We’ve all heard about the lost or buried treasures of different rulers and kings at some point in our lives or read about them in history books. Otherwise, in childhood, you have watched the popular Nicolas Cage starter movie- National Treasure or Pirates of the Caribbean movie series featuring Jack Sparrow, and other legendary treasure hunt movies like the Mummy, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – the Cradle of Life, the Rundown, the Adventures of Tintin and Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade. The principal concept hidden behind these films is that all these are hunt movies looking where people are looking for a mysterious treasures.
Maybe the theory of finding treasures is quite old now and has no place in this modern world, but you might be wrong. But still, there are many mysterious treasures which are waiting to reveal their secrets to history buffs and adventure lovers.
The story of the treasure is not considered true until the ornaments, gemstones, and wealth of that treasure are actually discovered.
For our Indiaimagine readers and curious bugs, I am listing 7 Mysterious treasures which are still waiting to be found.
So let’s start this virtual treasure hunt through our blog😉!
1. Nazi Treasure at Lake Toplitz – Austria,
Lake Toplitz is the most unique and mysterious place of Austria and it is located in the Totes Gebirge near the city of Salzburg. Reaching lake Toplitz is quite difficult for everyone because it becomes frozen for around five months of the year. Nazis sunk containers and various other objects into Lake Toplitz and the reasons are still known.
There were almost 50 containers of the Reichsbank of Berlin, about 22 containers of gold by Otto Skorzeny and about 5 kg of Kaltenbrunner diamonds as per media sources. All those individuals who tried to extract this sunken treasure found dead and thus this leads to many speculations that someone or some special power is guarding this treasure. Lake Toplitz remains a strange and forbidding place. A number of people have died, some mysteriously while attempting to explore it. No one is certain whether the lake ever contained Nazi treasure, or if it existed, whether it is still there.
2. The Golden Owl Hunt – France, Mysterious Treasures
This Golden Owl treasure hunt was purposely created to encourage people and to fill their lives with adventure. In 1993 a man going by the pseudonym of Max Valentin secretly planted a golden owl in the French countryside. Later he published a book “On The Trail Of The Golden Owl” with a series of clues leading to its location and after they the hunt for treasure has been started. Valentin originally expected that the quest for this treasure hunt would end very soon but this not happened.
The quest for this treasure hunt lasted for about 20 years and still, the mystery of the golden owl remained unsolved. The owl weighs 10 kg and is made of gold and silver and adorned with diamonds which would make it a worthwhile find for any hunter. Valentin has received thousands of messages regarding the search before his death in 2009, but only a few had come close to a solution. With Hauser dead and the ultimate solution lost to us, will we ever find the answers we seek?
Also Read: 10 Most Mysterious Places Across The World
3. Inca Gold – The Treasure of the Llanganatis
Llanganatis National Park is a real paradise for nature lovers but somewhere a mysterious treasure lies beneath the earth in this park. There is a huge entangled tree in this park where a mysterious past is hidden, that past includes the murder of an Inan king and a lost treasure which still lies there. When a Spanish ruler captured Inca King, Atahualpa, that ruler asked a room filled with gold in exchange of his freedom. Thousands of pounds, gold and jewels, were created by Inan General and his people to pay ransom for King Atahualpa.
But before that happened, they killed the king in 1533. The general carried that gold to a vacant land of Llanganates but he caught by Spanish. He never told the location of gold to Spanish and kept this secret till his death. The treasure has been lost for centuries, it is believed that a blanket of thin golden strings blowing in the wind. Steeped in mystery, the lost Inca gold is protected by mountains in central Ecuador.
4. Tomb of Tu Duc – Mysterious Treasures of Vietnam
The Tu Duc Golden Tomb in Hue, Vietnam was constructed between 1864 and 1867 to give tribute to the fourth Nguyen Emperor’s life. This tomb is the most popular and impressive of the royal mausoleums. Tu Dus was the last emperor of Vietnam. It is believed that to have been buried alongside the wealth of his kingdom.
It was said that, before his death, Tu Duc ordered his loyal servants to bury him with gold, gems and ornaments in an unknown location and then for them all to commit suicide so no one would ever know where he was buried. Now it is believed that the treasure was buried somewhere in the Vietnamese jungle or near the tomb of Tu Duc!! This mystery is still unsolved and the treasure is not found yet!!
5. Lake Michigan, Mysterious Treasures
Such news came in the past years that the treasure hunters found a mysterious shipwreck beneath the cold waves of Lake Michigan. That shipwreck is the remains of a 17th-century ship, Griffin. Two French explorers, Sieur de La Salle and René-Robert Cavelier built the Griffin in 1679, but it was lost in Lake Michigan the same year.
There may be millions of dollars in gold bullion at the bottom of Lake Michigan, and those searching for it say they have found the first clue to its location according to Kevin Dykstra and Frederick J. Monroe. While the two men are still investigating the shipwreck, they said that they were not looking for historic ships when they discovered the wreckage. Later, the duo continues their hunt for the gold bullion.
6. The Forrest Fenn Treasure of the Rocky Mountains
Around 10years back, Santa Fe art dealer, millionaire and former Vietnam fighter pilot Forrest Fenn buried a bronze chest filled with gold and precious gems somewhere in the Rocky Mountains, leaving treasure seekers nothing but the nine cryptic clues hidden inside a poem to guide them infringing the treasure.
Some have discovered new places in the process and a few of them have died but Fenn’s treasure has never been found until now. There is a treasure hidden with $2 million somewhere in the Rocky mountains.
7. Treasures of Lima – Peru
In 1820, The viceroy of Lima, Peru decided to transport the city’s fabulous wealth to Mexico for safekeeping. The treasures included jewelled stones, candlesticks, and two life-size solid gold statues of Mary holding the baby Jesus. The treasure is filled in 11 ships and who’s total value was around $60 million. Captain William Thompson was a pirate, was driving that ship which was loaded with treasure. Once the ships were well out to sea, he cut the throats of the Peruvian guards and threw their bodies overboard.
He headed towards Cocos Islands, in the Indian Ocean, where he and his men allegedly buried the treasure. But after some time they all got caught and Thompson and his first mate were hanged. Since then more than 300 expeditions have tried to locate the treasures of Lima. It is said that that treasure was not hidden on that island but was hidden somewhere else in Central America.
Also Read: Uncover The Mystery Behind Lake Guatavita – Colombia