Bom Jesus wrecked on the Namibian coast

The Bom Jesus was a Portuguese nau sailing from Lisbon towards western India in 1533. The wreck was found in 2008 during offshore diamond-mining operations near Oranjemund in southern Namibia. Ship timbers, cannons, ingots, coins, ivory and other material were recovered from the site, which is identified with the Bom Jesus through the cargo, the vessel’s route and historical records.

The cargo included more than 100 elephant tusks, large quantities of copper, lead and tin, and thousands of gold and silver coins. Many of the copper ingots carried the mark of the Fugger company of Augsburg, showing how European financial and manufacturing networks supplied goods for an India-bound Portuguese vessel. The ivory is being studied through archaeological, genetic and isotope evidence to investigate its African origins and the organisation of the sixteenth-century ivory trade.

The wreck record therefore combines evidence of the ship’s intended voyage with the material traces recovered from the seabed. It does not preserve a survivor narrative or a direct account of the circumstances of the sinking.

Significance

The wreck provides unusually rich archaeological evidence for the movement of metals, money and African ivory through the sixteenth-century maritime trade route linking Europe, southern Africa and India.