THE GOLD HOARD ABOARD THE PORTUGUESE SHIP ESPADARTE, SHIPWRECKED AROUND 1558.

In 1558 the Portuguese ship Espadarte, with a cargo of spices, Ming porcelain, and an estimated 12.4 kg gold hoard, was shipwrecked off the Island of Mozambique. Acommercial salvor, under licence from the Mozambique government, salvaged the porcelain and gold, around 2001-2003. This agreement, entered into in 1999, caused public resentment. When half of the items were sold at auction in 2004 a bitter war of words erupted between Mozambique anthropologists and jurists, and the Mozambique government. The salvor readily supplied information about the dating and identity of the porcelain. This was not the case for the gold hoard. It appears that the salvor, because of the controversy, cautiously withheld or even refrained from gathering such information. This paper is an attempt to unravel the story of the gold. It was found that the hoard was assembled by one or more friars of the Dominican order. They probably obtained the natural gold from the Kingdom of Monomotapa, melted it down to cast ingots and undertook goldsmithing work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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