Treasure Hunter

In the night, off the coast of Haiti, the Aussie treasure-hunting team’s dive boat was loaded with ancient treasure— from a sunken galleon on a Caribbean reef.

Someone shouted. The team woke. The boat was being boarded by pirates. Half-seen shapes swarming over the rail onto the deck.

In a wild fight, one treasure hunter crumpled, stabbed to death. The team leader, treasure archeologist Falcon-Barker, shot one pirate with a harpoon gun. Then he grabbed a shotgun, blasting like crazy, making the pirates leap off the boat.

Billionaires are made from determined archeologists— teams of divers and diggers, who spend years searching, then harvesting gold bars, silver bars, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, from sandbars and estuaries, channels and rocky beaches and harbors. Adventurers, armed and ready for a fight.

Amateurs think its luck. The pros know better. They know what is required, and they are willing to educate themselves. They know this— the more knowledge they arm themselves with, the higher their degree of so-called “luck”.

How does it happen? Not by chance, but by knowledge. As in every form of venture, the most successful always educate themselves.

In treasure hunting, we can it Treasure Archeology.

It’s not for everyone. The risks are high. But the more history and archeology you know, the better your chances of discovering more. That is the logic that yields found treasures.

After Kip Wagner found Spanish coins on a Florida beach, his methodical search— for the wreck of a fleet of fabled treasure galleons, including the Urca de Lima— cost years of his life. But the sea yielded a fortune in silver coins and wedge-shaped ingots.

Like a grad student he did research. He knew the history of the great storm hundreds of years before, and he researched the history and old logs of what was known.

Researcher Mel Fisher joined Wagner. With knowledge and a systemic plan, they located seven of the wrecks and found treasure valued at five million dollars.

There was a high price to pay. Fisher moved to the Florida Keys. For 16 years he ran magnetometer lines on the sea floor, and blasted away hundreds of thousands of tons of sand. Fisher had to be an entrepreneur as well as archeologist— he found investors, and fought with official archaeologists and state and federal bureaucrats.

Then Fisher and his team found the Atocha, near Marquesas Key. Tons of gold and silver, fabulous jewels, a hoard of ancient kings.

How do they do it? How do they know where to look?

Hunches? No. Guesses? No. Astrology? No. Fortune-tellers? No.

They research. They methodically search through ancient texts, logs, maps, diaries. They are experts in history, and they are tireless hunters of historical fact.

It is knowledge. It is history and archeology. But it is also determination.

And there are perils. Perils of the seas and of other treasure hunters.

It was discovered by researchers that in 1659, the treasure ship “Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion” was hammered in a hurricane, and struck the Los Abrojos reef, 60 miles north of Haiti. Archeologists found logs indicating her cargo: one hundred tons of silver and gold coin and bullion.

The search was on!

In 1967, Australian Ted Falcon-Barker, and two teammates, found the wreck site. The Aussies used underwater explosives (badly damaging the site) to uncover 96 gold gold coins (from the reign of Ferdinand & Elizabeth 1497-1516), a solid gold crucifix and a life sized solid gold finger, (possibly from a statue the Concepcion was believed to be carrying).

And then— they were attacked by modern pirates, and one of the team was killed before the pirates were fought off. So there’s often a cost. The life of treasure hunters can be exciting, and not always in a good way. Fame definitely has its downside, as does greed.

Another caution— looting. Treasure archeology should never destroy an historical site. From ancient times, this has happened. Even the tombs of the Egyptian pharaohs were looted during antiquity.

Indeed, grave-robbers and archeologists unfortunately have much in common. The difference is in the gathering of knowledge. And that’s a great difference indeed.

Treasure Archaeology should always bring light to the dark— it should increase our knowledge of ancient objects, and people in search of artifacts or treasure should always avoid damage to archaeological sites.

Treasure archeologists dig into the past, and bring the ancient world to the present. And they can, only because of what they know.

For centuries, the Florida beach was inhabited by people who found an ancient gold coin now and then, after a big storm, but never knew that the full treasure lay just out of reach.

It was archeology, and persistence, it was education that made men rich. And that is the underlying lesson of Treasure Archeology.

Legendary treasures wait to be found. The plunder of the old world lies at the bottom of the world’s seas, a legacy of ancient pirates, storms, and modern pirates, too.

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