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.