The True Story of Treasure Chests

Imagine uncovering an elaborately decorated treasure chest and lifting the lid to find an abundance of shimmering coins and jewels. Surely this scene would take place on a deserted stretch of beach after years of searching with a crumpled, yellowed map.

Unfortunately, these images only exist in dreams and movies. In reality, most treasure is recovered at the bottom of the ocean, not on land. The coins discovered were packaged in functional crates rather than fancy chests. However, there is unfound bounty from known shipwrecks hiding on the ocean floor.

History
1) As soon as ocean trade began, organized crime on the seas was born. Vikings, the early pirates, preyed upon merchants in the Atlantic Ocean. The Mediterranean Sea was home to the Barbary coastal pirates. No countries, with goods to trade, were safe from piracy. The European and Asian continents were especially vulnerable.

The History of Treasure Hunting in California, US

Golden State

GOLD
Gold was first discovered by the Spaniards as early as the 1500s, but mining operations did not begin until the 1780s along the Colorado River. Gold was next discovered in the San Gabriel River (near Los Angeles), San Francisco, Palo Alto, Santa Clara, San Jose, and Santa Cruz by Mexican prospectors who kept these finds secret. Of course, gold was then found at the infamous Sutter's Mill near Sacramento in 1848 and made headlines worldwide. The ensuing great California Gold Rush spawned massive gold discoveries in 40 counties. The richest, Tuolumne County, boasts 8 million troy ounces of gold taken since then. Lucky for you, gold has been discovered everywhere in the state!!

Placer Deposits
A placer deposit is a concentration of a natural material that has accumulated in unconsolidated sediments of a stream bed, beach, or residual deposit. Gold derived by weathering or other process from lode deposits is likely to accumulate in placer deposits because of its weight and resistance to corrosion. In addition, its characteristically sun-yellow color makes it easily and quickly recognizable even in very small quantities.

The gold pan or miner's pan is a shallow sheet-iron vessel with sloping sides and flat bottom used to wash gold-bearing gravel or other material containing heavy minerals. The process of washing material in a pan, referred to as "panning," is the simplest, most commonly used, and least expensive method for a prospector to separate gold from the silt, sand, and gravel of the stream deposits. It is a tedious, back-breaking job and only with practice does one become proficient in the operation. Thankfully, technology finally caught up with our gold fever and brought us metal detectors!

Many placer districts in California have been mined on a large scale as recently as the mid-1950's. Streams draining the rich Mother Lode region--the Feather, Mokelumne, American, Cosumnes, Calaveras, and Yuba Rivers--and the Trinity River in northern California have concentrated considerable quantities of gold in gravels. In addition, placers associated with gravels that are stream remnants from an older erosion cycle occur in the same general area.

You can always ask for permission to hunt on any private property, but there are also several places you can pan and metal detect in public access areas. As always, please respect other's claims.

Some of the following Public Access Areas are controlled by the BLM or the National Forest Service. Contact the designated authority for more information including maps and regulations before you go out.

GEMS
GARNET - Gem- and specimen-quality white to pale green grossularite garnet occurs on Indian Creek in Siskiyou County and along Traverse Creek near Georgetown in Eldorado County. Other locations for these types of grossularites are the south side of Watts Valley in Fresno County, near Selma in Tulare County, near Big Bar in Butte County and near El Toro in Orange County. Some of the finest quality spessartite garnet known come from pegmatites in San Diego County. Spessartites have been found on Gem Hill near Mesa Grande and in mines in the Rincon and Pala Districts. The most productive area with the finest quality garnets is on the western side of Hatfield Creek Valley near Romona. Near Indian Head Hill in San Diego County is a deposit of fine-quality hessonite garnet, and another deposit is near Dos Cabezas.

AGATE - California's "Mojave Blue" agate has gained a great deal of attention in the past several years. This pastel blue or blue-gray agate cuts into attractive cabochons for jewelry and, in the hands of an expert carver, makes outstanding carvings.

Specialty Stones - Deposits in the State are blessed with a variety of collector/specialty stones. Stones have been cut from fine-quality, pink apatite from San Diego County. Some small colorless stones have been cut from analcine, but the location from which the material was recovered is unknown. Fine-quality, brown colored stones have been cut from axinite from deposits in Calaveras, Madera, Riverside, and San Diego Counties. Benitoite, the State gemstone, is the collector/specialty stone for which the State is best known. San Benito County is the only source of this fine, blue colored gem. Large, fine-quality, light to medium green colored stones can be cut from fluorite found in Los Angeles County. Large, colorless stones are cut from scheelite from deposits in Kern and Inyo Counties. Nearly flawless, colorless stones have been cut from natrolite from San Benito County. The author also has seen natrolite stones that were labeled as being from Los Angeles County. Deposits in the State also yield fine-quality, brown epidote, colorless calcite and colemanite, and augelite.

QUARTZ CRYSTALS - Deposits in California are another source of significant amounts of quality quartz crystal. For many years cobbles and round crystals have been found in streambeds in Amador and Calveras Counties. The best quality, largest, and most abundant crystals come from ancient stream channels in the Mokelumne Hill area of Calveras County. Over the years, various mines in the area have produced thousands of kilograms of rock crystal, with some of the individual crystals weighing as much as 275 kilograms and many of the crystals measuring more than 600 millimeters in length and 250 millimeters in diameter. The American Museum of Natural History has a 150 millimeter sphere cut from a Mokelumne Hill rock crystal. Additionally, the pegmatites of Hiriart Hill, San Diego County, have produced hundreds of kilograms of fine-quality rock crystal from which a number of 60 to 90 millimeter spheres have been cut.

TOURMALINE - Tourmaline was, until recently, the single largest contributor to the value of gemstones produced from California. And for the past 5 years, California has ranked as high as second and as low as sixth in the value of natural gemstone produced in the United States. The State's fabulous tourmalines were discovered by the gemstone industry in the late 1870's or early 1880's. The caveat, discovery by the gemstone industry, is used because Native Americans discovered and used these beautiful tourmalines long before that.

Since their discovery, the tourmaline deposits in Riverside and San Diego Counties have had more tourmaline produced and of greater value than any other deposits in the Northern Hemisphere. In fact, it is probable that only the deposits in Brazil have been more productive.

One of the reasons for the productivity of the area is the longevity of the individual mines. Many of them have operated intermittently from the 1890's until the present. The famous Himalaya Mine is quite likely the best example.

Records indicate that from 1898 until 1914, the Himalaya was the world's largest producer of tourmaline. Furthermore, the records indicate that in 1904 production from the mine was at least 5.5 metric tons. In 1989, 84 years later, a single pocket in the mine produced more than 0.5 metric ton of tourmaline.

The history of production from the mine is not one of steady continuous operation. The mine operated continuously from 1898 until 1914, after which it operated sporadically until 1952. At this time, it once again began continuous operations that lasted until 1964 when it returned to intermittent operation until 1977. Since then the mine has been in operation under the direction of Pala International.

California tourmalines come in all colors except certain shades of blue and yellow. They also occur in bicolors, tricolors, and concentrically and laterally zoned combinations. Crystals vary in diameter from about 3 millimeters to as much as 125 millimeters, and vary in length from about 12 millimeters to as much as 250 millimeters.

Because of the large size of the crystals available, some large stones have been cut from California tourmaline. A 400-carat pink-red stone has been cut, as well as a flawless 75 carat green to pink bicolor and flawless 30- to 40 carat green to colorless to pink tricolored stones.

