Padrão

A padrão (, ; plural: ) 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.Bell 1975 Later, padrões were carved from stone in the form of a pillar surmounted by a cross and the royal coat of arms.Russell-Wood 1998

History Diogo Cão was the first to place stone padrões on his voyage of discovery along the coast of Africa in 1482–1484.Russell-Wood 1998 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.Bell 1975 In August 1483 he erected one on the headlands of Angola at Cabo Negro with the inscription:

Subsequent excavations and surveys, particularly by Eric Axelson in the 1950s, located the remains of a number of the padrões. Some of the crosses were fragmentary, but could be identified from their use of Portuguese limestone.Eric Axelson, ‘Prince Henry the Navigator and the Discovery of the Sea Route to India’, The Geographical Journal, Vol. 127, No. 2 (1961), pp. 150-151

In 1498 Vasco da Gama erected a padrão at Malindi in East Africa before setting across the Indian Ocean to Calicut. This is known today as the Vasco da Gama Pillar and includes the original cross, made from Portuguese limestone.

In 1522 the Portuguese mariner Henrique Leme negotiated a treaty with the Sunda Kingdom and in commemoration he raised a padrão at the kingdom's main port, Sunda Kalapa, now part of Jakarta, Indonesia. The Luso Sundanese padrão was rediscovered in 1918 and is exhibited at the National Museum of Indonesia.Gunn 2011

Other notable explorers known to have erected padrões include Pero da Covilhã, Bartolomeu Dias, Goncalo Coelho and Jorge Álvares.Russell-Wood 1998

In the 20th century, the Lisbon Geographic Society managed to restore three erected by Diogo Cão and one by Bartolomeu Dias.

At the Dias Cross Memorial on the coast of South Africa's Eastern Cape province, there is a replica padrão on a promontory at what is now known as Kwaaihoek. The original was erected by Bartolomeu Dias in 1488 to mark the site of his easternmost 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 been pushed, off the top of Kwaaihoek, and lay in pieces in the gullies below. Axelson recovered the 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 in Johannesburg.McLachlan 2013

List of padrões N°CountryCityYearExplorerOriginalCoordinatesPicture01Soyo, Ponta do Padrao (south bank of Congo River mouth); Sao Jorge pillar.1482Diogo CãoSociedade de Geografia de Lisboa02Cabo do Lobo, Santo Agostinho pillar.1483, 28 AugustDiogo CãoSociedade de Geografia de Lisboa03Cabo Negro, Monte Negro pillar1486, 18 JanuaryDiogo CãoSociedade de Geografia de Lisboa04Cape Cross, Cabo do Padrao pillar.1486Diogo Cão Port of Walvis Bay05Kwaaihoek, Sao Gregorio pillar1488, 12 MarchBartholomew DiasWilliam Cullen Library, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.06Cape of Good Hope, Sao Filipe pillar1488, 6 JuneBartholomew Dias?07Dias Point, Lüderitz Bay, Santiago pillar1488, 25 JuneBartholomew DiasFragments at National Museum of Namibia08Malindi1498 Vasco da GamaVasco da Gama Pillar, Malindi09Sunda Kalapa, Luso-Sundanese padrão1522, 21 AugustHenrique LemeNational Museum of Indonesia

Padrão

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