The site yielded a wealth of objects
including thousands of Spanish and Portuguese gold coins. (Xinhua/Reuters
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BEIJING,
May 2 (Xinhuanet) -- A shipwreck, believed to be 500 years old, laden with
tons of copper ingots, elephant tusks, and gold coins, has been discovered
off the southern African coast, media reported on Friday.
A Namibian diamond company, Namdeb, said that it
found the wreck during mining operations in the Atlantic.
Judging from the notables depicted on the hoard of
Spanish and Portuguese coins and the type of cannons and crude navigational
equipment, the ship went down in the late 1400s or early 1500s, around the time
Vasco de Gama and Columbus were plying the waters of the New World.
Company sources said that human remains and ornaments
linked to royalty suggested it could be the caravel of Bartolomeu Dias, the
Portuguese explorer, which went down off the Cape of Good Hope in 1500.
The reverse of the some of the gold coins depicts
Ferdinand and Isabella, two Spanish monarchs of the time.
(Agencies)
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