California deposits should continue to produce quantities of faceting, carving, and cabochon grade, as well as specimen-grade tourmalines for some time into the future. In late 1992, a new deposit of tourmaline was discovered in Riverside County that could result in greater production over even a longer period of time.

TURQUOISE - The production of turquoise from deposits in California can be traced back to pre-Colombian Native Americans. Prehistoric mining tools have been found in some of the old workings of the turquoise mines in San Bernardino County.

Over the years, the State's deposits have produced a substantial amount of turquoise. Deposits are located in San Bernardino, Imperial, and Inyo Counties. The material occurs as nodules and as vein filling. Most of the nodules are small in size, about the size of the end of your thumb, and the vein material is about 4 millimeters thick. In the better grade materials, the color varies from a pale to a dark blue, poorer grade materials are greenish-blue and green in color. Some of the material has yellow-brown limonite spiderwebbing.

In the past, a number of turquoise mines operated in the State, several or more mines in each of the counties. Today, only a single mine, the Apache Canyon Mine, is commercially producing turquoise. Material from the mine is a fine blue color, hard, and takes a good polish.

LOST TREASURE
As in other areas of the US, there are several tales of lost California treasure concerning caches buried for safety. In many of these stories, people either died or forgot where they buried the stash.---www.prospectorsdepot.com

Stone tools and rare animal bones discovered in the Dominican Republic

A prehistoric water-filled cave in the Dominican Republic has become a "treasure trove" with the announcement by Indiana University archaeologists of the discovery of stone tools, a small primate skull in remarkable condition, and the claws, jawbone and other bones of several species of sloths.

The discoveries extend by thousands of years the scope of investigations led Charles Beeker, director of Academic Diving and Underwater Science Programs at IU Bloomington's School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, and his interdisciplinary team of collaborators. The researchers' focus has been on the era a mere 500 years ago when the Old World and New World first met after Christopher Columbus stepped ashore in the Caribbean -- and on scintillating pirate lore. This rare find is expected to give insights into the earliest inhabitants of the Greater Antilles and the animals they encountered.

"To be honest, I couldn't believe my eyes as I viewed each of these astonishing discoveries underwater," Beeker said. "The virtually intact extinct faunal skeletons really amazed me, but what may prove to be a fire pit from the first human occupation of the island just seems too good to be true. But now that the lithics (stone tools) are authenticated, I can't wait to direct another underwater expedition into what may prove to become one of the most important prehistoric sites in all the Caribbean."

Beeker and researchers Jessica Keller and Harley McDonald found the tools and bones in fresh water 28- to 34-feet deep in a cave called Padre Nuestro. Nearby, and also underwater in the same cave, were found more recent Taino artifacts. The Taino were the first Native American peoples to encounter Europeans. Beeker and his colleagues have been diving in this particular cave, which sits beneath a limestone bluff and is only accessible after submerging into a small pool, since 1996 as they studied its use as a Taino water-gathering site.

Geoffrey Conrad, director of the Mathers Museum of World Culture at IU Bloomington and professor of anthropology, said the tools are estimated to be 4,000 to 6,500 years old. The bones might range in age from 4,000 and 10,000 years old. While sloth bones are not uncommon, he knows of only a handful of other primate skulls found in the Caribbean.

"I know of no place that has sloths, primates and humanly made stone tools together in a nice, tight association around the same time," said Conrad, also associate vice provost for research at IU Bloomington. "Right now it looks like a potential treasure trove of data to help us sort out the relationship in time between humans and extinct animals in the Greater Antilles. This site definitely is worthy of a large-scale investigation."

The three stone tools and remnants, made of basalt and limestone, were examined by internationally known IU anthropologists Nicholas Toth and Kathy Schick, who told researchers the palm-sized stones showed unmistakable signs of human craftsmanship. Toth and Schick are co-directors of the Center for Research into the Anthropological Foundations of Technology (CRAFT) Stone Age Institute in Bloomington.

IU primate expert Kevin Hunt told researchers the primate could have been a howler monkey which is extinct in the Caribbean. Keller said the sloth bones came from six, and possibly seven, sloths and include several species, including one the size of a black bear and another the size of a large dog. She said the primate skull is significantly different than the other primate skulls found in the Caribbean.

"Very few primate skulls have been found in the Caribbean," she said. "The others, found in the late 1800s and early 1900s, are three times as large. We have received a permit to bring the skull to Indiana University for further study. It's all very exciting."

Conrad said the lithics and bones, which have arrived at Beeker's laboratory in the School of HPER, have not only expanded the research program to an earlier time but also to an issue of concern worldwide -- the extinction of native birds and animals upon the arrival of humans. Caribbean sloths are among the many species that became extinct soon after the presence of humans.

Researchers with the Office of Underwater Science in the School of HPER work closely with cultural, historical, and tourism agencies and organizations in the Dominican Republic to protect and explore the country's cultural heritage and natural history. Keller said local interest in the discoveries has been phenomenal. The cave where they were discovered, which is part of an aquifer and cave system that supplies water to nearby resorts, has been closed for research purposes.

"There's a strong interest in protecting it, in having the research continue," Keller said. "Our partners were excited before we even found the primate."

The study is being conducted in cooperation with the Secretariat of State for Culture through the Office of Underwater Heritage and the Museum of Dominican Man, the Secretariat of State for Tourism, and the Secretariat of State for Environment and Natural Resources.---www.sciencedaily.com

Something about the National Treasure

There's serious Nick Cage, and there's paycheck Nick Cage. Strictly speaking, the two are as different as Oscar and Jerry ? as in, the little gold trophy and the schlock merchant Bruckheimer.

Nicolas Cage and Mr. Bruckheimer, the producer whose name is synonymous with overkill, have turned up in the same credits before, in movies such as "Gone in 60 Seconds," "Con Air" and "The Rock" ? entertaining, sure, but distant relations of serious Cage movies "Leaving Las Vegas" (for which he won best actor) and "Adaptation" (for which he lost to an inferior Jack Nicholson in "About Schmidt").

So when something such as "National Treasure," a safe-for-kids Disney caper, comes along, you expect paycheck Cage, right? Right. He willingly and cheerfully embarrasses himself here in a B-grade role.

Mr. Cage is Benjamin Franklin Gates, a nerdy historian who quixotically chases after a family legend about a lost cache of priceless booty from ancient Egypt. The map to these riches is encrypted on the back of the Declaration of Independence.

The treasure fable has a "Da Vinci Code"-like sexiness, revolving as it does around some of the Founding Fathers' connections to the shadowy Freemason fraternity. The movie, directed by John Turteltaub (I'll nominate "While You Were Sleeping" as his best), has a cartoon villain in Ian Howe (Sean Bean of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy) and some woefully bad acting from Diane Kruger (Helen of "Troy").

That said, "Treasure" has some surprising charms. The screenplay, from the teamwork of Jim Kouf and Cormac and Marianne Wibberly, is a cleverly conceived cat-and-mouse game of clues and riddles wrapped in a web of historical minutiae, including letters to the editor written by Benjamin Franklin (no coincidence that his namesake is the movie's hero) under the pseudonym Silence Dogood; forgotten names such as John Snow and John Pass, who recast the Liberty Bell; and ciphering techniques used in Revolutionary War-era spy letters. That historical footnotes such as these figure decisively in a heist picture is a real feat of imagination.

If nothing else, "Treasure" will live on as a handy teacher's aid. It spends quality time in historically important American cities, including the District, Philadelphia and New York.

