treasure hunting

Gems may be found by treasure hunters.

Treasure hunting is the search for real treasure which has been a notable human activity for millennia.

Background

In recent times, the early stages of the development of archaeology included a significant aspect of treasure hunt; Heinrich Schliemann's excavations at Troy, and later at Mycenae, both turned up significant finds of golden artifacts. Early work in Egyptology also included a similar motive.

Some people hunt for treasure on sunken galleons of the Spanish treasure fleet.

More recently, most serious treasure hunters have started working underwater, where modern technology allows access to wrecks containing valuables which were previously inaccessible. Starting with the diving suit, and moving on through Scuba and later to ROVs, each new generation of technology has made more wrecks accessible. Many of these wrecks have resulted in the treasure salvage of many fascinating artifacts from Spanish treasure fleets as well as many others. Unfortunately, in their search for valuable artifacts, treasure hunters destroy forever unique archaeological sites. For this reason, treasure hunting is illegal in most developed countries.

Additionally with the advent of affordable, state of the art satellite imaging from companies such as GlobeXplorer, GeoEye and others, the average income household can now contact a satellite imaging company and pay to have a specified area scanned. This has made it infinitely easier for treasure hunters to do extensive research previously impossible to do without physically going to the specific point of interest, and saved the real life treasure hunters much time and money, even providing for a new level of safety to be incorporated in to treasure hunting expeditions.

In fact, even companies such as Google with their Google Maps and Google Earth products, have given the ability to virtually anyone to have eyes across the globe and conduct research into specific points of interest before launching a treasure hunting expedition. In 2005, a treasure hunter found the remains of an ancient Roman villa when he browsed Google Earth maps showing satellite images of his local area.^[1]

Famous treasure hunters

Treasure hunter Heinrich Schliemann.

• Capt. Martin Bayerle located the shipwreck of RMS Republic in 1981.
• Mel Fisher (discoverer of the Spanish galleon Nuestra Señora de Atocha)
• Mike Hatcher (discoverer of the "Nanking Cargo")
• Dr. E. Lee Spence (pioneer underwater archaeologist, author of real life adventure articles and former editor for a number of magazines, discoverer of American Civil War submarine H. L. Hunley and numerous other wrecked vessels. Spence has salvaged over $50,000,000 dollars in artifacts and has been responsible, through his archival research, for the recovery of over one billion dollars in gold and silver coins from the wrecks of the sidewheel steamers Republic and Central America.)
• Robert F. Marx (underwater archaeologist, author)
• Robert Stenuit (underwater archaeologist, author)
• Heinrich Schliemann (grocer turned treasure hunter, considered father of historical archaeology, discoverer of lost city of Troy)
• The Odyssey Marine Exploration has extracted treasure from the shipwreck of the SS Republic in 2003 worth approximately 75 million USD. More recently, the company has salvaged wreckage of a ship speculated to be the Merchant Royal, but is officially known as the Black Swan Project by the company. Total haul to date for this is likely in excess of 500 million USD, breaking the previous set record for such an event.

See also

Pirates burying their treasure

• Armchair treasure hunt
• Buried treasure
• Geocaching
• Letterboxing
• Locke Cole
• Lost mines
• Marine salvage and treasure hunting (marine)
• Shipwreck
• Treasure hunt (game)

Fictional treasure hunters and archaeologists

• Indiana Jones
• Dirk Pitt
• National Treasure
• Lara Croft

Treasure found by treasure hunters

• Ringlemere gold cup

References

Further reading

• Robert E. Burgess, Sunken Treasure (Dodd, Mead; New York; 1988)
• Dr. E. Lee Spence, Treasures of the Confederate Coast: the "Real Rhett Butler" & Other Revelations (Narwhal Press, Charleston/Miami, 1995)

External links

• How a Metal Detector Works.
• Metal Detecting at the Open Directory Project
• Pirate's Buried Treasures Search For Captain Blue Eye's Treasures
• The Treasure Hunters Insider Collection
• Treasure Hunting With Randy Treasure hunting stories, tips, hints, bibliographies and database

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