Diamond miners who were working off the coast of Africa found a 500-year-old shipwreck loaded with £9million of gold and coins.

The Bom Jesus – or Good Jesus – was a Portuguese ship which set sail from Lisbon in 1533 with Sir Francisco de Noronha as captain and vanished while heading towards India.

The shipwreck was discovered along the Namibian coast near Oranjemund by geologists from the mining company De Beers in April 2008, as the Daily Mail reports.

It was not until the sixth day that they found a treasure chest full of gold.

It has been named as one of the most significant shipwreck finds of all time and was placed under the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage.

Archaeologist Dr Dieter Noli told FoxNews.com that the Namibian government will keep the gold.

He said: ‘That is the normal procedure when a ship is found on a beach.

‘The only exception is when it is a ship of state – then the country under whose flag the ship was sailing gets it and all its contents.

‘And in this case the ship belonged to the King of Portugal, making it a ship of state – with the ship and its entire contents belonging to Portugal.

‘The Portuguese government, however, very generously waived that right, allowing Namibia to keep the lot.’