In terms of pure entertainment, though, the movie frustrates. At two-plus hours, it's too long, and key plot points are frequently silly. Gates and Howe, initially partners in treasure hunting, then rivals, both penetrate the National Archives, which houses the Declaration, with incredible ease. Though appealing to the eye, Miss Kruger, as an archives curator, fails to sell her character for a second.

The eternally busy Harvey Keitel plays an FBI agent in the command-and-control mold of his "Pulp Fiction" character, the Wolf. But here, as a good guy on the trail of thieves, the Wolf has no fangs.

The most likeable thing about "Treasure" is Gates' pious love of history. The treasure he seeks has dogged his family for generations. (Jon Voight plays his skeptical historian father.)

So, while he's attracted by the prospect of riches and restoring the family name in academia, Gates is motivated above all by a desire to protect the country's patrimony. You see, if Howe ? a Brit, naturally ? gets to the Declaration before he does, it's as good as trashed.---www.washingtontimes.com

Shipwrecked treasure discovered using Google Maps

Treasure hunter Nathan Smith testifies that he used Google maps to find buried treasure in South Texas. Smith also monitored the treasures location with updated satellite images to ensure that no one was poking around long enough to gain legal rights to his findings.

The 39-year-old musician from Los Angeles located a 19h century boat, which has a supposed cargo of gold and silver off the Texas Gulf coast. Smith is attempting to gain rights to dig at the location where he believes the missing ship is. He believes this to be the location because of written accounts found on Google and the readings of gold and silver from metal detectors at the site.

Refugio County estate is making claim to owning the land and wants Smith to stop excavating immediately. He is currently looking for investors to take part in the dig. The treasure Smith estimates to be about $3 billion in all. The inspiration comes from the Nicolas Cage film National Treasure. The ship supposedly sank only to later be found by the Comanche Indians who buried some of it. Smith testifies that the locations appears to look something like a shoe print and that you can see an actual “X” where he thinks part of the ship’s capstan is.---www.slashgear.com

Several important facts about treasure hunting

Treasure Hunting, searching for lost or hidden riches, especially jewels and gold or silver in the form of coins, bullion, ornaments, candlesticks, utensils, or other objects. Treasure hunters also search for lost or hidden statues, cannons, and other objects that are worth money because of their artistic or historic value. Treasure worth millions of dollars lies underwater in the remains of sunken ships. Pirate treasure is buried on some seacoasts and islands. Hoards of money and other valuables are concealed in buildings, in caves, and in the ground where they were hidden for safekeeping by their owners. Other riches lie in archeological sites such as tombs, buried cities, and abandoned ruins.

Sunken Treasure
The major sunken-treasure areas are the Gulf of Mexico, the western Caribbean, and the waters off the Florida Keys, the Bahamas, Bermuda, and the Azores. They hold the hulks of Spanish treasure ships that sank while carrying riches from the New World, 1500–1820. Some of the treasure has been recovered, but gold, silver, and jewels worth millions of dollars probably still lie below the sea. Other rich waters are those near the Philippines and the Marianas; a number of Spanish ships sank here while carrying silver coins from Mexico to the Philippines to purchase Oriental luxuries.

Many other areas of the world hold valuable shipwrecks. In the Indian Ocean, for example, are a number of European trading ships that sank while sailing between Europe and the Far East. In the Mediterranean Sea are ancient and medieval vessels that were wrecked while carrying statues, vases, cannons, and other items. Among the 1,100 known shipwrecks in United States waters are some with gold cargoes.

Treasure wrecks are sometimes found accidentally by a fisherman, a sponge diver, or a lucky treasure hunter. More often, they are found as the result of a search. Professional treasure hunters may spend months in research to discover the general location of a wreck and the value of its cargo. They study such records as naval histories, insurance company records, logbooks, old newspapers, and reports of earlier salvage attempts.

Then they search in the general area of the wreck, often with instruments such as metal detectors and depth recorders. Even with these instruments sunken ships, especially those made of wood, are difficult to find. Wooden timbers may rot away, leaving only ballast stones, metal parts (cannons, anchors, hardware), and nonperishable cargo. The remains of the wreck may be covered by coral, sand, gravel, or mud.

After a wreck is found, divers may spend months in recovering its treasure. Their equipment—besides diving gear—usually includes a hydraulic blaster, which cuts away loose sand, and an air lift, which sucks water, silt, and small objects up a pipe to the surface.

In ancient and medieval times, skin divers were able to recover some valuables from wrecks. Spanish crews used diving bells to rescue several hundred million dollars' worth of riches from their sunken ships. In 1687 William Phips, an American shipping merchant, recovered treasure worth about $1,000,000 from a sunken Spanish galleon.

The development of diving suits in the 19th century and of scuba equipment in the 20th century greatly increased the extent of underwater treasure hunting. One of the richest finds was made in 1985 off the Florida coast by Treasure Salvors, Inc., a professional treasure-hunting company. After a 16-year search, the company discovered the Spanish treasure ship Nuestra Señora de Atocha, which had sunk in 1622, and recovered more than 100,000 silver coins, hundreds of gold and silver bars, and thousands of

Hidden Treasure
Money and other valuables have been hidden for safekeeping since ancient times. Many hoards still lie untouched in their original hiding places.

Pirates who raided shipping in the waters off northeastern South America buried some of their booty on Caribbean islands, as well as along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of North America. These buried treasures inspired hundreds of tales and led to many unsuccessful treasure hunts.

Before banks came into wide use in the 20th century, many people kept their savings hidden at home. Favorite hiding places were in attics, inside walls, behind loose chimney bricks, under floorboards, and under fenceposts. In the western United States are caches hidden by outlaws who robbed banks, stagecoaches, and trains. Some abandoned mining shacks probably conceal bags of gold dust hidden by prospectors.

Hidden treasure is seldom found by following the directions to a spot marked by a cross on a faded map. Such treasure maps are usually fake or hopelessly vague. Less romantic but more useful are maps compiled from treasure reports, showing general locations where treasure has been reported lost or hidden.

Treasure hunters on land, as on sea, may spend months studying old books and other sources for treasure information. They may use instruments such as metal detectors to help them search likely places. However, most hidden treasure is found accidentally in the course of activities such as demolishing buildings and digging excavations.

Other Sources of Treasure
Tombs, burial mounds, buried cities, and abandoned ruins were rich sources of treasure in earlier times. Egyptian pyramids, for example, often contained jewels, gold ornaments, richly decorated furniture, statues, and other precious objects. Nearly all pyramids were looted by treasure hunters in ancient times. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, treasure hunters carried away many art objects from the sites of ancient civilizations. They often carelessly destroyed other relics in their rush to obtain treasures that could be sold to collectors. By the 20th century many countries had laws controlling the excavation and exportation of historical relics and art objects.

Treasure Hunting Laws
The rights to a treasure trove (recovered treasure that has no apparent owner) vary in different countries. In the United States treasure trove is treated in the same way as any other found property. State laws vary, but the finder is usually allowed to keep the treasure. Some states require permits for treasure hunting on state lands. The U.S. Treasury Department issues excavation permits for public lands. The federal income tax laws apply to discovered treasure.

The law on sunken treasure is complicated. Many shipwrecks are the property of shipowners, insurance companies, or state or national governments. Treasure hunters may make an agreement with an owner to recover the treasure for a fee or a percentage of the find. If a wreck has no known owner, its cargo usually belongs to the finder.---history.howstuffworks.com

Searching for Treasure

Ever been curious about what lies beneath? Well, these men take it a step further by literally “digging” for the answers. Meet the new generation of bounty hunters.

