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8 Stories of Lost Treasures That Will Excite You

The idea of "lost treasure" - that lost box full of money, gold and precious antique objects, has fascinated and captivated humanity for hundreds of thousands of years and is expressed in many works of art, books, and films. The dream of finding such a treasure has been common to many people throughout history, causing tens of thousands of them to embark on bold journeys of exploration, some of them even ending in death.

If you are also fascinated by this idea, we’ve gathered for you the stories of eight lost treasures that many believe really exist and are hidden somewhere in the world. Think you could find them? Take a look!

treasure stories

1. The Treasure of Forrest Fenn

This amazing mystery has not yet been solved by anyone, even though its creator is still alive and can, it seems, provide the answer to it at any moment he chooses. The story goes like this: In 1988, Forest Fenn - a former fighter pilot and collector of art and antiques in the present - was diagnosed with kidney cancer and believed that his days were numbered. To commemorate his adventurous legacy, Fenn bought a small chest and filled it with all the good fortune he had accumulated: golden eggs, rare coins, gems, and other items worth about $1-3 million. treasure stories

The box was planned to be buried in a secret location shortly before his death, but he recovered from the disease. However, in 2010, he buried the chest in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, with hints of its location scattered in the autobiography he wrote and published. Since then, lovers of thrills and adventures have been looking for the treasure in the area but with no success; four have already lost their lives embarking on the journey. Fenn himself is now 88 and claims that the chest is still buried somewhere in the mountains, where he buried it eight years ago.

2. The Treasure of Lima

In 1820, Captain William Thompson was a law-abiding citizen and commandant of the "Mary Dear", when the Spanish authorities, which then ruled Peru in South America, asked him to ship a large treasure trove of jewelry, candlesticks and gold statues - valued at $208 million From Lima to Mexico. It seems that this great fortune caused captain and crew to change hearts, and they decided to make a "career change" to pirates. First, they murdered the Spanish guards who boarded their ship and then sailed with the treasure for Cocos Island, located near Costa Rica.

treasure stories
Knowing that they had become thieves, the Spaniards went after them. Thompson and his crew decided to bury the treasure on the island, hoping to return once all calmed down, and divide the spoils between them. But this did not happen - the entire crew was caught and executed, with only Thompson able to escape to the jungles of Cocos Island without revealing to the Spaniards the location of their buried treasure. Since then, the story of Lima's treasure has stirred up the imagination of various treasure hunters, but none of them have yet found it.

3. The Treasure of the Amber Room

The story of the Amber Room proves that not only the contents of a room can be looted and removed, but also the room itself. The Amber Room was a gift given by Prussian Emperor Frederick Wilhelm I to his Russian counterpart, Czar Piotr the Great, as a sign of alliance between the two countries. The magnificent room, 55 square meters of amber slabs with a total weight of over 6 tons, was installed in the Ekaterina Palace, which served as the tsar's summer home.

treasure stories
The room lasted more than 180 years, from 1755 to 1941, until the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union during World War II, took over the palace and within 36 hours dismantled The Amber Room, packed its walls in 27 crates and sent them to Germany. Miraculously, even though the war was over, the Nazis were defeated and the Russians occupied Germany - The Amber Room was not found to this day. There are many hypotheses about what happened to it: some scholars claim that it was completely destroyed during the bombing of Germany, and others say that the Germans hid it on a ship that sunk during the war in the Baltic Sea.

4. The 7 Lost Fabergé Easter Eggs

In 2012, an anonymous American from the Midwest, went looking for someone to buy a beautiful but worthless piece of jewelry he had just purchased at a consignment store for $14,000. In desperation, the same man tried to sell the fancy item to a thrift store for only $500. However, a random internet search about the origins of the piece changed his life: He discovered that it was one of 8 "lost" Fabergé eggs - a series of unique jewelry of unprecedented historical value. He became a millionaire when he sold the egg for an estimated $33 million to a British collection house.
treasure stories
The Faberge egg found by the same American is part of a series of 69 golden eggs which were created between 1885 and 1917 by the Russian jeweler Petr Karl Fabergé and were handed over as a gift to the Russian monarchy. After the Communist Revolution, eight of them were lost, while 61 were sold to museums around the world or to private owners. After the discovery of one of the eggs, there are now another 7 "missing" in the world, and those who find one or more of them can also become immensely rich.

