Problems that are difficult for scientists to understand

Chapter 8 Treasure Quest (2)
Mellat felt the significance of what was before him.The treasures are relics from the Bronze Age 4500 years ago.

He knew that he had stumbled upon an important clue to an ancient city.

It was a large seafaring city ruled by the warrior class, whose prosperity was close to that of Trox in Homer's time, and whose wealth and influence were comparable to Trox.It's an archaeologists' dream.All arguments would have to be re-argued accordingly.

One evening, Maillart finally finished his work and left the girl's house.After that, he never saw that girl and those treasures again.It was only in hindsight that Maillart realized how little he really knew about the girl who held the key to the door of discovery.All he remembered was that she spoke English with an American accent and that she said her name was Anna Pappast and she lived at 217 Cajun Drake Avenue.

The first fatal mistake Mellat made was taking the girl's word without checking it.Later, skeptical Turkish investigators said they hadn't found anyone named Pappast, and Kazin Drake Avenue didn't even exist.Then, Mellat made a second mistake.In Ankara, he reported to his boss, Professor Seton Lloyd of the British Academy of Archaeology, that he had discovered the treasure six years earlier and that he had only now been given permission to publish the discovery.He told this lie for a very simple reason: he had only been married for four years, and he didn't want to start a gossip that would bother his wife by telling him that he had stayed at a woman's house for several days.

In November 1959, Maillart's findings were published in the London Picture News, and a wave of condemnation ensued.Maillart had to fight for a long time to justify himself, while regretting two mistakes he had made.He had written to the Turkish Antiquities Department informing him of the impending publication, but the letter was lost.

Turkish officials were furious when the article, illustrated with treasures, was published.They demanded to know the whereabouts of the treasures: where they had been found, why they had not been told, and they blamed Meilat at the thought that some of the country's most valuable treasures had been stolen.Meilat helps the Turkish authorities as best she can, but Ana and Jumbo disappear without a trace.There is no evidence linking Maillat to the treasure's disappearance.However, two and a half years later, a smear campaign was launched, instigated by the Turkish newspaper Milliet.The newspaper claimed that the excavation date mentioned by Meylart was untrue and that the excavation of Dolac's treasure happened in the 50s;

Later, the above statement was proved to be false and the police investigation was stopped.But the campaign to vilify and accuse Meilat continues; Meilat is still barred from further research at an ancient site in Turkey.

However, who is Anna?Was it a pure coincidence that she met Maillart on the train?Perhaps someone knew that the bracelet was sure to attract the attention of archaeologists, so this farce was specially arranged.Some believe that Mehrat was a bait set by smuggling gangs; they stole the treasures of Dorak and planned to sell them.They know that once their stolen goods are verified as authentic by a reputable expert like Mellat, the price on the international black market will skyrocket. The authoritative article in the London Picture News provided proof of the reliability of the smuggling rings.Next, the treasures were loaded onto ships and quietly sailed to secret buyers all over the world.

If this judgment is correct, the truth about Anna and Jumbo may never be revealed.

Port Royal Treasure Mystery
In the 16th century, Central and South America were dominated by Spain. Colonial bandits seized a large amount of gold and silver treasures and shipped them back to Europe.In terms of invading the Western Hemisphere, Britain was one step behind Spain. Apart from controlling the northern part of North America, it was difficult for Britain to get involved in Spain's sphere of influence.The psychologically unbalanced Britain was jealous of Spain's huge wealth, so it encouraged pirates to attack Spanish ships and provide shelter for pirates.

At the same time, some desperadoes in Europe became pirates and robbed passing merchant ships along the American coast, especially interested in robbing the Spanish royal gold ship.At that time, the British government specially set up Port Royal on the southeast coast of the British colony of Jamaica as a base for pirates, and Port Royal became the largest concentration of pirate fleets in history.

