Inca treasures
In 1532, the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro landed on the coast of modern Peru and began the conquest of the Inca Empire. Rising from the coast to the Andes, to the central part of the empire, with his small group of soldiers, Pizarro managed to capture the Inca ruler Atahualpa.
For the Incas, gold and silver were not as valuable metals as they were for Europeans. Seeing how much these metals meant to the Spaniards, and hoping to be released, Atahualpa suggested that Pizarro fill the room in which he was held in chains up to the ceiling with gold. When Pizarro hesitated in surprise, Atahualpa promised that in addition he would fill the adjacent room with silver. When Pizarro finally came to his senses, he objected that the second room was smaller than the first, but Atahualpa promised to fill the second twice. The fundraiser was organized by the Inca warlord Ruminyavi. For more than three months, the Incas collected gold and silver and brought it to Cajamarca. But, according to one of the legends, the Spaniards, who feared an uprising, did not wait for the entire ransom for Atahualpa, and strangled him.
Ruminyavi, having learned about the execution of Atahualpa, took the treasures collected by the Incas and went to the territory of modern Ecuador, where he hid them in the mountains of Lianhanates. According to various legends, the size of the treasure ranged from several hundred kilograms to a fantastic 750 tons. There is also a legend that Ruminyavi was forced to throw the treasures into the abyss because of the approaching detachment of the Spaniards, which Pizarro sent to intercept the gold. Ruminyavi himself was captured and tortured, but he did not betray the location of the treasures.
There is also a version that the treasures are located at the bottom of Lake Titicaca. The stories of the lost treasures attracted the famous French oceanographer Jacques Yves-Cousteau, who explored the lake using a submarine in 1968. However, he only found ancient pottery. The influential American magazine National Geographic undertook the expedition in 1988, but also without much success.
Treasures of the island of Amalia
Promotional video:
A small island in the Atlantic Ocean with the beautiful name Amalia, has long been a haven for the famous pirate, Captain Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard. On this island, he repaired his ships and hid treasures. Teach, with one of his team members, carried the loot into the interior of the island, where he chose a suitable place for him. The sailor dug a hole, and after the treasures were lowered there, the captain killed the poor fellow with a shot in the back of the head. However, in November 1718 Blackbeard was killed during another attack on a merchant ship. The secret of buried treasures still exists, the pirate did not entrust it to anyone during his lifetime.
Not only Edward Teach chose the island of Amalie as his refuge, the equally famous French pirates - the brothers Pierre and Jean Lafitte, made it their base. They attacked the ships of slave traders and "sold" the captured black slaves, hiding "earned" on the island. But pirate luck was not always on the side of the brothers. In 1809, off the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico, Jean was forced to sink his ship laden with looted treasures, as he was trapped by the British and there was no way to avoid a collision.
Treasures of Cocos Island
Another famous pirate site is Costa Rica's Cocos Island in the Pacific Ocean, north of the Galapagos Islands. The first treasure was hidden here by the famous pirate Henry Morgan in the second half of the 17th century. In 1668, he captured the Panamanian harbor of Portobelo, where all the gold was accumulated before being sent to Spain. Over the next three years, the cities of Maracaibo and Panama became its war booty. Having plundered these cities, he gained the glory of a legendary pirate. Unlike many others, Morgan scrupulously donated the allotted part of the booty to the English king Charles II, and for this at the end of his pirate career he was knighted and appointed lieutenant governor of Jamaica. Legend has it that after a while Charles II was informed that Morgan was hiding most of the stolen gold and buried it on Cocos Island. The King of England "summoned" the pirate king to London, where he wanted to find out the secret of the treasure. But Morgan allegedly managed to provide the king with exhaustive evidence of the falsity of the charges against him. In 1688, the pirate king and "statesman" died. The secret of his treasure on Cocos Island still remains unsolved.
Cocos Island, located at 5 ° 33 's. sh. and 87 ° 2'W. etc., has long been known under the names "treasure island", "pirate safe" and "Mecca for treasure hunters". For a century and a half, this tiny piece of land (6.5 km long, 3.2 km wide) covered with impenetrable jungle has attracted the attention of numerous treasure hunters. It is believed that the island is home to the wealth of three famous pirates: William Dampier, Alexander Graham and Scott Thompson. The history of the treasure is interesting, which is associated with the names of the last two pirates.