Just moments after the killer tsunami ripped through Banda Aceh in northern Sumatra in 2004, the telephone lines in 27-year-old Steven Ng’s workplace rang off the hook.

“Mr Steven, I need an ACE 250 a.s.a.p. Make sure it gets here before the debris clears up!” an Indonesian-accented voice crackled through the receiver.

Similar orders poured in from all over Indonesia within the next few months. Ng’s clients were not a very emotional lot. Rather than spending their time grieving over the massive loss and destruction in Aceh, they descended on the town like flies, with alien-like contraptions slung across their arm, beeping away.

These were metal detectorists (yes, don’t snicker, that’s what they’re called), out looking for some coins, perhaps, and, oh, yes, lots of precious jewels from the family heirloom.

“Business was great back then,” reminisces Ng, the founder of KK Instruments, a Malaysian company that specialises in metal detectors. However, he’s quick to point out that his clients aren’t as heartless as they sound. Passion’s the word, the raison d’être. It’s the classic metal detectorist syndrome.

These are just like any other hobbyist: they’d go to great lengths for their hobbies.

Just how great? A simple online search yielded hundreds of metal detector clubs, from the US to Australia, with wholesome names like Weekend Wanderers and Tameside. Some go as far as to offer free rescue services for the diamond ring you’ve dropped in your backyard. Heck, there’s even a website on how to form your own metal detecting club if none of those appeal to you.

Then, there are the forums.

These are like virtual madhouses in which metal heads can brag about their latest finds, or if that’s not convincing enough, upload pictures of their finds. One may also participate in discussions about the various metal detector models (as if they were cars) or how to master the art of persuasion in order to obtain government permission for on-site excavation (or else, the hobby could turn felonious).

No hunting buddy? Easy; just find one in the forum!

This is treasure-hunting 21st century style. Long John Silver does it with an eye patch and a map; these people do it with GTP 1350, Infinium and Sea Hunters.

According to Emily Yoffe, the writer of Slate magazine who dubbed metal detecting “the world’s worst hobby”, the modern history of metal detecting is ignominious. Alexander Graham Bell used an experimental model in 1881 in order to locate the assassin’s bullet lodged in President James Garfield.

Unfortunately, no one remembered that Garfield was lying on a mattress with newfangled metal coils, causing the machine to emit a continuous whine, resulting in failure to accurately locate the bullet. Garfield’s heart gave out when doctors cut into him.

Since then, those clunky machines the size of my dinner table have evolved into something lighter and easier to use. In the 60s, metal detecting officially became a “sport”.

Gold diggers
It wasn’t until 2003 when news broke that the government had successfully uncovered several historical artifacts underneath Malacca’s old city using a metal detector that metal detecting started taking off as a hobby in Malaysia.

“A friend asked me to source the gadget for him, and pretty soon, I was also getting requests from people I barely knew. Naturally, I made a business out of it,” Ng says.

However, metal detecting remains a relatively untapped market in Malaysia. It’s a male-dominated sport composed of mainly lonesome adventurers in their 30s and unemployed baby boomers.

Enthusiast Saiful Ahmad, 39, an aircraft technician, has about a million “strike-it-rich” stories to tell.

“The Filipinos just uncovered some German gold in one of their caves,” he says. “It was buried there by the Japanese during World War II, but they couldn’t bring it back to Japan after surrendering because they failed to relocate the site.”

Another hot off the rumour mill: “The Singapore government was burrowing a hole for their new LRT line when their drill hit something solid and broke. They found an actual treasure chest from the pre-war days and it’s probably worth millions of ringgit!”

Meanwhile, Saiful himself has amassed quite a collection since he started about a year ago.

“I usually do it with a couple of my buddies over the holidays,” he reveals. “We’ll hike to Kota Tinggi and camp for a few nights. I do my own thing and they do theirs. I’ve found some gold on my trip, but it was in tiny chunks. I still have them with me.”

Ng believes Saiful has hit the jackpot more often than he lets on.

“My clients are very discreet about their finds. But when they keep purchasing newer and more sophisticated upgrades from me, that just leaves me wondering: why would they bother buying anything else if they didn’t find anything?

“You have to probe them for the right answers. Many of them would only tell me after numerous assurances that I could be of some help, that I could recommend them the right add-ons to improve their future searches.”

That’s how metal detectorists work in Asia. They are highly secretive, and work independently, unlike their Western counterparts. Not only that, the professionals (or the people who do this for a living) won’t admit that they are professionals. They’d rather live a hermit’s life than share their knowledge with newbies like me.

Could this stem from “kiasu-ism” or the fear that their favourite hunting grounds will be inundated with other treasure hunters? Or is it something much more serious?

“Ya la, in a sense, if you found a stash of fortune that doesn’t belong to you, you’d have to declare it straightaway, or the Government will seize it from you,” says Saiful. “That’s why people don’t share their stories.”

And what astounding stories these are. Some have found historical artifacts, others gold coins — oh, the list is endless.

In my quest to find out how true these stories are, I ask Ng if I could give metal detecting a shot. So off I set to the hilly forest of Bukit Kiara one Sunday morning with Ng, Saiful and several metal detectors in tow.

No pain, no gain
The one thing that Saiful forgot to mention is that people would stare — some inquisitively, and others suspiciously, as if we were convicts on the loose. I can’t help but feel my face growing hot with embarrassment, as we heave the Scorpion Gold Stinger and Master Hunter CX Plus into a wooded area.

“Oh, get used to it,” remarks Ng. “The time I did this in Malacca with my friends, a huge crowd started gathering around us. All the other passers-by must have been wondering what the heck was happening.”

Since Bukit Kiara was once a rubber plantation, I’m curious about what I would find there. Only recently, Ng and another metal head, Shafiq Adnan, 21, a research engineer, had unearthed a few ancient relics, including a Celtic cross and even a sword, in an oil palm plantation in Johor. I wonder if beginner’s luck could help me score a Celtic cross, or at least some century-old coins, of my own.

“Here, use this,” says Ng, thrusting the Master Hunter into my hands.

The Master Hunter, I’ve been told, could detect objects up to one foot below ground and is the choice gadget for beginners. Although hardly the epitome of style, it has a slick, wire-coiled body and a digital display console that shows you where the hidden treasure is and whether it is iron, gold, bronze, silver or (as if to mock you) a tin foil. This nifty function makes it much easier than conventional detectors, which rely on different sounds to indicate different metals.

Parks are great places to test out your metal detector.

I switch my device on. It buzzes to life, drowning out the constant hum of mosquitoes around me. I am simultaneously scratching myself silly and swinging the bottom of the metal detector over the earth, leaving no bases uncovered.

“Oh, I got one!” quips Saiful, bending down for a closer look. “Cheh, just a tin foil.”

Ten minutes and a couple of miserable tin foils later, the drone of my metal detector gets louder each time it hovers over a certain spot, indicating that something is there.

I push on the pinpoint button like I was told to, and the console says “silver”, seven inches deep. The first thing that flashes in my mind is, “Omigod why didn’t I bring a friggin’ shovel?!”

I move on reluctantly, overwhelmed with the “to dig or not to dig” question that every metal detectorist must face at least once in their lives. Deep down, however, I know my fate has been sealed: I’m not about to start digging up public premises like a rabid prairie dog without getting permission from the Government first.

You shouldn’t either, unless you’re hankering for some downtime in a jail cell. Now I know why the women aren’t interested: it is a painstaking and morale-shattering process.