5. Paititi -The City of Lost Gold

Stories and legends about mythological golden cities in the South American region are known throughout the world since ancient times, since the Spanish conquered the continent from the indigenous tribes - the Incas, Maya and more - and looted gold and other precious metals. Although El Dorado is the best-known name of such a city, if you are an adventure enthusiast, you should also know the name of the city Paititi, a lost gold city of the Inca. Records from the Vatican from the year 1600 contain testimony from one of the Spanish conquerors, Anders Lopez, telling of its existence east of the Andes.treasure stories

It is not clear exactly what happened to that wealthy settlement, with some claiming that Vatican officials have hidden it for reasons of their own, nevertheless, Paititi has become an interest of a plethora of researchers, historians and adventure enthusiasts all eager to discover its treasure. Over the last century, dozens of search groups been sent to the Peruvian and Bolivian rainforests, around where the city is believed to be located, but no clear answer has yet been found.

6. The Treasure of Dutch Schultz

Dutch Schultz was an American Jew, one of the leaders of organized crime in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s, who made his fortune from the illegal smuggling of alcohol during the prohibition in the United States, as well as from various games of luck. In 1935 Schultz was shot by members of a rival gang and rushed to the hospital. While on his deathbed, Schultz mumbled to the doctors treating him and told them about a treasure: a sealed safe box containing some $7 million in cash and bonds, that he and his assistant - Bernard "Lulu" Rosencrantz, who was also shot that day - buried shortly before the shooting incident, in the Catskill Mountains in northern New York.

treasure stories
Unfortunately for those who were told this amazing secret, both Schultz and Rosencrantz died a few days later, without leaving any clue to the exact location of the treasure. Of course, you probably aren’t surprised to hear that adventure lovers and treasure hunters gather every year in the Catskill Mountains to search for the lost safe of Dutch Schultz, which is supposed to be buried somewhere between the pine trees. It's yet to be found. 

7. The Lost Golden Menorah of the Second Temple

More than 1,950 years ago the Romans destroyed and looted the Jewish people’s Second Temple, taking with them their precious 7-branched golden Menorah. This magnificent 7-branched lamp was placed in the Temple after the Hasmoneans purified it and was covered in gold and silver. The later and most detailed documentation appears as a relief inscription on the famous Arch of Titus, now in Rome, where it seems to be paraded by the Roman soldiers in their triumphal procession back home.

treasure stories
In Rome, the Menorah was placed in the Roman "Hall of Peace," where it remained for several centuries until the city was conquered by the Vandals in 455. From then on, traces of the lamp disappeared, and its fate is shrouded in mystery. Some say it was melted or dismantled by the occupiers or completely destroyed by the fire that was set, while others claim that the Romans succeeded in saving it and took it to their eastern capital, Constantinople. Other persistent rumors say that the lamp is still hidden in the basements of the Vatican, but this claim is unsubstantiated.

8. The Legend of the Imperial Jade Seal of China

The last mystery on this list comes from the Far East, from the mighty Chinese imperial dynasty, whose descendants have for centuries passed a precious royal seal made of jade, which was created in 221 BC by Qin Shi Huang - the first emperor of China and founder of the dynasty. This rare seal remained in the hands of the family for hundreds of years, and it was passed from generation to generation, even surviving difficult inheritance wars.
treasure stories
However, in the 10th century AD, it disappeared off the face of the earth, and since then no evidence of its existence or fate has been found. Since the days of the Qin dynasty, a number of seals have been claimed to be the lost royal seal, but none of them have been approved by experts and historians. In one of the last cases in which such a seal was found, experts who examined it confirmed that it was indeed in the personal use of the emperor, but it was not the famous lost seal of the Qin dynasty.
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