The public identity of Port Royal is the capital of Jamaica, and the unofficial identity is the capital of pirates. The gold, silver and jewels plundered by pirates are piled up here. Sometimes a ship of gold cannot be unloaded, so it has to be parked in the port and wait. .Although only a few tens of thousands of people live here (about 6500 of them are pirates), the city's level of luxury far exceeds that of London and Paris at the time.The whole city does not have any industry, but can enjoy the most luxurious material life.Chinese silk, Indonesian spices, and British industrial products are all available.Of course, the most are gold bars, silver bars and jewelry.

On June 1692, 6, Port Royal was still as lively as usual, with noisy taverns, a cloud of stolen market customers, various ships frequently entering and leaving the port, and British ships full of industrial products unloading at the docks. The transit ship is repairing sails and adding water.Pirate ships are in the middle, and it is difficult for ordinary people to distinguish them.

At noon, the ground suddenly trembled, followed by a tight shaking.Huge cracks appeared in the ground and buildings collapsed.The land was undulating like waves, and hundreds of cracks appeared on the ground at the same time, opening and closing suddenly.The sea water seemed to be boiling, and the surf shattered all the ships in the harbor.People in gold and silver ran frantically under the pressure of house collapse, ground cracks, and tsunamis, trying to find a shelter.

At 11:47, after the most violent shock, two-thirds of the city sank under the sea, and the remaining buildings on land were washed away without a trace by the waves.Port Royal has since disappeared into the sea. Until 2, on a calm day, people could still clearly see the traces of the underwater city - some sunken ships and houses were faintly discernible.At that time, it was measured that Shencheng was 3-1835 meters below sea level.Afterwards, layers of sand and rubbish covered Port Royal in people's memory.After Jamaica's independence, the government has not given up looking for this sea burial city.

In 1959, the government of Jamaica signed an excavation treaty with underwater archaeologist Robert Marx.The treaty stipulates that Marx is only responsible for digging, and all treasures dug up belong to the Jamaican government.In the time that followed, Marx found part of the city's ruins and unearthed millions of dollars worth of jewelry and a large number of daily necessities.One of the most historically valuable is a pocket watch with hands pointing to 11:47, thus confirming the time when the ancient city sank.And the most interesting one is a statue without a head. Expert research has confirmed that this is Guanyin believed by the Chinese.

Four years later, Marx left Jamaica on the grounds that "the treasure could no longer be dug".No one believed that there was only this little treasure in Port Royal, but no one could guess the real reason for Marx's departure. In 4, the University of Texas in the United States received an invitation from the Jamaican government to start excavating Port Royal again.Experts accurately located the main sinking site of Port Royal. They found that the treasures dug out by Marx were only a very small part, and 1990% of the treasures were still sunk in the sea.The search for the Port Royal treasure is continuing, but the Jamaican government has made no decision to salvage the items and gold and silver that have been found.

No one knows how many surprises this pirate capital buried at sea can bring to mankind.

Unsolved Mysteries of the Inca City of Gold

There are always legends of treasures where the Indians live, and greedy Westerners always imagine those unknown areas as the country of gold.

The Incas are a tribe of South American Indians. When the Spaniards invaded in 1532, they had formed a vast empire, ruling the territory equivalent to the northern border of Ecuador to the Maule River in Chile, with a length of 4800 kilometers from north to south. km.

The Inca civilization was the most developed in South America at that time.There are highly developed technologies and buildings here.

Many temples and halls here are made of well-carved huge stones weighing dozens or even hundreds of tons. The stones are so tightly bonded that it is difficult to insert even a thin blade, which can be called the crown of architecture.There are many vertical and horizontal main and branch roads, a stone road network of more than 3600 kilometers long composed of countless rock tunnels and cable bridges supported by vines, which is world-famous.

The Inca Empire was founded in Cusco in the 12th century, and the pavilions and pavilions in the capital are resplendent and magnificent.The palaces and temples here are all decorated with countless gold and silver treasures.The walls of the large-scale Sun Temple are pasted with gold plates, the aisles are paved with gold, the doors are made of gold, and the golden statues are shining.The king's garden is called a golden garden. All the buildings and scenic spots in the garden are decorated with gold, and even the flowers on the flower beds are also made of gold.

