Page 11 - Bulletin 20 2016

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(now reconstructed and on display in the Library of the University of the Witwatersrand).
Axelson was further called upon in 1953 to assist the then Historical Monuments
Commission of South-West Africa in establishing the exact location of a padrão known to
have been erected in Luderitz Bay (where Dias had left his supply ship when outward bound)
th
on July 25 , 1488 (the Feast Day of Saint James). Using the same logic that enabled him to
establish the location of these two padrãos - Axelson set out to also find the padrão de São
Filipe but after fruitless searches for physical evidence was forced to conclude:

“The prominence of the Cape of Good Hope and his belief that this was the
southernmost point of the continent would have made it an obvious site for a padrão.
This, if raised, was probably dedicated to São Filipe; but no trace of any padrão has
been found. St. Philip’s Day is celebrated on 6 June, so the caravels were apparently
making heavy weather against headwinds or they had been sheltering from adverse
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gales or they had been delayed by mishap” .

Another likely scenario is that having arrived at the Cape of Good Hope, Dias ordered the
caravels to take shelter in the lee of Cape Point – perhaps Buffels Bay - until one of his 250-
300 kilogram padrãos could be safely landed. Also the fact that no padrão has been found is
not as surprising as one might expect. For as Axelson concluded, it is most probable that the
padrão was placed on the heights of the Cape of Good Hope promontory (which includes the
adjacent point of land today designated separately as Cape Maclear) rather than the higher,
more precipitous and therefore, difficult to access, Cape Point Peak to the east. Erecting a
padrão on Cape of Good Hope promontory would not only have been more easily carried out
- it is also the location at the end of the Cape Peninsula where a padrão would be most fully
visible on the skyline to ships travelling from north to south or from east to west. With the
sea directly below the shear southern face of this promontory, however, it is likely that should
this padrão have later fallen or perhaps been pushed over - being of soft Lisbon limestone - it
would have been ground up in the surf below in a short time.

The most significant turning point in world history?

Failure to find any physical evidence of the padrão de São Filipe, while unfortunate, at the
same time does nothing to diminish the significance of Dias’ ‘discovery’ of the Cape of Good

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