Throughout the history there are many accounts of stolen, plundered, lost treasures that captured our imagination. While some of those have been recovered some have been hidden away in the annals of history forever, there are some still waiting to be discovered all around the world. We have compiled a list of 10 most intriguing riches that are waiting for the right suitor. Here is a list of Top 10 Hidden treasures not found yet.
Table of Contents
10. Leon Trabuco’s Gold:
Leon Trabuco was a rich businessman in Mexico. During the Great Depression, when the dollar value was severely depressed, he with his business partners came up with a plan to buy gold in Mexico and resell in US at a later point of time at a higher value and make a killing. To put the plan into motion, Trabuco and partners purchased huge quantities of gold and melted them into gold ingots. It is believed that a total of 16 tons of gold ingots were shipped to New Mexico and are buried somewhere in New Mexico. Some speculate “Shrine Rock” to be the place where this gold is buried. They attribute to supposed inscriptions found by a treasure hunter, which read “1933 sixteen ton”.
But Trabuco’s plans never materialized due to enactment of Treasury’s Gold Act, it became illegal for anyone to own the Gold. Their only option was to sell to Treasury for rock bottom prices. So instead they let gold remain buried. It is said that the treasure was cursed as the business partners and Trabuco all died untimely death.
9. Patiala Maharaja’s Necklace:
This was a necklace made using the world’s seventh largest diamond, the DeBeers”. It was a heavy diamond weighed about 234 carats after cutting. It was set into a necklace by House of Cartier in 1928. It is speculated that it was cut in Amsterdam. This necklace was owned by the Maharaja of Patiala (Indian Prince). It was lost during the Indian independence time period around 1948.
This is a huge light yellow crystal found in the De Beers Consolidated Mines Limited in 1888. This was the second largest diamond ever to be found in the Kimberly mines, second only to the Jacob or Victoria or Great White.
Some other remnants, Burmese Stones, of the beautiful necklace turned up in a second hand jewelry store in 1998, but the centerpiece is still missing, waiting to be found.
8. Peking Man Fossil Treasure:
While this item is not necessarily a treasure in the traditional sense with gold and diamonds etc. it still is very precious. Peking is the old name for Chinese capital before it was renamed to Beijing.
Peking Man fossils are the oldest fossils known to man, they were found in 1920 during archeological excavation near Peaking cave. There the archeologists found several skulls, bones and other artifacts. It was believed that these fossils were the missing link between modern man and the homo erectus. These fossils are estimated to be at least 600,000+ years old.
These fossils are valuable for explaining the human history, but unfortunately they vanished enroute to US. During 1941, they were scheduled to be shipped to New York. But the fossils never reached New York and no one knows where they were lost. There are several theories afloat, some say Chinese still have them, other’s say they reached New York and Americans have them and others accuse Japanese to hold them. But no one knows where they are. Some even speculate that they were lost in the sinking tragedy of Awa Mura ship.
7. Lake Toplitz Treasure:
During the second world war when it was clear that Germany would lose the war, efforts began to hide the valuables and treasures from falling into allied hands. As a part of this effort it is reported that SS Nazi soldiers began hiding huge amount of loot, including huge amounts of gold plundered by Nazi’s, British currency plates in the Austrian Lake Toplitz. This was confirmed by the living survivor of the Nazi general. The Nazi general was an ardent supporter of Hitler, he was later caught near the Lake Toplitz and hanged for the crimes against humanity. But the treasure is still locked away at the bottom of Lake Toplitz.
6. Faberge’ Egg:
Also called Imperial Faberge egg, these were jeweled eggs made by Peter Faberge’ and company in early 1900’s. These are elaborately crafted with intricate detail and awe inspiring work of the gold smiths, made specifically for the Imperial family. These were typically given as Easter gifts to wives and mothers by the Russian Czars. Easter was most celebrated event for the Russian Orthodox Church. It is said the Tsar Alexander III had the idea of doing an Easter egg and commissioned Faberge’ to create the famous eggs as a surprise to the empress for one Easter. There were a total of 65 Faberge eggs made, of which location of 57 eggs is known, the remaining eggs are unknown. It is speculated that 8 eggs were mysteriously stolen on their way to Kremlin. In a recent auction by New York auction house Christie’s one egg sold for about $10 million. The level detail on these eggs is simply breath taking, if they come to a museum near you, don’t miss the chance to see them. They are simply amazing.
5. Montezuma Treasure:
Closer to home in Utah, it is believed that Montezuma treasure is hidden in the town of Kanab by the Three Lakes Pond close to US 89. It is not clear if this is an urban legend or there is validity to the claims that Aztec’s his vast quantities of gold during their fight with the Spanish Cortez was hidden. It is believed that Aztec’s dug up the Three Lake ponds to hide the complex system of caves where the treasure is buried.
