A ''padrão'' is a stone pillar left by Portuguese maritime explorers in the 15th and 16th centuries to record significant landfalls and thereby establish primacy and possession. They were often placed on promontories and capes or at the mouths of major rivers. Early markers were simple wooden pillars or crosses but they deteriorated quickly in the tropical climate where they were often erected. Later, ''padrões'' were carved from stone in the form of a pillar surmounted by a cross and the
royal coat of arms.
History
Diogo Cão
Diogo Cão (; -1486), anglicised as Diogo Cam and also known as Diego Cam, was a Portuguese explorer and one of the most notable navigators of the Age of Discovery. He made two voyages sailing along the west coast of Africa in the 1480s, explori ...
was the first to place stone padrões on his voyage of discovery along the coast of Africa in 1482–1484. They had been carved ahead of time in Portugal and carried in his ship at the behest of
King João II. Cão placed the pillars at points in what is now Gabon, Angola and Namibia. The first was installed at the mouth of the river Congo. In August 1483 he erected one on the headlands of Angola at Cabo Negro with the inscription:
In 1522 the Portuguese mariner Henrique Leme negotiated a treaty with the
Sunda Kingdom
The Sunda Kingdom ( su, , Karajaan Sunda, ) was a Sundanese Hindu kingdom located in the western portion of the island of Java from 669 to around 1579, covering the area of present-day Banten, Jakarta, West Java, and the western part of Centr ...
and in commemoration he raised a padrão at the kingdom's main port,
Sunda Kalapa, now part of
Jakarta,
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
. The
Luso Sundanese padrão Luso may refer to:
* Luso (Mealhada), a civil parish in the municipality of Mealhada, Portugal
* Luis Eduardo Delgado (born 1984), Spanish footballer commonly known as Luso
* Luso Clemens, the protagonist in the video game '' Final Fantasy Tactic ...
was rediscovered in 1918 and is exhibited at the
National Museum of Indonesia
) is an archeological, historical, ethnological, and geographical museum located in Jalan Medan Merdeka Barat, Central Jakarta, right on the west side of Merdeka Square. Popularly known as the Elephant Museum ( id, Museum Gajah) after the elepha ...
.
Other notable explorers known to have erected ''padrões'' include
Pero da Covilhã,
Bartolomeu Dias,
Vasco da Gama,
Goncalo Coelho and
Jorge Álvares
Jorge Álvares (died 8 July 1521) was a Portuguese explorer. He is credited as the first European to have reached China by sea during the Age of Discovery. His starting of settlements on an island in what is now Hong Kong is still considered a sign ...
.
The
Lisbon Geographic Society
The Lisbon Geographic Society ( Portuguese: ''Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa'') is a Portuguese scientific society created in Lisbon in the year of 1875, aiming to "promote and assist the study and progress of geography and related sciences in ...
managed to restore in the 20th century three erected by Diogo Cão and one by Bartolomeu Dias.
At the
Dias Cross Memorial on the coast of
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...
's
Eastern Cape province, there is a padrão replica on a promontory at what is now known as
Kwaaihoek
Kwaaihoek is a rocky headland on the coast of Algoa Bay, at Boknesstrand near Bushman's River Mouth in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is a section of the Addo Elephant National Park. It is here that the Portuguese navigator ...
; it was placed by Bartolomeu Dias in 1488 to mark the site of his most easterly landfall after becoming the first European navigator to round the
Cape of Good Hope. The original padrão was discovered by Eric Axelson in the 1930s – it had fallen, or was pushed, off the top of Kwaaihoek, and was in pieces in the gullies below. Axelson recovered these pieces and was able to reconstruct the stone monument; the reconstructed original now stands in the William Cullen Library of the
University of the Witwatersrand
The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), is a multi-campus South African public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University or Wits ( or ). The university ...
in
Johannesburg
Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Dem ...
.
[McLachlan 2013]
List of padrões
See also
*
Padrão dos Descobrimentos
''Padrão dos Descobrimentos'' (; lit. ''Monument of the'' ''Discoveries'') is a monument on the northern bank of the Tagus river estuary, in the civil parish of Santa Maria de Belém, Lisbon. Located along the river where ships departed to explo ...
References
Notes
Citations
Sources
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Padrao
Types of monuments and memorials
Cross symbols
Maritime history of Portugal
Portuguese exploration in the Age of Discovery