Countless gold treasures are stored in the cellars and underground chambers of the palaces in the capital.The Incas worshiped the sun god and the moon god, and they regarded the yellow and orange color of gold as the brilliance of the sun. Therefore, not only temples and palaces were built with gold, but many ornaments that they usually wear with them were also made of gold.It is said that the Incas have been collecting gold for generations since the 11th century.If all the gold of the Incas is accumulated, the amount is equivalent to the sum of the amount of gold in other parts of the world at that time. It is really a country of gold.This is why the Spanish rulers invaded this ancient country.

It was the Spaniard Balboa who first learned that the Inca Empire was full of gold.One day in 1511, he heard an Indian chief say that there is a place where people's eating and drinking utensils are all made of gold, and the gold there is as cheap as iron.The Spaniards also heard legends of South America's golden kingdom from other Indians. In 1522, the Spaniard Antigoya sailed to San Miguel Bay and went deep into the interior. He brought back to Spain the exact situation of the gold and silver abundance of the Inca Empire that he had seen with his own eyes.From then on, the Spanish colonists began to plunder the Incas.

It was Francisco Pizarro, a Spanish colonist, who plundered the ancient Inca country and brought disaster to the Incas.Pizarro was knighted of Santiago in 1529 and appointed governor of the province of New Steele.At the same time, the Spanish royal family asked Pizarro to hand over 1/5 of the looted wealth to the royal family.Thus, Pizarro began to invade the Inca Empire.

Pizarro gathered a group of poor and greedy young people to form an expedition, which came to Panama from Spain in the autumn of 1529, and left Panama in early 1531 to enter San Mateo, Ecuador.His first southern goal was Tumbes, a city on the northern border of the Inca Empire.Because Pizarro learned from the two captured Inca people that there was a golden city not far from Tumbes, and all the treasures came from there.It took Pizarro's team a year to reach Tumbes on the move.

In 1532, coincided with the civil war in the Inca Empire, the political situation was unstable.Pizarro took advantage of this opportunity to lead the team to Cajamarca, the northern city of the Incas, where King Atahualpa was at the time. In September 1532, Pizarro led a team of only 9 people and drove into Cajamarca without any resistance.In November of the same year, Pizarro invited the King of the Inca to meet in the inner square of Cajamarca. Without the precaution of the Inca army, he defeated the Inca army with a large number of people (up to 170), but with backward weapons, and occupied Cajama Calgary, King Atahualpa was captured alive.In order to save his life, Atahualpa said to Pisar:

"If you let me go, I'll fill this room with gold and give it to you." Pizarro looked at the room (6-7 meters long, 5 meters wide, and 3 meters high), overjoyed, and agreed to restore the Inca king. freedom of.After a while, gold jewelry as high as a man was piled up in one room of the palace, and two other rooms were also filled with silver.It turned out that the Inca King collected nearly 6 tons of gold and about 11 tons of silver from the capital and all over the country and handed them to Pizarro as a ransom, fulfilling his promise.Pizarro melted this batch of gold into portable gold ingots.Pizarro alone received 360 kilograms of pure gold.In addition, Pizarro also sent people around to search for a large amount of gold.

The sinister and vicious Pizarro was afraid that if he released the Inca king, he would let the tiger go back to the mountain, and there would be endless troubles, so he fabricated a crime, put the blame on the Inca king, and perfidiously executed Atahualpa.This aroused the resistance of the Incas. After they learned that the king had been executed, they buried a large amount of gold and attacked the Spaniards everywhere.Pizarro sent his subordinates to search for gold many times, and found that the gold had been transferred. He tortured the Inca officials and learned that the palaces, shrines, and temples in Cuzco, the capital of the Inca Empire, were all decorated with invaluable gold and silver. In November 1533, he led troops into the capital of the Inca Empire.Since then, the Inca Empire has fallen, and Inca has become a Spanish colony.

Pizarro looted many gold and silver utensils in Cusco, and found a golden statue and many other gold utensils.However, the Spaniards found that the gold they got was only a small part of the wealth of the Incas, and most of the gold and silver wealth of the Incas was hidden.