My next two finds are not as sensational. They are iron, five and seven inches below ground respectively. I wouldn’t know what to do with scrap metal or steel rods anyway.

Ng is not at all surprised with my luck.

“Unless it’s a really crappy day, metal detectorists usually have an 80% chance of finding something,” he says. “Though I can’t really guarantee what kind of stuff you’ll end up with.”

Shafiq, for instance, considers his luckiest treasure-hunting day to be the time when he went scuba diving with his waterproof metal detector off Mersing and uncovered a shipwreck. He took home a few precious items, including a silver cup and some old coins which he has kept to this very day.

On the other hand, Ng had a customer who found a strange amulet the same way. What ensued later, he says, seemed very Exorcist-like: “He started having nightmares every day. Then he got into a car accident. Then his wife found out and gave him a scolding of a lifetime. So he sold it off out of superstition.”

Oh, well. It’s a bit like playing slot machines — you never know when you might hit the big time. The only difference is that with this sport, you could end up with a bad scare and a “metal detectorist elbow”, which is a debilitating case of holding the device at an awkward angle for a prolonged time.---www.thestar.com.my

Researchers Found Possibly the Earliest Caribbean Inhabitants

Researchers from the University of Indiana Bloomington have announced the discovery of a “treasure trove” of stone tools and the bones of several now-extinct Caribbean animals in a prehistoric water-filled cave in the Dominican Republic. The findings include a small primate skull in remarkable condition (possibly a howler monkey, which is now extinct), and the claws, jawbone and other bones of several species of sloths, one of which was the size of a black bear and another the size of a large dog. The freshwater cave, 28 to 34 feet deep, is known as Padre Nuestro (Our Father) and it is accessible only by diving into a small pool beneath a limestone bluff.

The tools are estimated to be about 4,000 to 6,500 years old, according to Geoffrey Conrad, director of the Mathers Museum of World Culture at IU Bloomington. He said the animal could be between 4,000 and 10,000 years old. The discoveries extend by thousands of years the scope of investigations led Charles Beeker, director of Academic Diving and Underwater Science Programs at IU Bloomington’s School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, and his interdisciplinary team of collaborators. The researchers’ focus has been on the era a mere 500 years ago when the Old World and New World first met after Christopher Columbus stepped ashore in the Caribbean — and on scintillating pirate lore. This rare find is expected to give insights into the earliest inhabitants of the Greater Antilles and the animals they encountered.

“I know of no place that has sloths, primates and humanly made stone tools together in a nice, tight association around the same time,” Conrad said in a statement. “Right now it looks like a potential treasure trove of data to help us sort out the relationship in time between humans and extinct animals in the Greater Antilles. This site definitely is worthy of a large-scale investigation.”

“To be honest, I couldn’t believe my eyes as I viewed each of these astonishing discoveries underwater,” Beeker said. “The virtually intact extinct faunal skeletons really amazed me, but what may prove to be a fire pit from the first human occupation of the island just seems too good to be true. But now that the lithics (stone tools) are authenticated, I can’t wait to direct another underwater expedition into what may prove to become one of the most important prehistoric sites in all the Caribbean.”

Nearby, and also underwater in the same cave, were found more recent Taino artifacts. The Taino were the first Native American peoples to encounter Europeans. The three stone tools and remnants, made of basalt and limestone, were examined by internationally known IU anthropologists Nicholas Toth and Kathy Schick, who told researchers the palm-sized stones showed unmistakable signs of human craftsmanship. Toth and Schick are co-directors of the Center for Research into the Anthropological Foundations of Technology (CRAFT) Stone Age Institute in Bloomington.

Conrad said the lithics and bones, which have arrived at Beeker’s laboratory in the School of HPER, have not only expanded the research program to an earlier time but also to an issue of concern worldwide — the extinction of native birds and animals upon the arrival of humans. Caribbean sloths are among the many species that became extinct soon after the presence of humans.

Researchers with the Office of Underwater Science in the School of HPER work closely with cultural, historical, and tourism agencies and organizations in the Dominican Republic to protect and explore the country’s cultural heritage and natural history. Keller said local interest in the discoveries has been phenomenal. The cave where they were discovered, which is part of an aquifer and cave system that supplies water to nearby resorts, has been closed for research purposes.

“There’s a strong interest in protecting it, in having the research continue,” Keller said. “Our partners were excited before we even found the primate.”

The study is being conducted in cooperation with the Secretariat of State for Culture through the Office of Underwater Heritage and the Museum of Dominican Man, the Secretariat of State for Tourism, and the Secretariat of State for Environment and Natural Resources.---www.repeatingislands.com

Probably one of the greatest treasure hunts

In 1981, Indiana Jones made his big-screen debut re-igniting world-wide interest in history's most hunted relic: the Ark of the Covenant.

That same year, two real-life raiders went on their own search for the Ark. There were no Nazis and no snake pits - like the movie.

Just two renegade Rabbis on a mission. Their search came to an end in Jerusalem.

"God signed, like with a pen, the location where the Ark of the Covenant was located. You can see it today even, on the rock," said Gershon Salomon, Founder of Temple Mount Faithful.

Designed by God, created by Moses, and revered by the Israelites, from the Sinai Desert to the Temple of Solomon, the Ark of the Covenant was the place of meeting between God and man.

In 586 B.C., Israel was conquered by the Babylonians. The Temple was raided by Nebuchadnezzar's army and the Ark disappeared from the pages of history.

"What happened, why did this most dramatic instrument of God's glory and power in human history suddenly vanish?," questioned Joel Rosenberg, Author of Dead Heat.

"All what we know is legends," said Archaeologist Gabriel Barkay who believes the legends are what makes so many people interested in finding the Ark.

Those legends stretch all over the ancient world - starting with Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon.

"The Ark of the Covenant was made of wood and it was gold plated. Such an amount of gold would be melted down at the time of war immediately after it was captured," Barkay told CBN.

When asked if he thought the Ark itself was destroyed at that time, Barkay told CBN that is what he believed.

Jewish writings say the prophet Jeremiah hid the Ark on Mount Nebo in Jordan. Another legend claims it was smuggled to Ethiopia by the son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.

In Israel, most Rabbis agree that when it comes to the Ark all roads lead back to Jerusalem. They say the Ark never left the city. To them, the so-called "Lost Ark" was never really lost.

On June 7, 1967, Israeli troops recaptured Jerusalem in the Six-day War. The Western Wall was in Jewish hands and those hands were ready to dig.

Archaeologists exposed parts of the wall that had been buried for 2000 years. Not all of the digging was done legally. In 1981, two of Israel's highest-ranking Rabbis, Shlomo Goren and Yehuda Getz picked up their pick-axes and started chiseling their way under the Temple Mount.

"And he knew that at the end of the gate he will come to the secret room where the ark of covenant is located," said Salomon, who was also one of the paratroopers who liberated the Western Wall in 1967.

Salomon was there 14 years later the night Rabbi Getz opened a secret passage in the Wall and remembers their conversation.

"It was after midnight. And he called me and said to me, Gershon, come immediately, don't wait, your dream is going to be fulfilled. 'What happened?,' I told him. 'The Messiah came?' And he told me, 'He is coming almost.'"

What came next was a subterranean slugftest according to Salomon.

"Arab demonstrations, you know? The Israelis are coming to build their temple underneath the dome of the rock."

At the end of the day, the passage to the Temple Mount was permanently sealed by Israeli Police.

"No doubt, I tell you. No doubt, we needed just two days more to come to the place where the ark of the covenant is located," Salomon explained.