In the fall of 1820, the troops of the liberator of Argentina, Chile and Peru - General José San Martin - attacked the Spanish colonialists from the south. The capital of Peru was cut off from the Spanish possessions in the north by the troops of Simon Bolivar. Viceroy of Peru Joaquin Pesuela decided to transfer state wealth to Panama. The treasures plundered by the Spaniards during the years of domination were secretly delivered to the port of Callao. The current estimate of the Peruvian treasury ranges from 10 million pesos in the Spanish version, £ 30 million in the English version and $ 30 million in the American version. There were five ships in Callao. Valuables were secretly loaded into the hold of one of the galleons - "Relampag".
At the entrance to the Gulf of Panama, the "golden" squadron was blocked by the brig of the pirate Graham, nicknamed Benito Bonito. Graham served in the Royal Navy. As commander of the Devonshire brig, he distinguished himself in the Battle of Trafalgar. With the death of Nelson, the glory of Trafalgar's heroes began to fade, and Graham left the service and went on a robber path.
The corsairs Benito Bonito took possession of the Relampaga galleon in a boarding battle. The pirates took the ship to Cocos Island. There, on the shores of Waifer's Bay, in an underground cave, Benito Bonito hid barrels and a chest of jewels. Soon, two British brigs overtook a pirate ship off the coast of Costa Rica. Alexander Graham was hanged from the yard and took the secret of the treasure with him.
The second legend of the Lima treasure states that it was sent from Callao on Scott Thompson's pirate ship Mary Deer. The Spaniards promised the corsair a large reward, loaded "important state documents" into the hold of his brig and set up their own guards. But Thompson was difficult to fool. The pirates killed the Spanish guard and looked into the hold … Chopping off the anchor rope, the brig rushed into the open ocean. But a warship rushed after him. He caught up with Thompson's ship, however, only in Waifer's Bay on Cocos Island. Since the treasure was no longer in the hold, the Spaniards hanged everyone except Thompson and his senior navigator. They were taken to a Panamanian prison hoping to gain confession. But on the way, the navigator died, and the captain kept the secret of the treasure, realizing that this was the only way to save life.
In 1821, Scott Thompson was released from prison. He moved to Canada, lived in Newfoundland for many years, collecting money for an expedition to Cocos Island. Thompson made an agreement with Captain Kitting, but just before the voyage he fell seriously ill and, dying, gave Kitting a map of the island with a scheme of the treasure. Kitting's expedition reached the island. The captain and his new companion Bogue tried to hide the purpose of visiting Coconut from the crew, but they failed. Kitting and Baugh left the ship at night and hid in a cave. The sailors could not find them on the island, and they left without a captain. After a while, an accidental whaler picked up an exhausted man on the shore of the island. It was Captain Kitting. With the whalers, he returned to Newfoundland. Before he died, he gave the Thompson map to some friend, and then it became public property.
Sigismund III's Treasure
The Time of Troubles is especially rich in burying treasures in Russia, which is logical. As a result, most of the found treasures date back to the 16th-17th centuries. But the history of the most important treasure of those times is far from complete. It begins with the words “I sent 923 reasons of various kinds from Moscow to the Kaluga Gate on Mozhaisk”. Tradition says that the original of this recording was made on a "copper plate" in Latin and Polish and is kept in Warsaw.
The Poles, with the consent of the Boyar Duma, entered Moscow, and the entire Mozhaisk road from Moscow to Smolensk was controlled by Polish garrisons. A short period of consent between the occupiers and the boyar elite ended with the Moscow uprising in March 1611, which was brutally suppressed by the Poles, and Moscow itself was burned and plundered. The Poles, according to Karamzin, "plundered the royal treasury, took all the utensils of our ancient crowned heads, their crowns, wands, vessels, rich clothes, to send to Sigismund … tore off the salaries from the icons, divided gold, silver, pearls, stones and precious fabrics" … It was these “trophies” that made up 923 carts with good, which were buried in some Nikolsky churchyard.
Sigismund's treasure is hidden in a small dungeon, which was supposed to prevent damage to the treasures taken from Moscow. The signs of the buried treasure are quite clear. The treasures are hidden 650 meters from the churchyard of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker Lapotny, which stands on the Khvorostyanka River. In the vicinity of the churchyard there is a fill-up hall, a dry meadow, a "well" with a spring and boulders. Not far from the churchyard there is a wasteland with the Marshevka River, through which a large carriageway passed.
Researchers of the last century, analyzing the texts of the "pantry record", noted that in the old days the Smolensk road ran south of Borodino through the villages of Presnetsovo and Tsarevo-Zaymishche. Somewhere here, at the junction of Gzhatsky, Mozhaisky and Medynsky districts, there was a churchyard of Nikolai Lapotny. Such a place could be the churchyard of Alexander Svirsky near Mozhaisk or an unnamed churchyard on the very border of the Mozhaisk district. Burned in the Time of Troubles, this churchyard, located at the confluence of two rivers, bore, according to legend, the name of Nikola Lapotny.
