Lost off Mozambique

Discovery of Francisco Da Gama’s Ship

Author: Julia Knobloch; Anya Bartels-Suermondt

Length: 50'

It has been lost for nearly four hundred years, but since early May 2005, it has returned to daylight: The legendary silver treasure of Philip III, King of Spain and Portugal, that once perished with the São José in a furious battle off the Mozambique coast in 1622. More than 18,000 silver coins so far – that is the number Count Nikolaus Sandizell has never even dreamt of achieving. And apparently, the dream is not over yet: A crew of 14 men is still busy excavating silver coins. Until this day, the treasure could be worth around 800,000 euros – with an open end. It has been a long way to find the coins off the isolated and lonely coast in the North of the African country that once was a Portuguese colony. The ship belonged to a fleet that was supposed to accompany the future Vice King of India, famous Vasco da Gama’s great grandson Francisco, to Goa. The peninsula in the West of the oriental subcontinent served as capital for the Portuguese overseas empire. Francisco da Gama, on his way to India, carried nine chests, each filled with 2,000 coins, handed over to him by King Philip. In amazing pictures the film tells the successful detective story from the beginning in Lisbon archives all the way down to exotic and beautiful Mozambique, where survey, reconnaissance and final recovery have taken place combining HD-shot re-enactment, graphics, interviews with renown experts and impressing material from Goa. A Context TV GmbH production

year of production: 2005