[Archport] Governo português oferece-se para ajudar a estudar o naufrágio da Namíbia

[Alexandre <no.arame@gmail.com>]

THE NAMIBIAN (08 May 2008)

"Quest to solve treasure ship riddle begins
WERNER MENGES

THE discovery of a treasure-laden shipwreck, estimated to be around
500 years old, in Namdeb's Mining Area 1 near Oranjemund early last
month is only the first chapter in what could turn into a long slog of
archaeological detective work to unravel the secrets of an ill-fated
pioneer of sea travel off the Southern African coast.

The easy part of working on an archaeological site like this is the
digging up of the site and recovering relevant material from it,
archaeologist Dieter Noli, who played a leading part in the first
examination of the wreck site in April, told The Namibian in a
telephonic interview from Cape Town yesterday.

The hard work is analysing what was found at the site, he said.

That is expected to be painstaking labour that could take months
before it is even known what the real significance of the discovery
is, he said.

He is convinced, though, that he and his colleagues who will be
helping to study the wreck and its contents will eventually be able to
find out whose ship this was and what business it was on when it came
to an end on that barren stretch of Namibian coastline, Noli
indicated.

"We have to piece together the puzzle.

It's a fascinating story," he said.

The discovery of the ship has been worldwide news, with Namdeb
claiming in its announcement of the find last week that this may be
the oldest sub-Saharan shipwreck ever discovered.

Noli, who has been a consultant for Namdeb on archaeological matters
since 1996, said he was scheduled to return to Oranjemund yesterday to
carry out further work at the site and on items that had been
recovered from the site so far.

He will have to see that the material collected from the site is
stored properly, photographed, cleaned, and that each item - including
each of thousands of gold and silver coins - is recorded, Noli said.

The material collected from the site includes thousands of Portuguese
and Spanish gold coins, Portuguese silver coins, bronze cannons, tons
of copper ingots, more than 50 elephant tusks, pewter tableware and
navigational instruments.

The wreck itself has been "extremely badly battered" by the sea, with
little of the original structure of the ship left, Noli said.

The site near Oranjemund has in the meantime been covered with wet sand again.

The site is about six metres below sea level and is now protected by a
huge sea wall constructed out of sand by Namdeb as part of its mining
operations in the area.

Noli said the site contains a lot of metal, including iron concretion
- formed when rusting iron combines with other matter to form a hard,
concrete-like material - which can deteriorate fast when exposed to
the air and oxygen after so long under the seabed.

He said covering up the wreck site is a way of preserving the site for
future further examination.

ARCHAEO 'CRIME SCENE' "We're dealing with a crime story here.

The wreck is like a crime scene," Noli said.

Here, though, the role of detectives will be played by archaeologists
who will have to rely on clues gathered at the scene as they set out
on a quest to figure out the history and end of a ship that last
sailed the seas half a millennium ago.

Examining historical records in an attempt to get clues about the
origins of the ship will also form an extremely important part of the
work that lies ahead, Noli said.

With it increasingly looking like the wreck is of Portuguese origin,
the Portuguese government has already offered to assist in the study
of the wreck and the efforts to identify the ship, Noli said.

He said the coins found at the site offer only part of the clues about
the ship's origin.

An estimated 70 per cent of the gold coins recovered so far were
Spanish, with the remaining 30 per cent Portuguese coins, he said.

All of the silver coins found at the site were Portuguese, he said,
adding that in a situation like this, the "small change" that were
used can say more than the larger denominations of money found.

Some of the Spanish coins were minted with depictions of the Spanish
monarchs Ferdinand II and Isabella I, who ruled Spain in the late
1400s and early 1500s, on one side, while some of the Portuguese coins
bear references to the Portuguese King John II, Noli said.

John, or João II, was on the Portuguese throne between 1481 and 1495.

Noli said in the late 1400s and early 1500s, the Portuguese were the
main seafarers along this part of the African coast.

"It's looking more and more as if it's a Portuguese ship," he remarked.

When he first started working on the site in April, he was not
expecting to find any money, Noli said.

That was because it appeared that the ship had been fully laden with
cargo like copper and ivory.

As it is unlikely that a European ship would have been exporting ivory
to Africa, the theory would then be that the ship had been heading
back home when it came to its end, he said.

On the other hand, he added, the ship still had a lot of money on
board - which would not have been expected either if it had just
completed a trading trip, he indicated.

The ivory that was recovered may still provide key clues on the ship's
movements.

It is possible to establish where the tusks came from - not only
whether from African or Asian elephants, but also whether from a place
like India or the west or east coasts of Africa, and even which parts
of the coasts, Noli said.

He added that fragments of what appeared to be human bones had also
been seen in the concretions at the site.

These were left intact at the site.

More material resembling bones was removed from the site, but will
have to be studied further to determine whether it is of human origin,
he said.

If it is found to be human remains, it would be treated with due
respect and ultimately re-interred, he said.

The final intention of the study of the wreck is that all the material
recovered from the site would remain in Namibia, as it belongs to the
people of Namibia, Noli said.

According to Erica Ndalikokule, Acting Director of the National
Heritage Council, all shipwrecks in Namibian waters or on the coast
that are older than 35 years are classified as historic shipwrecks in
terms of the National Heritage Act.

These wrecks, as well as artefacts recovered from them, belong to the
State, according to the law."


(http://www.namibian.com.na/2008/May/national/081362442