Some divers tried to locate the hidden treasure underneath a pond with complex system of caves, but have been unsuccessful as they got disoriented and saw the ghosts of Aztec soldiers. But the divers were able to detect the presence of metal at the end of the water tunnels.
Supposedly a Hollywood director is interested making a movie on the lost Montezuma treasure. May be soon we get to watch a movie about the Montezuma treasure.
4. Treasure of San Miguel:
San Miguel was a royal Adviso ship of the Spaniards. It was one of the many ships owned by Spain, protecting its large number of fleets from pirates at the sea. Spain was in recession in 1712 and needed influx of funds, directly as a result of War of Succession. In 1715 a ship fleet was organized from Mexico and Main Land including about 11 ships, carrying vast amount s of gold, silver, diamonds and pearls.
In addition to Spain’s ships a French merchant ship also joined the convoy. This was insurance against potential trouble they ran into with pirates over the high seas. In the olden days the strength was in numbers to fight effectively against pirates.
Unfortunately they set sail off the coast of Cuba, just before the hurricane season was set to begin. A huge storm hit the convoy just seven days after its voyage started devastated the entire fleet, taking with it all the treasure to the bottom of the ocean. The San Miguel ship never made it either.
Although Spin tried to recover the treasure, the efforts were hampered by pirates. It is believed that Spain was able to recover half of the treasure lost to seas, over the course of four years constantly warding off the pirates. However, San Miguel, was never located. It is smaller ship meant to detach from the convoy and sail by itself, if attacked by pirates.
By some accounts the treasure that was lost is estimated to be worth in billions of dollars today. Based on some artifacts recovered off of Amelia Island, off the coast of Florida, people think that San Miguel made it close to the southern tip of the island and there are dreamer and chasers trying to find the lost treasure.
3. Yamashita’s Treasure:
Yamashita’s gold is named after the Japanese general, Tomoyuki Yamashita, who was nick named “The Tiger of Malaya”. This lost treasure has all the classic elements of war, treason, burial and all the countless efforts of trails by many men since to recover have been futile.
It is speculated that this was the treasure looted during second world war and stashed away in the complex tunnels in Philippines. It is claimed that this treasure contained a golden Buddha statue that weighed over 1000 Kilograms (holy macro!!). The whole stash of gold is claimed to be over 6ft X 6ft X 35ft. There are some sceptics who question the validity of this lost treasure, as Japanese lost control of the seas during the time this treasure was being transported.
2. Quin Shi Huang’s Treasure:
Emperor Quin Shi Huang was the first emperor to bring together the whole country together and holds a central place in the Chinese history. He also played a huge role in the building of the Great Wall of China. He not only wanted to have a splendid life while living but also wanted to have a luxurious life after death. To ensure his afterlife, he commissioned a massive project with 700000 peasant enlisted to help with the project. Items built as a part of the project this effort have been recently unearthed in a recent Chinese archeological dig, like the full size bronze horses and the several magnificent real life size Terra Cotta warriors. A total of 8000 soldiers, 130 chariots and 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses have been uncovered near the emperor’s mausoleum. In addition they also found several other non-solider figures like the musicians, officials, acrobats, strongmen etc. These warriors were meant to protect the tomb of their emperor Quin Shi Huang, in afterlife.
It is also speculated that along with all these grand arrangements, the emperor must have stashed away huge quantities of gold, diamond which was a common practice in those days. However during those days it was also a common strategy to prevent burial thieves from plundering wealth, to booby trap the tombs. Based on the mercury content found on some of the items excavated, it appears that there may be poisonous mercury pools that will have to be overcome to reach the emperors tomb location. They also fear that bows and arrows may be triggered and could still work even after all these centuries. But if the Terra Cotta worriers are any indication, the speculation is huge that there may be significant quantities of wealth buried.
1. Awa Maru Treasure:
Awa Maru was a Japanese ocean liner that was used to help with World War efforts. In 1945, one fateful night while carrying hundreds of soldiers from Singapore to Japan, it was torpedoed by allied forces, USS Queenfish (SS-393) near Taiwan Straits. It was devastating to the ship it sank completely killing 2000+ passengers, the crew and the unspecified “precious” cargo. This tragedy is dubbed as the “Titanic” of Japan.
It is estimated that cargo included 12 metric tons of platinum, 30 Kg (150, 000 carats) of diamonds, 40 metric tons of gold and nickel and rubber were included. There are also rumors that the remains of “Peking Man” (world’s oldest fossil remains of first humanlike species) also sank with the ship that fateful night.
The commanding officer, Commander Charles Elliott Louglin was court marshalled immediately after the attack, who mistook Awa Maru for a Japanese destroyer.
Chinese government undertook one of the biggest salvage missions in the world to uncover the lost treasure in 1980. But after spending 5 years and $100 million they finally called it off, unsuccessfully without finding any treasure. The treasure still lies buried in the Indian Ocean, today.