"The work was done without archaeological supervision and when I was the official archaeologist of Jerusalem, I decided to stop the work," said Archaeologist Dan Bahat, who directed the excavation of the Western Wall tunnels.

According to him, the search for the Ark stops with Jeremiah 3:16.

"Prophet Jeremiah says, there will come a day when the ark of the covenant will not be seen, nor will it be visited which means that somehow, he sees the days when it will not be there. In other words, this was a hint from God. Don't look for the Ark of the Covenant!"

Scholars may not agree on the fate of the Ark but many of them agree on one thing: it's discovery could set in motion another event that's been 2000 years in the making - the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple.

"Perhaps when it's time to build the third temple, the second temple treasures will be found. Why? Because in Ezra and Nehemiah the Bible indicated that when it was time to build the second temple, God restored the treasures from the first temple which of course have been carted off to Babylon," said Rosenberg.

"When it's time to build a third temple, the second temple's treasures would be found. Wouldn't that be dramatic?," he concluded.

"It is soon to come, I tell you, I promise you, and you check me. Test me. It will be in our lifetime," added Salomon.--www.cbn.com

Pre-Civil War Artifacts to be Revealed at Archeological Meeting

Jim Wosochlo will unveil pre-Civil War discoveries from his family's farm in Schuylkill County, Pa., at the Sept. 18 meeting of the Incorporated Orange County Chapter of the New York State Archaeological Association.

"According to my great-grandparents, a blacksmith lived at the site just before the Civil War," Wosochlo said. "Among the items discovered on this site are prehistoric Lehigh Broad (spear) points and other native artifacts. For the historic finds, I have a great coin collection including a counterfeit 1854 half dollar, a large group of buttons, pipe stems, marbles and other historic artifacts."

The group will meet at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 18 in the community room of the Goshen Methodist Church, 115 Main St, Goshen.For more information, e-mail ioccnysaa@gmail.com or go to http://ioccnysaa.blogspot.com/---www.recordonline.com

Old Timber Structure Discovered in London

London's oldest timber structure has been unearthed by archaeologists from Archaeology South-East (part of the Institute of Archaeology at University College London). It was found during the excavation of a prehistoric peat bog adjacent to Belmarsh Prison in Plumstead, Greenwich, in advance of the construction of a new prison building. Radiocarbon dating has shown the structure to be nearly 6,000 years old and it predates Stonehenge by more than 500 years.

Jacobs Engineering UK Ltd acted as the managing consultants, on behalf of the Ministry of Justice, and the work was facilitated by Interserve Project Services Ltd.

The structure consisted of a timber platform or trackway found at a depth of 4.7m (about the height of a double decker bus) beneath two metres of peat adjacent to an ancient river channel (image available). Previously, the oldest timber structure in Greater London was the timber trackway in Silvertown, which has been dated to 3340-2910 BC, c. 700 years younger.

Wetlands adjacent to rivers such as the Thames were an important source of food for prehistoric people, and timber trackways and platforms made it easier to cross the boggy terrain. The structure discovered at Plumstead is an early example of people adapting the natural landscape to meet human needs. The peat bogs which developed at Plumstead provided ideal conditions to preserve organic materials, which in other environments would have rotted away. The peat not only preserved wood, but also other plant matter - down to microscopic pollen grains - which can inform us about the contemporary landscape.

English Heritage, the government's advisor on the historic environment, provides planning advice in respect of archaeology within Greater London and was involved in the discovery at the Plumstead site.

Mark Stevenson, Archaeological Advisor at English Heritage said: "The discovery of the earliest timber structure in London is incredibly important. The timber structure is slightly earlier in date than the earliest trackways excavated in the Somerset Levels, including the famous 'Sweet Track' to Glastonbury, which provide some of the earliest physical evidence for woodworking in England.

"This large area of development has been the subject of extensive building recording of the old Royal Arsenal (East) site as well as detailed work to map the buried ancient landscape."

Archaeology South-East Senior Archaeologist Diccon Hart, who directed the excavation, commented: "The discovery of the earliest timber structure yet found in the London Basin is an incredibly exciting find. It is testament to the hard work and determination of those who toiled under very difficult conditions to unearth a rare and fascinating structure almost 6,000 years after it was constructed."

Other notable finds from the archaeological excavation include an Early Bronze Age alder log with unusually well-preserved tool marks made by a metal axe. This item has been laser scanned at UCL's Department of Civil, Environmental and Geometric Engineering and is currently undergoing conservation treatment prior to its display in Greenwich Heritage Centre, Woolwich (image available).

The study of the samples will continue for the next couple of years as the archaeological team learns more about this intriguing structure and the environment in which it was built.---www.sciencedaily.com

More People Interested in Ancient Sites

All things considered, the potential to uncover indigenous peoples’ remains or artifacts on the proposed Village Centre commercial site appears insignificant to most people.

With all of the debate about traffic, impact on Cape Henlopen High School and downtown Lewes businesses, and on the wellhead area, artifacts are an issue that seems to get lost.

But not for Jules Jackson, an indigenous peoples’ advocate. She says there should be no development anywhere near known burial sites or where Native American artifacts have been found. “There is no compromise. It’s about basic respect and decency,” she said. “It’s a human value issue.”

Once a find has been made, she said, other remains are likely to be nearby. “You can never be sure an area is 100 percent clear,” she said.

Over time, she said, many sites in the Cape Region have been destroyed by construction, farming and development.

Hundreds of Lewes residents were expected to turn out for a public hearing Thursday, Sept. 10, before county planning and zoning commissioners on a request by LT Associates to rezone a parcel to commercial along Kings Highway and Gills Neck Road. If the rezoning request is granted, the developers plan to build the 320,000-square-foot Village Centre shopping complex on the parcel.

Another public hearing is scheduled at 6 p.m., Tuesday, Sept. 29, before county council. Frank Kea, spokesman for developers LT Associates, says extensive research has been done throughout the area, and there are no archaeological sites on the 46 acres where the planned Village Centre would be built.

That is not the case elsewhere on the parcel known as the Townsend property.

Finds over the years
Parcels along Gills Neck Road have a long archeological history. There have been significant, although little publicized, archeological finds on Townsend-owned properties over the past 55 years.

One was so significant back in the 1950s that the renowned Smithsonian Institution had 50 Native American remains removed from the property. The remains are at the Natural Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.

Kea said Paul Townsend hired other archaeologists to make a complete survey of other parcels, spending $100,000 in the process, and other sites were found in the area of the Senators and Governors housing projects. He said pottery shards and other items were found during their survey.

The housing projects, approved by county officials, will be built on 700 acres with more than 700 housing units adjacent and connected to the proposed Village Centre.

Kea said the areas where artifacts were found will not be designated, at the request of state archeologists, but will be left undisturbed in a natural state. The same was done with the area where the 50 human remains were found back in the 1950s.

Kea said the areas are unmarked to keep out trespassers and amateur archaeologists. Kea said it was two amateur archeologists who were trespassing that discovered the site back in the 1950s.

He said it has not been uncommon for people to trespass on Townsend land in search of artifacts.

Jackson said the finds, and others, including one near Five Points, only prove one thing – the area was home to a large settlement of Native Americans, the first inhabitants of the region.

“The area was one of the largest indigenous settlements on the East Coast,” Jackson said. “There are remains outside the parameters where they say they are.”

She said one could only wonder what would have occurred and what action would have been taken if the remains had been of a European settlement.

One of the major sites, known as the Wolfe Neck site, was nominated in 1976 for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places.

