Miners find 500-year-old shipwreck filled with gold coins in Namibian desert

The wreckage of a 500-year-old Portuguese ship filled with gold coins has been unearthed by miners in a Namibian desert. The haul was discovered by diggers from diamond company De Beers and is believed to be worth upwards of £9m. Archaeologists have confirmed the wreckage is that of Bom Jesus, a ship which set sail from Lisbon in 1533 and disappeared with its entire crew on board near the Namibian diamond mining town of Oranjemund, on the way to India.

The miners alerted geological experts when the ship was discovered in the pit of a drained lagoon, and the gold was found six days into the excavation process among bones and navigational tools. Professor Timothy Insoll, from Manchester University, who specialises in African archaeology, told The Independent the other items found including pottery could prove even more valuable than the gold coins.
www.independent.co.uk...

Now who would have thought of looking for a ship full of gold in a desert, kinda remind me of the scene from Close Encounters Of The 3rd kind with that ship in the Mongolian desert , and the link further down said Portugal waived all rights to it, are you kidding me?? off course they can't get it back!.. silly rabbits, i'd think the Namibians would have told them where to get off , more than likely it was looted gold in the first place.

originally posted by: Spider879

The wreckage of a 500-year-old Portuguese ship filled with gold coins has been unearthed by miners in a Namibian desert. The haul was discovered by diggers from diamond company De Beers and is believed to be worth upwards of £9m. Archaeologists have confirmed the wreckage is that of Bom Jesus, a ship which set sail from Lisbon in 1533 and disappeared with its entire crew on board near the Namibian diamond mining town of Oranjemund, on the way to India.

The miners alerted geological experts when the ship was discovered in the pit of a drained lagoon, and the gold was found six days into the excavation process among bones and navigational tools. Professor Timothy Insoll, from Manchester University, who specialises in African archaeology, told The Independent the other items found including pottery could prove even more valuable than the gold coins.
www.independent.co.uk...

Now who would have thought of looking for a ship full of hold in a desert, kinda remind me of the scene from Close Encounters Of The 3rd kind with that ship in the Mongolian desert , and the link further down said Portugal waived all rights to it, are you kidding me?? off course they can't get it back silly rabbits i'd think the Namibians would have told them where to get off , more than likely it was looted gold in the first place.

Cool find thanks for sharing.

I'm sure the ship and gold will be going to a museum at some point.

a reply to: Spider879
The way I read it, the ship was actually a 'ship of state' when it was lost, and Portugal did have rights to it.
I thought it was nice of them to give it up, either way.

The thing that I was interested in was DeBeers finding it. There are some looting M-Fers.

originally posted by: butcherguy
a reply to: Spider879
The way I read it, the ship was actually a 'ship of state' when it was lost, and Portugal did have rights to it.
I thought it was nice of them to give it up, either way.

The thing that I was interested in was DeBeers finding it. There are some looting M-Fers.

I don't know much about maritime laws but, doesn't it fall under salvage?? kinda like finders keepers too bad for you?? and isn't there a time limit on such things..just asking.

a reply to: Spider879

Now who would have thought of looking for a ship full of gold in a desert, kinda remind me of the scene from Close Encounters Of The 3rd kind with that ship in the Mongolian desert , and the link further down said Portugal waived all rights to it, are you kidding me?? off course they can't get it back!.. silly rabbits, i'd think the Namibians would have told them where to get off , more than likely it was looted gold in the first place.

It reminded me a little of the plot of National Treasure 2 until I read the article. It sounds like this is more or less on the beach.

“A lot of stuff survived the 500 years on the bottom of the sea which should really not have done so.”

Dr Noli continued: “That is normal procedure when a ship is found on a beach. The only exception is when it is a ship of state.

Still an awesome find and that treasure is a whole lot easier to recover then if it had been miles offshore under hundreds of feet of water1

a reply to: DarkvsLight29

Maybe a tiny little bit will go to a museum. Little Nicky will grab the rest for himself. If I remember right, he wanted resource rights in what would be Namibia (previously SWA) so badly that he was willing to kill for it, so any ships found on "his" property and all that. The skeleton coast is known as one huge diamond field.

Cheers - Dave

a reply to: theantediluvian

Oh Ok I didn't realize a ship of state made all the difference. thanks to you and Butcherguy for helping out,.

originally posted by: Spider879
a reply to: theantediluvian

Oh Ok I didn't realize a ship of state made all the difference. thanks to you and Butcherguy for helping out,.

Thank you for posting the story! it is very interesting.
Like theantediluvian, I thought of 'National Treasure 2' and .................'Sahara'.

Couple of years ago, an American research ship, called Discovery, I think, found a treasure ship in international waters, something like half a billion $ in silver coin, they did everything correctly, informed the maritime authority, transported all the coinage back to a bonded warehouse in America, and waited for the outcome of the courts deliberations, remember, an American firm did all the work, the original owners, some European country, laid claim to the silver, and the America court, rather unusually, awarded the silver to the European country!

originally posted by: pikestaff
Couple of years ago, an American research ship, called Discovery, I think, found a treasure ship in international waters, something like half a billion $ in silver coin, they did everything correctly, informed the maritime authority, transported all the coinage back to a bonded warehouse in America, and waited for the outcome of the courts deliberations, remember, an American firm did all the work, the original owners, some European country, laid claim to the silver, and the America court, rather unusually, awarded the silver to the European country!

Wow that's seemed wrong so where do salvage laws come into play??..note to self find stuff at sea don't say shhhh, did they even get a cut??

a reply to: Spider879

Cool find OP, just wish it wasn't De Beers... If I'm not mistaken, they were one of the biggest blood diamond companies on the global market... I'm sure they've cleaned up their act now with the public pressure a decade plus ago, but still, wish some randoms found it over De Beers...

a reply to: Spider879

what i'm curious to know is how far from the coast the ship was found.
just a mile or so no biggie, but 20 30 klicks or more would just go to show just how much the earth can change in a short time span.

a reply to: hounddoghowlie

looked it up, can't find anything that says how far from the coast the town is.
i did find this map but going by the scale seem to be only a couple of miles.
Oranjemund, Namibia

a reply to: Spider879

I was thinking more of the movie Sahara, but yeah, pretty wild! Nice find. WOnder how much the finders will get to keep.

a reply to: pikestaff

I think you might be referring to the Odyssey Marine Exploration - Black Swan Project

They have a show on 1 of the main documentary channels.

sidenote: The main archaeologist on the boat is a regular at my local pub!

originally posted by: butcherguy
a reply to: Spider879
The way I read it, the ship was actually a 'ship of state' when it was lost, and Portugal did have rights to it.
I thought it was nice of them to give it up, either way.

The thing that I was interested in was DeBeers finding it. There are some looting M-Fers.

I doubt they gave it all up, probably took their fill and gave the rest up...and sorry but that is exactly what I would do if I ever was lucky enough to find chests full of gold coins.

a reply to: Spider879

I like the name Bom Jesus