In 2008, workers searching for diamonds off the coast of Namibia found a different kind of treasure: hundreds of gold coins mixed with timber and other debris. They had stumbled upon Bom Jesus, a Portuguese trading vessel lost during a voyage to India in 1533. Among the 40 tons of cargo recovered from the sunken ship were more than 100 elephant tusks. “The power of doing historic archaeology is the ability to link those findings to modern conservation.”Despite spending nearly half a millennium in the ocean, the tusks recovered from the ship were surprisingly well preserved. For that stroke of luck, the researchers credit the exceptionally cold waters off Namibia.

Source: New York Times December 17, 2020 15:56 UTC