True, according to some researchers, Sigismund's treasure may be located closer to Moscow. In the area of modern Aprelevka, in the upper reaches of the Pakhra river. In the 16th - early 17th centuries, there was a “monastery - the mansion of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker,” and four versts from it was the churchyard of St. George the Great Martyr, also mentioned in the “storeroom record”.
Treasures of Count Rostopchin
The Voronovo estate, which once belonged to I. I. Vorontsov, was then inherited by his son, Artemy Ivanovich. Under him, a luxurious mansion was created here, which was later transferred to Fyodor Vasilyevich Rostopchin, who eventually destroyed the building. Rostopchin burned down the estate so that the French would not get it. But this story is very mysterious. According to witnesses, there were no marble and bronze sculptures among the ashes and ruins of the building. It is possible that some values of the estate were previously hidden.
On September 5, Kutuzov's army went on the right bank of the Pakhra past Nikitsk and Frolov Yam towards Podolsk. On September 7, Kutuzov's headquarters stayed in the village of Krasnaya Pakhra. Rostopchin was worried about the presence of an 85,000-strong army 15 versts from Voronov. The soldiers endured the need for provisions and forage and scoured the area, taking the supplies necessary for feeding. The count took measures so that his beloved estate would not be plundered by his own. For two weeks, while the army was literally stamping its feet at the gates of the estate, none of the military ranks managed to visit it. The count invited only two Englishmen who were at the headquarters of Kutuzov - Robert Wilson and Lord Terkonel to live in Voronov. Over the next week, the count traveled daily to the field marshal, trying to find out whether the troops would retreat in the future or not. But, naturally, he did not receive an answer. Apparentlybecause of this uncertainty, they lost time to organize the evacuation of property.
Even on September 13, at dinner, the count assured his overseas guests that "if the Russian army retreats from here, he would rather destroy his house and the whole village himself than witness the occupation of this by the French." And on the 17th, by order of the count, 1720 servants and peasants from the village of Voronovo were sent to Lipetsk province, to the estate of his father. The Count himself and Robert Wilson accompanied them.
On September 19, the Russian army retreats to Spas-Kuplea. Rostopchin is actively preparing to set fire to his palace. Previously, he even nails a note in French on the door of the church: “For eight years I decorated my village and lived happily in it. When you approach the peasants … leave their homes, and I set fire to my house: may it not be defiled by your presence. French people! In Moscow, I left you two of my houses and movables for half a million rubles, but here you will find one ashes. When the palace was set on fire, the Count himself, his trusted servants and both Englishmen were present.
What seems strange in the actions of Count Rostopchin? It would seem that the count, intending to destroy his palace, had to demonstrate to his fellow tribesmen (the same staff officers) all the splendor of the destroyed palace, all its luxury. Then the high society would definitely appreciate the count's patriotic act. Instead, he fenced off from them in every possible way. And if the peasants evacuated to Lipetsk province did not take the count's property with them, then where did the marble sculptures in the park and bronze sculptures from the palace go, as well as valuables from the "Dutch house" that was not burned?
According to legend, Rostopchin hid his treasures in the dungeons. There is evidence that once the buildings of the estate - the palace itself, the "Dutch house", the stable, the greenhouse - were connected by deep tunnels.
During the overhaul of the Voronovo estate near the palace itself in 1978-1983, the builders came across the remains of an underground passage. Its walls were made of bricks, the vault was made of white stone; the width was 2.2 m, the height was 2.3 m. They tried to walk along the course, but advanced only a few meters - the vaults were dilapidated and threatened to collapse at any moment. Just in case, the work supervisors ordered to fill up the entrance, thus excluding the possibility of an accident.
In 1983, a resident of Kiev, V. A. Maleev, explored the territory of the estate using the biolocation method. He mapped a diagram of the underground labyrinths. In his opinion, the discovered tunnels are of artificial origin. Moscow lovers of underground antiquity agree with him. The most likely location for Rostopchin's treasures may be the passage leading from the palace to the "Dutch house".
There is also data obtained by means of radar measurements by the Grot-1 GPR. Although it was not possible to check the entire territory of the estate, it was possible to establish unequivocally - the underground passages in Voronovo actually exist. But it is equally indisputable that little is left of these moves. The underground passages, without proper maintenance, began to lose strength and collapse. And even if something was once hidden in them, then its safety raises great doubts.