According to a report filed by state archeologists, excavations at the 132-acre site along the Lewes-Rehoboth Canal indicated an almost continuous prehistoric occupation from 505 B.C. through 330 A.D.

“The early occupation of the site was apparently a small seasonal camp. The later occupation may have been a more permanent village,” the report concluded.

That’s more than 2,100 years before Dutch explorers landed near present-day Lewes, the first Europeans to touch Cape Region soil. Historical records show that the first inhabitants of the Mid-Atlantic region date back as far as 12,000 years ago.

The site was not included in the National Register.

Jackson said officials should take note of what occurred at Thompson Island, located where Rehoboth Bay and the Lewes-Rehoboth Canal converge.

The entire island is preserved as part of Delaware Seashore State Park. Artifacts found on the island date back to 3000 B.C.

Jackson said county officials, developers and planners are paying more attention to what is under the soil.

“It’s been brought to the forefront and they are staring to take it seriously,” she said.

The chiefs of the Nanticoke and Lenape recently testified in opposition to a rezoning and conditional use for an apartment complex off Plantation Road. They say construction of the project would infringe on an existing Native American burial site.

The long-standing lack of interest in indigenous sites is not surprising to Jackson. “It’s gone on for so long, it’s become part of the culture,” she said. “At the end of the day, it’s all about money.”

Money Given to Research Archaeological Sites in Cwmbran

A PROJECT launched to research sites of archaeological interest in Cwmbran received a £48,000 funding boost.

The Ancient Cwmbran and Cistercians Partnership will spend the money from the Heritage Lottery Fund to investigate several sites in Thornhill and Greenmeadow, many of which have never been previously explored and one of which dates back more than 3,500 years.

Archaeologists will work with volunteers from the local community to carry out the research over the next year.

The project will also celebrate the medieval pilgrim heritage of the area through an arts project and the production of a heritage walks leaflet.

The project’s research co-ordinator Richard Davies said: "These unrecorded sites are a real mystery, I have shown them to several archaeologist and we are all still scratching our heads."

The partnership consists of Cwmbran Historical Society, Glamorgan Gwent Archaeological Trust, University of Wales, Newport, Torfaen Museum Trust, Communities First Thornhill, the Co-Star Partnership and Torfaen council.

It has also received funding from Cwmbran Regeneration Partnership and Torfaen council.---www.southwalesargus.co.uk

Making cash hunting for pirate treasures

Making money while on a vacation isn’t a common occurrence — unless you get lucky on the slots. But if Vegas isn’t your style, don’t worry, you can still come home from a trip with your purse a little fatter.

There are legends of buried pirates’ treasure that was never found, gold that has still been seen in California rivers, and caves in the Midwest that abound with jewels and gems of all kinds.

Although treasure hunting vacations may not make you millions, there is a good possibility of finding diamonds or gold — and even if you don’t, looking is half the fun.

Chances are you won’t be disappointed at the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas, an extremely rare diamond site where you get to keep what you find. Last year alone 946 diamonds were found, 27 of which were over one carat in weight. Most diamonds found are less then one carat and not big enough to be cut, but many visitors take their winnings home as souvenirs or have them made into jewelry. Though there is the occasional large find: In 1975, a whopping 16.37-carat rock was found. Finding bling of this size is rare, but it depends on how hard and deep you look.

Besides mining for diamonds, lots of other gems like emeralds, aquamarines, garnets, rubies, amethysts, and sapphires are still buried deep in the mountains. At Gem Mountain in North Carolina, gems of all shapes and sizes have been found, some even large enough to be cut and set in jewelry. Visitors can dig through real gemstone flumes with the help of mining experts while comparing their findings with friends and family to see who has the biggest and best.

Kay Buchanan owner of Gem Mountain says, “People love the idea of treasure hunting because it’s like gambling. You’re always hoping for the 'big' find. It’s something that everyone can do, young or old.” A real aquamarine mine is also open for tours and guests can watch miners search through the rocks for precious gems.

With the price of gold skyrocketing these days, panning for gold like the 49ers did during the California Gold Rush may be best way to strike it rich. Gold mining trips available through the California Gold Company take willing participants to Woods Creek, one of the richest creeks in California that still yields a good amount of gold.

The chances of finding gold are very likely and you can even keep what you find (up to a half ounce). Rob Goreham, founder of the California Gold Company thinks the reason why people like mining so much is the thrill of finding gold. He says, "It doesn’t matter the size of what is found, people are just excited to be out there searching.” Expert gold miners lead the trips to help with the digging, sluicing, and panning for gold.

The areas surrounding California Gold Country offer all different aspects of a gold miner's life like real working mines which are open for tours and gold and silver mining towns that can be explored. And after a long day in the mines or at the river, you can end it all off at a saloon with a sarsaparilla.

Nova Scotia's Money Pit mystery
Speaking of gold, you might be able to find a lost buried treasure among some old pirate islands. One in particular—Oak Island in Nova Scotia, Canada—has many legends surrounding what’s buried deep in its caves. The mysterious Treasure Pit (also known as the Money Pit), reportedly houses booty from the 18th century. No one knows for sure where it may have come from, a few theories have been suggested.

Even though this treasure hunt has been going on for more than 300 years without a single cent being recovered, excavations are conducted by determined groups who hold a Treasure Trove License in hopes of recovering an unforeseen amount of money.

And while tourists can’t explore its treasure sites by themselves on any given day, each year a festival, Explore Oak Island Days, is held where everyone can join in on the fun and legend of the Oak Island treasure. Hundreds of people attend Explore Oak Island Days each year because “the Money Pit mystery appeals to our childhood instincts. It ticks all the boxes in terms of those exciting stories which captured our imagination, and in a world where everything is so certain, it's compelling to ponder one of the very few remaining mysteries,” says Jo Atherton, founder of Oak Island Treasure.

So whether you love the legends or the jewels, a treasure hunt is the type of "working" vacation even homebodies can get behind.---Source: www.cbc.ca

Hunting for Iraqi treasure

U of T expert helps track priceless artifacts looted in 2003 invasion and scattered worldwide

The looting of Iraq's National Museum was one of the greatest scandals of the U.S. invasion in 2003.

Archaeologists had repeatedly warned Washington that, without protection, the Baghdad museum – which held the priceless cultural heritage of not just of Mesopotamia, but of mankind – would be ransacked by looters.

And it was.

But U.S. troops didn't react when Iraqis ravenously tore through the galleries for two straight days, carrying off 15,000 precious artifacts from the first 7,000 years of civilization.

The oldest known sculpture of a natural human face, the Warka Head, known as the Sumerian Mona Lisa, gone. A 4,500-year-old bronze figure of an Akkadian king, gone. At least 5,000 Sumerian cylinder seals engraved with the earliest form of writing, all gone.

"Stuff happens" was the notorious reaction of then-U.S. defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld. But the world's reaction was swift and furious.

The International Council on Monuments accused the U.S. of committing a "crime against humanity." Interpol immediately set up a task force to track the stolen property. Scholars flinched.

Even before the dust settled, it became clear that the most valuable artifacts, hidden a month before in basement lockers, had been targeted by organized thieves.

"I knew it was organized crime when I saw the storerooms had been unlocked and certain items removed," said then-museum director Donny George. "They knew where these items had been put."

And they knew where they were going – into the rapacious hands of unprincipled dealers and private collectors who didn't care how they'd been obtained. "People with no scruples but a lust for possession," says Edward Keall, a Royal Ontario Museum senior curator who is periodically called by Canada Customs to check incoming Mid-Eastern antiquities.

