Gold Coins Worth $13 Million Found in Desert from a 500-Year-Old Portuguese Shipwreck
In 2008, a 475-year-old secret came forth in the form of a shipwreck in Namibia. A team of geologists working for a diamond mining company located the shipwreck later identified as 'Bom Jesus', along the coast near Oranjemund, Fox News reported. The mining company found $13,000,000 worth of gold coins from the ship. The team was prepared for such a discovery as they had been repeatedly told by Dr. Dieter Noli, chief archeologist of the Southern Africa Institute of Maritime Archaeological Research, that they could stumble on a shipwreck like that. Alas, the treasure was taken away by the Namibian authorities, Indy100 reported.
Portuguese Ship 'Bom Jesus'
Bom Jesus (The Good Jesus), was a Portuguese ship heading toward India in 1533, Indy100 reported. During the journey, the ship encountered a massive storm and got lost. On its India voyage, the ship was reportedly carrying a huge stash of valuable items from those times. After the discovery of the ship, Noli and his team analyzed the ship and figured out how it sunk, CNN reported. "We figured out the ship came in, it hit a rock and it leaned over," Noli explained. "The superstructure 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." As per historical documents, the ship was loaded with gold, tin, ivory tusks, and 44,000 pounds of copper ingots during its voyage, Fox News reported.
Mining Company Discovers Shipwreck
A team of geologists from the mining company De Beers located the shipwreck along the coast near Oranjemund in 2008, Fox News reported. Diamond miners got their hands on it in 2016. "The mining site concerned was actually located in the surf zone, where the violent action of the waves theoretically made mining impossible," Noli shared. "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 seawater out of the lagoon." The draining worked and the miners had the ship in their presence. Noli wasn't surprised as the area frequently became a site of such discoveries. Portuguese sailors called the coast "The Gates of Hell" because so many ships got lost in there.
Unexpected Treasure
Noli was not surprised by the shipwreck, but the treasure within it was something even he did not expect, Fox News reported. "When asked what exactly I was really expecting to find, I said 'a Spanish sword and a bag of gold,'" he shared regarding his initial estimate of valuables inside the ship. Noli on seeing the ship was convinced that it was from the 16th century and believed that a lot could be found from it in good condition. He convinced the mining company to let the team work on the ship for some more time. "As luck would have it, we found the treasure chest on day six. Academic arguments are all very well, but once you have literally filled your hat with a 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,” he stated. He identified the ship as the fabled Bom Jesus. Multiple archaeologists have labeled it as one of the most significant shipwrecks ever found. Noli credited the copper ingots as the reason behind the ship persevering, for so long as marine organisms avoid copper.
Ownership of the Treasure
The excavation yielded multiple Portuguese and Spanish gold coins, Portuguese silver coins, bronze cannons, tonnes of copper ingots, around 50 elephant tusks, and many more valuables, Indy100 reported. The team unearthed 2,000 gold coins in total. All the valuables went to the Namibian government. "The Namibian government – every single coin," Noli explained, Fox News reported. "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."