Experts believe a mysterious shipwreck found off the coast of Africa could belong to famed Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama after it sank on his final voyage to India in 1525
The lost galleon of famed Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama might have been found off the coast of Kenya.
The Portuguese noble was the first European to reach India by sea, sailing there for the final time in 1525 with a large fleet. Some of those ships were lost along the way, including a galleon called São Jorge. Experts now believe a mysterious shipwreck off the coast of Malindi, Kenya, could be that very vessel.
Underwater archaeologist Caesar Bita identified the wreck as Portuguese and dated it to the 16th century. And according to his colleague Filipe Castro, of the University of Coimbra, Malindi was a known stopping point for Vasco da Gama.
He said: “My Kenyan colleague Caesar invited me to come see it in 2014. He knew it was a Portuguese shipwreck from the 16th century and that it could be Vasco da Gama’s galleon São Jorge.
“Vasco da Gama stopped at Malindi – it was something Portuguese fleets did. The Portuguese had good relations with the local powers throughout the 15th century, and Malindi was a very important port in the Indian Ocean.”
Castro described the wreck as “extensive, although very degraded”. It is thought that the galleon hit the Ngomeni reef and sank 500 metres from the shore.
Castro said: “After that it is likely that the local population used the timber, the nails, and the artefacts they could find. This shipwreck is in a shallow area and it is normal around the world that the local population goes to shipwreck sites to salvage artefacts.
“But the density of the artefacts around the site is still enormous – these ships were loaded. There is a very interesting collection of ceramics, and we would love to find funds to seriously study the iron concretions in detail.”
Today the wreck site is protected as a community archaeology project. And while the São Jorge isn’t the only Portuguese ship known to have been lost in the area, one detail from the wreck site suggests it is the lost galleon.
Castro said: “There are eight Portuguese shipwrecks we know about along that coast, but the two best candidates are São Jorge, from 1524, and Nossa Senhora da Graça, from 1554.
“The artefacts have not been studied by a specialist, but a porcelain shard was dated from the late 15th to the very early 16th century. It is the only artefact with a date.”
Castro and his colleagues now hope to prove the connection between the wreck and one of Portugal’s most famous sons. He said: “The association with Vasco da Gama is not a trivial thing – he is an important historical figure, and his personal history is amazing.
“The history of the Portuguese discoveries done so far is rather sad, inspired by a tacky and primary nationalism, which grew in fascist Portugal during the dictatorship of Salazar.
“But this amazing historical character, together with the people that created the environment where his 1497 trip to India was planned and executed, is worth a serious and wide study.” Castro, Bita, and their colleagues Jos Pissarra and Beatrice Frabetti published their study in the Journal of Maritime Archaeology.
With backing from the Portuguese crown, Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa in 1497 and found a sea route to India. His efforts secured Portugal unrivalled access to the Indian spice trade.
The explorer was dispatched on his final journey to India in 1524, with a mandate to clean up corruption among the Portuguese authorities there. He replaced the old officials with new appointees but contracted malaria and died on Christmas Eve 1524 in Cochin, now known as Kochi, on India’s southwest coast.
