A lost 16th-century ship buried deep in a Namibian desert has stunned archaeologists with a treasure haul that rewrites the story of early global trade. In Namibia’s remote Sperrgebiet—a name that translates from German as “forbidden zone”—miners looking for diamonds stumbled upon something far more valuable: the buried wreck of a 16th-century Portuguese carrack, laden with gold, ivory, and copper. Preserved beneath the hyper-arid sands of the Namib Desert, the ship, identified as the Bom Jesus, disappeared in 1533 while en route to India. Discovered in 2008 within a high-security mining concession near Oranjemund, the site quickly drew attention from...