The insatiable Pizarro couldn't restrain his desire for gold. After looting the treasures of the capital, Cuzco, he arrested the Inca nobles and tortured them, hoping to get the secret of the Incas' hidden treasures.Under severe punishment, the nobles confessed the secret of gold: the gold of the Inca Empire was transported from the Manoa country ruled by an Indian chief Patiti in the Amazon forest, where there were countless treasures of gold and silver. No one could tell where except the king and the wizard.

The Spaniards got the confession, and as if they had found a treasure, they immediately formed a treasure hunting team and went to the Manoa country to find the charming golden city.

The dense and lush Amazon virgin forest is very vast, covering an area of ​​280 million square kilometers. In this gloomy, hot and humid forest, there are highly poisonous and deadly poisonous snakes, poisonous spiders, various poisonous insects, and highly poisonous plants. Beasts, and tribes of cannibals.There are also terrible tropical diseases here.The Amazon forest is dotted with lakes and swamps, and the roads are muddy and overgrown with thorns, making walking difficult.This primeval forest, which is full of dangers and can be strangled by death at any time, has attracted batches of Spaniards because of the charming gold.Pizarro sent people to search for it several times, but failed to find the golden city.Expedition teams either suffered heavy losses and fled back in embarrassment, or never returned, and their whereabouts were unknown.The Spanish invaders could only look at the mysterious Amazon jungle and sigh, and the wonderful ideal of finding this golden city has never been realized.

For centuries, in addition to the Spaniards, the Portuguese, British, Americans, Dutch and Germans have come to the Amazon forest in search of treasure.It is said that there are more than 300 treasure hunting teams in the dense forest, large and small. However, most of them got nothing. They either escaped from death or were buried in the dense forest.Although this dense forest is so scary, the charm of gold tempts people to continue to take risks.

It is said that the treasure hunters in the Golden City have also obtained some clues.Once, in 1541, Pizarro sent his half-brother, the governor of Quito, Gonzalo, to lead 220 Spaniards and 4000 Indians to this forest to explore the city of gold.Gonzalo returned to Quito due to lack of supplies on the way.He claimed to have found the Golden City on the Margar Plain of Kandy and brought back a lot of emerald gems.More than 4000 people died in this treasure hunt, and only a few Spaniards survived.Gonzalo's claim is unbelievable.

Another time was in the 17th century, when six Portuguese led a group of locals into the Amazon forest.

They tossed and turned in the forest for several years, went through hardships and dangers, and discovered the ruins of an ancient city. The few surviving people wrote a report about the expedition, and this report is still preserved in the library of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Over the centuries, after many explorations by people, the location of the Golden City is said to be determined in the Lianganati Mountains in the Andes.

In the 20s, an expedition team composed of Canadians and Spaniards conducted a large number of investigations on Lianganati Mountain, obtained a lot of information such as secret manuscripts, charts, historical records, and conducted field investigations to confirm the acquired information. , and then conduct a thorough treasure hunt.Everyone is eagerly awaiting the reveal of the mystery of the Golden City.

Florida Treasure's Flooded Mystery

Another story at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. All the treasure hunters traveled across the ocean, but only a few brought the treasure home.

There are some strange sights on Florida's Atlantic coast: On the morning after every storm, treasure hunters can be seen scouring the sands, hoping to find something.Most of these things come from the wrecks of Spanish shipwrecks washed up on inshore reefs and shoals.

According to statistics, there are 1200-2000 shipwrecks on the coast of Florida.Many of them date back to the time when the Spanish treasure fleet crossed the Atlantic and arrived in South America.

From the mid-16th century to the 18th century, the fleet was concentrated in Havana, crossed the Florida Strait, sailed north along the Gulf of Mexico, and when it passed Garona, it took advantage of the westerly wind to leave America and sail back to Europe.

In May 1715, two small fleets under the command of Generals Ubia and Eviz met at Havana.

(End of this chapter)