Five to seven years is the average lag time for famous stolen art or antiquities to surface and it's now six years since the museum's plunder. But despite an ongoing international crackdown on smuggled Iraqi artifacts, fewer than half the stolen treasures have been recovered.

Many were returned in the first few months, after the U.S. snapped into action and appointed Marine Reserve Col. Matthew Bogdanos, a Manhattan district attorney in private life, to head a 13-member investigation team.

Bogdanos announced an amnesty, and by the fall of 2003 more than 3,000 items were returned voluntarily by locals, including the famed alabaster Warka Vase, albeit brought back in 14 pieces in a plastic bag. Another 900 objects were seized in raids and at checkpoints, among them 10 of the 42 most valuable artifacts. They included the Warka Head, found buried at a farmhouse, and the Bassetki statue, a 4,300-year-old copper lower torso and legs of a seated male figure. It had been hidden in a cesspool, submerged.

In the first few years, most of the still-missing objects were too hot to handle internationally. But in time, they began to emerge:

In 2006, the headless stone statue of the Sumerian king, Entemena, was recovered after it was offered for sale to a dealer in New York. A year later, a 4,000-year-old inscribed clay tablet was pulled from eBay's Swiss website minutes before the close of bidding.

In 2008, 11 cylinder seals, made of agate and alabaster, were found by customs agents in Philadelphia.

Also last year, more than 700 items – ranging from gold necklaces and daggers to clay statues and pots and collectively worth millions of dollars – were returned by Syria after being seized from traffickers. It was the first mass return of artifacts. But not the last.

Four months ago, Iraqi government officials handed over 531 items, including ancient coins and 165 statues and cylinder seals, which had been in the possession of two unidentified members of parliament.

Last month, 69 artifacts were surrendered by Dutch art dealers after Interpol disclosed their illegal origin; among them, a terracotta relief of a bearded man praying, believed to be more than 2,000 years old.

Symbolically handed back, that is. The Dutch will display them until they can be safely returned to Iraq's museum. Further looting remains a threat, which is why the museum opened on Feb. 23 this year, only to be shut down again within hours.

As horrific, however, as the original ransacking was, "it was only the initial catastrophe," says Clemens Reichel, a Mesopotamian archaeologist at the University of Toronto and a curator at the Royal Ontario Museum. In the years since, industrial-scale pillaging of thousands of southern Iraq's unprotected excavation sites has resulted in the disappearance of another 500,000 artifacts, he says.

"Most of the big sites have been hacked to pieces. You can see the destruction from satellite pictures taken before and since the war."

The looters not only steal, but destroy items of inestimable value, he says: "In retrieving one object, they'll throw away 50,000 smaller pieces that would be greatly important to archaeologists."

Before his recent move to Toronto, Reichel was at the University of Chicago's eminent Oriental Institute. Within a day of the museum rampage, he immediately became head of a unique project – to create a computerized database of the precise objects taken and track their status in the coming years.

No mean feat. Not all of the museum's collection had been catalogued or photographed. Though the official holdings count was 150,000, the full tally was closer to 500,000. A complete list of the losses could only be drawn up after an inventory of all the remaining items were compiled. With the help of other museums and scholars who'd photographed in the museum, Reichel painstakingly put together images of as many objects as possible.

The terrible irony is, he says, that for all his other sins, Saddam Hussein enforced a strict anti-smuggling policy. Looters were executed. "There was no market for Iraqi antiquities until the first Gulf War in 1990."

Now the market is flooded with them and there are collectors known in the U.S. and Europe, especially Germany, Switzerland and Norway. "That's the 'visible' market, where things are tightening up. But there's also the 'invisible' market, Japan and the wealthy Gulf states. Who knows what's there."

Reichel often sees objects on auction house websites that are suspicious. But suspicion, he sighs, isn't proof.---www.thestar.com

Huge Collection Of Roman Coins Discovered

The largest cache of rare coins ever found in a scientific excavation from the period of the Bar-Kokhba revolt of the Jews against the Romans has been discovered in a cave by researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Bar-Ilan University.

The coins were discovered in three batches in a deep cavern located in a nature reserve in the Judean hills. The treasure includes gold, silver and bronze coins, as well as some pottery and weapons.

The discovery was made in the framework of a comprehensive cave research and mapping project being carried out by Boaz Langford and Prof. Amos Frumkin of the Cave Research Unit in the Department of Geography at the Hebrew University, along with Dr. Boaz Zissu and Prof. Hanan Eshel of the Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology at Bar-Ilan University, and with the support of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.

The some 120 coins were discovered within a cave that has a "hidden wing," the slippery and dangerous approach to which is possible only via a narrow opening discovered many years ago by Dr. Gideon Mann, a physician who is one of the early cave explorers in modern Israel. The opening led to a small chamber which in turn opens into a hall that served as a hiding place for the Jewish fighters of Bar-Kokhba.

Most of the discovered coins are in excellent condition and were overstruck as rebels' coins on top of Roman coins. The new imprints show Jewish images and words (for example: the facade of the Temple in Jerusalem and the slogan "for the freedom of Jerusalem"). Other coins that were found, of gold, silver and bronze, are original Roman coins of the period minted elsewhere in the Roman Empire or in the Land of Israel.

Bar-Kokhba coins of this quality and quantity have never before been discovered in one location by researchers in the Land of Israel, although over the years antiquities looters have found and sold large numbers of coins from this period. The high value of such coins has served as an incentive for thefts in recent decades, especially in the Judean hills, where many such caves exist.

Prof. Frumkin points out the significance of this particular cave, owing to its size, its proximity to Betar, and the large collection of coins found there. Ancient Betar was the site of the "last stand" of the rebels led by Bar-Kokhba in their struggle against Roman rule in Judea from 132-35 CE.

"This discovery verifies the assumption that the refugees of the revolt fled to caves in the center of a populated area in addition to the caves found in more isolated areas of the Judean Desert," said Prof. Frumkin. He also noted that the discovery adds significantly to our knowledge of the Bar-Kokhba revolt, about which there is not a great deal of historical information.

Dr. Zissu points out that one of the fascinating aspects of the Bar-Kokhba revolt is the intensive use of the rebels and Jewish refugees of natural and man-made caves as hiding and refuge places in the face of extensive Roman search-and-destroy missions. Those who fled to the caves took with them food, weapons, drinks, coins and various documents. Sometimes they even took with them the keys to their houses that they abandoned in the hope that one day they would be able to return to them.

Apparently, the people who left behind the cache of coins that has now been found did so during the period of the revolt, following their flight from their homes or from battle with the Romans; however they were unable to return to their hiding place to recover their valuables.---www.sciencedaily.com

Auschwitz treasure discovered in a destroyed synagogue in Poland

The town where Auschwitz was located has yielded a trove of Judaica.

During an excavation last month of the site of the destroyed Great Synagogue in Oswiecim, the town in southern Poland where Auschwitz was built, archeologists working from a Holocaust survivor's memory unearthed a unique trove of Jewish ritual objects.

The objects, which had been buried since the Holocaust, include three bronze candelabras, a bronze menorah, 10 chandeliers and a ner tamid, or eternal lamp, that once hung before the synagogue ark. Tiles, marble plaques, charred wood and other material from the synagogue, which was burned to the ground in 1939 by invading Nazi forces, also were uncovered.

"We didn't include a miracle in our operating budget, but now we have to deal with one," said Tomasz Kuncewicz, director of the Auschwitz Jewish Center, a prayer and study complex near the site of the notorious death camp.