{"id":10487,"date":"2026-05-24T06:17:48","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T06:17:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mat-travel.com\/?page_id=10487"},"modified":"2026-05-24T06:17:48","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T06:17:48","slug":"portuguese-exploration","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mat-travel.com\/de\/namibia\/skeleton-coast\/portuguese-exploration\/","title":{"rendered":"The Portuguese and the Coast of Death: Early Exploration"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-container uagb-block-858218c3 alignfull uagb-is-root-container\"><div class=\"uagb-container-inner-blocks-wrap\">\n<p>The first European vessels to navigate the Skeleton Coast were Portuguese caravels in the 1480s, sent by the Portuguese crown to find a sea route to the East Indies that would bypass the land-based Ottoman-controlled trade routes. The voyages of Diogo C\u00e3o and Bartolomeu Dias produced the first European maps of the Namibian coastline and left physical evidence, stone crosses called padr\u00f5es, at the limits of each voyage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Diogo C\u00e3o at Cape Cross (1486)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>C\u00e3o&#8217;s second voyage (1485 to 1486) was the first to reach the Namibian coast in any documented way. He erected a padr\u00e3o at Cape Cross, the cross that gives the location its name, marking the furthest point of his southward exploration. The inscription on the cross (reconstructed from documentation; the original is in Berlin) identified the Portuguese king and the date of erection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>C\u00e3o did not proceed further south on this voyage. He turned back at Cape Cross, having reached approximately 21\u00b0S latitude. The question of what was south of Cape Cross remained open for another decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Bartolomeu Dias and the Cape (1487 to 1488)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Dias&#8217;s voyage succeeded where C\u00e3o&#8217;s had turned back. Dias passed the Skeleton Coast, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and established that the Indian Ocean was accessible from the Atlantic. The voyage was transformative for European geography; the Skeleton Coast was simply the section of difficult coastline between the known world and the passage Dias was looking for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dias described the Namibian coast as inhospitable; he sought fresh water at several points along the coast and found none. The coast of death that the Portuguese named was experiential rather than legendary: they were dying of thirst on its beaches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Padr\u00f5es<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The stone crosses that the Portuguese erected at the limits of their voyages were both navigational markers and territorial claims. Three replica padr\u00f5es stand on the Namibian coast; the Cape Cross replica is the most visited. The originals, where they survive, are in European museums, testament to the 19th-century European interest in reclaiming colonial heritage items.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The first European vessels to navigate the Skeleton Coast were Portuguese caravels in the 1480s, sent by the Portuguese crown to find a sea route to the East Indies that would bypass the land-based Ottoman-controlled trade routes. The voyages of Diogo C\u00e3o and Bartolomeu Dias produced the first European maps of the Namibian coastline and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":10447,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"slim_seo":{"title":"The Portuguese and the Coast of Death: Early Exploration","description":"Portuguese explorers in the 15th and 16th centuries mapped the Skeleton Coast as part of their search for a sea route to India. A guide to the exploration history and the padr\u00f5es that mark their passage."},"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-10487","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"trip-thumb-size":false,"destination-thumb-size":false,"destination-thumb-trip-size":false,"activities-thumb-size":false,"trip-single-size":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"trp-custom-language-flag":false,"wte-embed-list-image":false,"wte-embed-grid-image":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"MatAdmin","author_link":"https:\/\/mat-travel.com\/de\/author\/getlostinnamibiawithus\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"The first European vessels to navigate the Skeleton Coast were Portuguese caravels in the 1480s, sent by the Portuguese crown to find a sea route to the East Indies that would bypass the land-based Ottoman-controlled trade routes. The voyages of Diogo C\u00e3o and Bartolomeu Dias produced the first European maps of the Namibian coastline and&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mat-travel.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mat-travel.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mat-travel.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mat-travel.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mat-travel.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10487"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mat-travel.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10488,"href":"https:\/\/mat-travel.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10487\/revisions\/10488"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mat-travel.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mat-travel.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}