In April 2008 a shipwreck was discovered at the beach of Sperrgebiet. A geologist working for
De Beers, which owns the diamond mining operation in the area, found a copper ingot lying in the sand. The ingot was embedded with a trident-shaped mark, which was eventually recognized as the hallmark of Anton Fugger, one of Renaissance Europe's wealthiest financiers.
The archaeologists who arrived at the scene uncovered the remains a 16th-century Portuguese trading vessel, packed with a small fortune: Over 2,000 pieces of
gold, 22 tons of ingots, and thousands of cannons, swords, ivory and astrolabes, muskets and chain mail. Apparently, this ship has been lying in the sand for nearly 500, with most of its cargo intact.
The discovery has been called the
Diamond Shipwreck. Archeologists state that it will take a few years to study all of the material that was found there. Aside for the priceless loot, the discovery will also provide new information about the evolution of ships in the 16th century, as well as the daily activities of the crew.
Scholars are using rare manuscripts and royal archives in Lisbon to put the pieces of the puzzle together, unveiling the tale of a ship that vanished in sea, bearing mountains of treasure and gold. It began in Lisbon on Friday, the seventh of March, 1533. A Portuguese ship and crew was set to go on a 15-month odyssey to return a fortune in pepper and spices from Goa, Cochin, Sofala, Mombasa, Zanzibar and Ternate.
The gold coins found on the shipwreck have been traced back to King João III. These rare gold coins were minted from 1525 to 1538. After that, they were recalled, melted down and never issued again. Since so many of these gold coins were found on the shipwreck, the scholars concluded that the ship was at sea during this period of 13 years. The copper ingots suggest that the ship was on its way to India to buy more spices.
According to the records, 21 ships were lost on the way to India between 1525 and 1600. the only ship that sailed anywhere near Namibia was the Bom Jesus, which sailed in 1533 and was never heard from again. A letter from dated February 13, 1533, revealed that King João sent a knight to Seville to pick up 20,000 crusadoes' worth of gold from a consortium of businessmen who had invested in the fleet that was about to sail for India—the fleet that included the Bom Jesus. Some 70 percent of the gold pieces on the shipwreck were excelentes, unexpected for a Portuguese ship.
For decades, the great Orange River had been washing millions, even billions of diamonds down from deposits as far as 1,700 miles inland. Only the hardest, most brilliant, gem-quality stones, some weighing hundreds of carats, survived the journey. The diamonds and gems spilled into the Atlantic at the river's mouth and were washed up the coast, borne by the same cold current that would one day sweep the Bom Jesus to its death.