A 500-year-old Portuguese ship has been found buried under sand in the Namibian desert, with the discovery shedding light on historical details regarding maritime trade during the early colonial period (Image X @archeohistories)
New Delhi: In Namibia’s remote and forbidding Sperrgebiet region, miners digging for diamonds have discovered the buried wreckage of a 16th-century Portuguese ship laden with gold, ivory, and copper.
Preserved in near perfect condition under the arid sands of the Namibian Desert, the ship, which has been identified as the Bom Jesus, disappeared in 1533 while en route to India.
The ship, which was carrying over 2,000 gold coins, 22 tons of copper ingots, and dozens of West African ivory tusks, revealed a near-intact cargo system spanning Europe, Africa, and Asia. The vessel is speculated to have been driven off course by a violent storm near the Cape of Good Hope and had been completely covered by sand over the centuries—shielded from scavengers, seawater, and even time.
Unlike most shipwrecks, the Bom Jesus was found inland, several hundred feet from the Atlantic coast. The exceptional state of preservation that the ship was found in is said to be due to the extreme aridity and sediment stability of the surrounding Namibian desert.
“This is not just an archaeological site; it’s a sealed economic time capsule from the Age of Discovery,” said Dr. Bruno Werz, director of the African Institute for Marine and Underwater Research, Exploration and Education (AIMURE), in an official research summary.
“We’re dealing with a ship that tells the story of early globalization through physical evidence—not fragments, but full systems.”
The cargo found aboard the ship included copper ingots marked with the trident seal of the Fugger banking dynasty, which confirmed that German financiers were providing financial support to Portuguese vessels traversing the Indian Ocean.
A large number of Spanish excelentes—coins rarely found aboard Portuguese vessels seems to suggest that Spanish investors may have had an unusually high stake in the 1533 fleet.
The Bom Jesus was part of a fleet that left Lisbon in March 1533 and embarked on a voyage halfway across the world to India. Historical naval logs and visual documentation in Memória das Armadas—an illustrated chronicle of Portuguese fleets— claim that the ship was lost near the Cape of Good Hope.
Although more than 300 people - including crew, clergy, and soldiers - were likely aboard the Bom Jesus, only one human bone fragment, a toe found inside a decaying shoe, was recovered, suggesting that many of those on board may have survived and reached land.
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