Oranjemund, Namibia - Bruno Werz, the archeologist leading the excavation of a 500-year-old Portuguese merchant ship found off Namibia's Skeleton Coast, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa of the significance of the discovery.

"The find is of incredible importance, because it is most probably the oldest shipwreck ever discovered south of the Sahara," Werz said.

"We have provisionally obtained a time indication on the basis of coins that were found," he said, putting the date the ship sank somewhere between 1526 and the mid 
1500s.

The Portuguese ship also symbolizes a link between three continents - Europe, Asia and Africa. The vessel had been bound along for Asia when it ran aground in the Atlantic on Africa's south west coast.

"What we found is a good cross section of the most important categories of goods that were on board and we have part of the ship itself, the biggest artifact of all and this makes it very interesting, because this collection has not been disturbed by human interference."

"In most cases wrecks are found by treasure hunters or sport divers and private people, who then of course are tempted to remove the artifacts.

"In this case, because it was found in the Namdeb high security area, we are very fortunate to have an an untouched wreck with all the material that was found on site still here in one collection.

Over the next month, archeologists will focus on excavating, recording and removing the wreck and its contents from the seabed near the southern town of Luederitz before embarking on the preservation phase.

"The preservation will take a long time, especially for the wood and other organic material, but that needs to be done with due care and most of the organic material needs to be sent overseas because there are no facilities here and that could take up to 30 years. (dpa)