ahead with their work on the site. It may sound easy but it was quite a task owing to the heavy cost of having the site dry for a couple of weeks.
The archeologist and the team were very excited. A world of treasure beneath the sand was awaiting them. They soon found a 500-year-old musket made of elephant tusks.
Archaeologists take it as a very important discovery and believe that this shipwreck is the oldest one that has been found on the sub-Saharan African coast. Not only that, according to them, it is also the most important shipwrecks. The miners excavated astrological tools, swords, cannon, time capsules, and compasses.
The company itself was at a loss of words. A spokesperson said, "The site yielded a wealth of objects including six bronze cannon, several tons 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,"
Although there is no surety, it is believed that this vessel could be The Bom Jesus – “The Good Jesus.” The aforementioned ship got missing sometime around this ship went stranded. According to popular belief, The Bom Jesus went missing on the African coast. It was a Portuguese ship headed to India but was never seen sailing beyond the Southern Atlantic.
According to the theory postulated by Noli, the heavy cargo on the ship and poor weather surrounding the ship forced the captain to come with a decision. So he decided to sail the ship towards the shore. The captain rolls out the anchor and began steering the ship towards the land. However, things got worse when it collided with a blinder.
A book from 16th-century named “Memorias Das Armadas,” sheds some light on the content of the vessel. According to that, the vessel had a cargo on it that was filled with gold and many other valuable articles. Historians believe that it was dated sometime between 1525 and 1538.
Noli reminisces, "I had been preaching to them [the miners] for a dozen years that ‘one day’ they would find a shipwreck, and to let me know when they do. I knew that we had a ship from the early 16th century and that there would be a lot to find in very good nick. As luck would have it, we found the treasure chest on day six."
They found several coins that were in mint condition. These coins were important as they provided a big clue to Dr. Nolie and his team. Only 45 minutes had passed by of them finding the first gold coin and they already had discovered a treasure weighing 11 kg.
He also said, "Academic arguments are all very well, but once you have literally filled your hat with an 25.5 lb mixture of Spanish and Portuguese gold coins (there were indeed swords as well), the value of the site is no longer in doubt."
Well, all the evidence found on the site pointed in that direction only. Perhaps, they had found The Bom Jesus. They did not quit investigating and so they even came up with another interesting detail. They figured why the ship sunk.
Dr. Noli explained it all in an interview. He said that the storm forced the ship into a giant rock. The ship bent over and lastly broke into two pieces. It's pieces got buried inside the sea along with a box full of fortunes. So what do you think? Did they get the riches or not?
The ship had a chest that too fell down inside the sea along with the ship. The chest plummeted from the cabin of the captain and settled on the deepest part of the sea. Luckily, the chest was well protected, thanks to the ship's heavy part that covered the chest and saved it from the strong waves of the sea.
Dieter Noli, said that the ship, “started breaking up and the chest with the coins was in the captain’s cabin, and it broke free and fell to the bottom of the sea intact… In breaking up, a very heavy part of the side of the ship fell on that chest and bent some of the coins. You can see the force by which the chest was hit, but it also protected the chest.”
There is one more theory. Noli explained, “Marine organisms may like wood, leather book covers, peach pips, jute sacking and leather shoes, but copper really puts them off their food – so a lot of stuff survived the 500 years on the bottom of the sea which should really not have done so.” “All this adds up to an extremely unusual situation, which led to truly excellent preservation of an in any event unique site.”
Bruno Werz, the marine archaeologist was greatly relieved when he found that the chest's haul of gold, ivory and the tin were safe and right in their place. Well, we should not forget that it happened due to the copper ingots worth 44,000 pounds. “If it hadn’t been for those copper ingots weighing everything down, there would be nothing left here to find.”
So that was about the treasure found on the ship but what happened to the crew? There are few details about that too. It is believed that the “ship was captained by a Dom Francisco de Noronha, and carried around 300 sailors, soldiers, merchants, priests, nobles, and slaves.” However, “the only human remains recovered from the wreck are several toe bones in a shoe found pinned beneath a mass of timbers.”
The company assumes that the remains of human and jewelry associated with the royalty give way to the possibility that it was the caravel of the Portuguese explorer, Bartolomeu Dias. It disappeared off the Cape of Good Hope in 1500.
The seas are full of heavy storms. For obvious reasons, the chest that stayed ticked beneath the sea must have faced many devastating storms. Not only that, the crashing waves had the potential of sweeping away the shipwreck.
The head of nautical archaeology (under the Ministry of Culture) and the doyen of Portuguese maritime archaeologists Francisco Alves called the discovery a precious opportunity to find out more about that great old vessel.
“This is only the second one ever excavated by archaeologists. All the others were plundered by treasure hunters.”
The shipwreck washed away on the Sperrgebiet coast that always remains heavily guarded. This is the reason treasure hunters refrained from carrying on their hunting work on this site. Consequently, these priceless remains stayed in oblivion for this long.
In Dr. Dieter Noli words, “The mining site concerned was actually located in the surf zone, where the violent action of the waves theoretically made mining impossible.” “So what the chaps do is push up a huge sea-wall with bulldozers parallel to the beach, with the ends running back to the beach. The result is a large man-made lagoon, with the surf pounding on the outside. Then they pump the sea-water out of the lagoon.”
The Namibian government officials and De Beers have quit working on the wreck site in search for diamond and now is assisting the archeologist to dig out more pieces of history.
The historians found many interesting objects on the Diamond Shipwreck which means that the coming years were completely packed with the study of those objects. These objects were going to reveal a great deal about the Portuguese trading vessels’ rigging, design, and evolution.
Manchester University's professor Timothy Insoll explains, "This is a very significant find, particularly the supporting items like the religious artifacts and clothing, which can give us fascinating insights into what was a very important period of history."
Ancient Origin stated on the discovery, “The gold was in the form of coins, more than 2,000 in total, mainly Spanish excelentes bearing the likenesses of the monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, but also some Ventian, Moorish, French and other coinage.”
Insoll shared, "Portugese sailors were on the cusp of opening up the known world around 1533, but historical sources have been limited in describing everyday life. The mix of discoveries is particularly impressive – and the bones can give archaeologists an idea of the sailors' typical diet, for example. While it is of course the gold that grabs the headlines, the other items found on the ship are potentially even more exciting going forward."
The responsibility of protecting the remains of the shipwreck is on The diamond mine’s security. They have kept muskets, cannonballs, timber, and swords damp just like they used to be since the 16th century. Notably, these remains have been kept in a secretive location.
So who was going to get all these gold? The answer is the Namibian government. "The Namibian government – every single coin,” Noli explained. “That is the normal procedure when a ship is found on a beach. The only exception is when it is a ship of state – then the country under whose flag the ship was sailing gets it and all its contents."
"And in this case the ship belonged to the King of Portugal, making it a ship of state – with the ship and its entire contents belonging to Portugal. The Portuguese government, however, very generously waived that right, allowing Namibia to keep the lot."
The ship is one of the most amazing discoveries in history. So there are talks that the government might change the site into a public museum for people to see the magnanimous pieces of a shipwreck that stayed hidden beneath the sand for about half a millennia.
The ship is actually going to assist a lot in learning about the lives of that era. Along with the ivory and gold, the ship also contained cooking items and sailing instruments that will help researchers in finding a lot more about the custom prevalent on the ship and what kind of luggage one carries that help them on journeys of this sort.
So how do you like this thrilling story? It is amazing how an accidental discovery led to the world's most important discovery of all time. Whoever was a part of this venture still cherishes the moments when they kept on finding new things every day.