![]() | Recently two Roman ballista balls from Gamla were returned. The 2,000-year-old stones were left in a bag at the courtyard of the Museum of Islamic and Near Eastern Cultures.![]() | ![]() |
![]() | In 1993, a retired Red Army officer dropped off 101 drawings by masters like Goya, Manet, and Delacroix at the German embassy in Moscow. They had been looted from the Bremen museum in 1945 by Soviet soldiers. | ![]() |
![]() | The looting of the Baghdad Museum as Saddam Hussein’s government crumbled was devastating for antiquities lovers. In 2003, three men anonymously returned one of Iraq’s most precious treasures in the back of a car. The Sacred Vase of Warka, a massive limestone bowl, dates to around 3200 B.C. | ![]() |
![]() | In 2001, London dealer James Ede received an anonymous phone call that led him to his doorstep, where he found six fragments of Roman frescoes taken from Pompeii during excavations. They had been stolen 16 years earlier from the walls of a villa near the ancient city, and were estimated to be worth around £100,000.![]() | ![]() |
![]() | In 2006, just a year after a 1,500-year-old stone box from the Mayan civilization was found in Guatemala, it mysteriously vanished. After a national investigation, it returned through an anonymous delivery at the country’s Ministry of Culture. | ![]() |
![]() | In 1950 a group of 11 small ancient clay figurines were found in a Utah canyon. They belonged to a long-vanished people called the Fremont Culture, who had lived in the region from 700 to 1300 A.D. For two decades, these pieces, which came to be known as the Pilling Collection, toured around Utah museums. In the early 1970s, one of the figures mysteriously failed to show up. In 2011, an anthropologist at Utah State University received a box with the missing piece. | ![]() |
![]() | In 2007 the J Paul Getty Museum returned disputed antiquities, including a prized statue of the goddess Aphrodite. Italian authorities believe the 7ft statue, bought by the Getty for $18 million in 1988, was looted from an ancient Greek settlement in Sicily. | ![]() |
![]() A gold chalice from the Margarita was the top selling lot, fetching $413,000. | A collection of shipwrecked 17th and 18th century Spanish treasure discovered off the coast of Florida has sold in New York for about $2m. US treasure hunter Mel Fisher was most famous for discovering the shipwrecked Spanish galleon Nuestra Senora de Atocha, which went down in a hurricane in 1622, laden with new world riches. ![]() |
![]() |
![]() A gold crucifix with inlaid Colombian emerald jewels went for $119,000. | After searching for some 16 years, treasure hunter Mel Fisher unearthed the treasures of Atocha near the Florida Keys in 1985. 40 items from the impressive cache will go up for auction in New York City on August 5, 2015.![]() A gold bar from the Atocha made $93,750. ![]() | ![]() The golden spoon was thought to be used by priests during Communion to convert South American natives. $62,000. |
![]() $75,000 | The haul includes two spectacular gold chains, one called a 'money chain'. Fisher wore it on the 'Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson' soon after the ship's discovery. In the Colonial era, the Spanish king placed a 20 percent tariff on gold bullion called the Royal Fifth. But if the gold was turned into jewelry, the tax was forgiven. Each link of the 'money chain' is of equal size and weight and could be twisted off and used as formal currency. ![]() |
![]() | Also up for auction is the Bezoar Stone, which was believed to remove poisons and toxins from liquids. The pendant, about the size of an egg, is encased in a gold mounting with four arms grasping the stone.![]() A magnificent emerald jewel from the lost Atocha. It made $ 410,000 in 2013 | ![]() The Guernsey's sale also will offer about 100 silver coins from the Atocha sister ship, the Santa Margarita, ranging from $1,000 and up. |
![]() | On July 31, 1715 eleven of the twelve Spanish ships sailing from Havana to Spain with royal treasure were wrecked by a violent hurricane on the east coast of Florida from St. Lucie to Cape Canaveral. Seven days after departing from Havana, Cuba, the ships were lost in a hurricane near present day Vero Beach, Florida. |
![]() |
![]() | The (El Senor) San Miguel - was a 22 gun NAO Class (Fast Carrack). It very likely contained a significant portion of the treasure. It is believed the ship separated from the fleet the day before the storm struck and the wreck has never been found. It is believed only a small fraction of the treasure of the lost 1715 Treasure Fleet has been recovered. | ![]() ![]() |
![]() | ![]() | ![]() |
![]() | ![]() | ![]() |
![]() | All were lost in a hurricane off the Atlantic coast. More than 700 seamen, including the Spanish commander, drowned from the 10 ships. ![]() | ![]() |
![]() | A trove of ancient jewellery has been found in the grave of a woman dating to the first century AD. She was a Sarmatian - a group of people who worshipped fire and whose prominent role in warfare was seen as an inspiration for the Amazons of Greek mythology. And the discovery of the intact burial mound in Russia has been described as 'priceless' by archaeologists. |
![]() Sarmatian cataphracts during Dacian Wars as depicted on Trajan's Column. |
The Sarmatians were nomadic people who migrated from central Asia to the Ural mountains between the 6th and 4th century BC. They were fierce warriors who fought on horseback and sacrificed horses to their fire god. As well as gold and silver jewellery, the experts found more than 100 iron arrowheads in the grave, as well as a horse harness. ![]() |
![]() Next to the skull were gold earrings. | The noblewoman's grave and treasures are in a group of at least 29 burial mounds that came to light during the construction of a new airport serving Rostov-on-Don. Archaeologist Roman Mimokhod said: 'Most of the burials on this site are plundered and, of course, it is great luck to find an intact one. ![]() | ![]() Gold vial |
![]() At her feet there were fragments of a bronze bucket with floral ornaments and the image of the Gorgon's head on a stick. | A small 'hiding place' in the grave contained a collection of knives and an unfinished sword with brooches on its handle. 'One of the most unusual things about these finds is that items in the burial were dated from the first century BC to the first century AD.![]() | ![]() A Sarmatian diadem, found at the Khokhlach kurgan near Novocherkassk (1st century AD, Hermitage Museum). |
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3196696/Treasure-trove-warrior-jewellery-unearthed-Russia-Ancient-grave-belongs-woman-worshipped-fire-2-000-years-ago.html