Buried Treasure Research Articles

In Search of Treasure in Šalek: Creating Local Identity through Narrative Ostension

People transform concrete real-life events into narratives, but the reverse is also true; folklore and narratives in general can also provoke a creative or active response in people and significantly shape their worldview and way of life. The cases in which this happens (through processes of narrative ostension) are also of interest to folklorists, as they provide crucial contextual information about how (folk) narratives function, spread and acquire meaning. Stories about hidden or buried treasure are among the most important narratives that provoke such ostensive (re)actions. People who live with them sometimes venture out into the symbolically significant but very real elements of local space (e.g. castles) and actively search for the treasure mentioned in a legend. Such is the case of Šalek Castle (in Velenje), where local folklore about buried treasure has prompted several generations of locals to head up to the castle and start digging.

Trove: Still a buried treasure

Trove: Still a buried treasure

LARGE STONES IN THE MANOR PARKS OF LATVIA

Starting from the 18th cent., construction of manor castles and laying out of landscape parks developed in Latvia. The parks contained different structures; mostly transformations of terrain associated with parks and the large stones have survived till nowadays. These stones have not been previously dealt with in uniform research. Several park stones have been mentioned in different connections in a series of publications. Connection of manors with the large stones appears at least since the 15th cent. The article provides information concerning eight large stones of manor parks, with average dimension in one direction no less than 2 m. It must be assumed that a large stone, entwined by legends, might have been inspiring to lay out a manor park in its close proximity. Sometimes dated texts have been carved in the large stones (1768; 1798; 1845–1855). Two large stones are crudely shaped stone benches. Several of the large stones, as testified by folklore and hollows in stones, might be connected with sacrality. Part of park stones fall within the circle of Devil’s legends. There are also folklore subjects on buried treasure, tragic lovers, etc. Nowadays the large stones of manor parks are included in cultural movement again, this time more focusing on tourists and other visitors. Long ago recorded narratives are used, and new folklore is developed. Today, the large stones of manor parks and the crown of folklore around them, become part of the park landscape and keep up peculiar park atmosphere, retaining the presence of legendary ancient times.

Die Hunnen kommen! Zur Deutung den Brandschuttschichten und Zerstörungshorizonten innerhalb der spätkaiserzeitlichen Fundstellen der Sântana de Mures-Černjachov-Kultur / The Huns are coming! On the interpretation of layers of fire debris and horizons of destruction within the late Imperial period sites of the Sântana de Mures-Černjachov culture

In the collective memory of many European people, the Huns are perceived as one of the most violent gentes west of the Dniester, which might have committed many atrocities, acts of vandalism, and destructions in the territories they crossed. The image of these violent Huns influenced the archaeological research as well. One can often find mentions of a so-called Hunnic phase (Hunnenzeit), associated with levels of violent destruction in the Sântana de Mures-Cernjachov settlements and disruption of their behaviours: periods without burials, a new chronological phase of buried treasures, etc. All these create the image of a so-called Katastrophenhorizont (chronological disaster horizon). The spatial distribution of its traces should indicate the ways and directions the Huns entered the region. This study tries to discuss both the written sources related to the arrival of the Huns in the geographical space west of the Dniester and the archaeological traces associated with the Huns in the area inhabited by the SMCK culture. Among the main conclusions of the study, one may observe that we cannot speak about an invasion of a large Hunnic army. Rather, we can identify traces of many small-group invasions that led to the decay of the Gothic confederation. From an archaeological standpoint, it must be underlined that the field research shows a high level of significant destruction in the archaeological sites, mainly in the settlements, west of the Dniester. The nature of the archaeological discoveries rather indicates that the local population had already left the settlements before their destruction.

Saamische Schatzsagen

This article deals with the Sámi treasure legends, which are part of the corresponding Nordic tradition. The corpus of the present study consists of approximately one hundred written sources, both published and unpublished, collected at different times, as well as about the same amount of taped interviews. The latter mostly date from the late 1960s and were collected as part of the Talvadas project, archived at the University of Turku. A great part of the material deals with the more theoretical conditions of how to lay hands on the treasure buried in the ground. Narratives about concrete efforts to dig up the silver, often old coins or other valuables the person burying them in the ground wanted to secure, are in the minority.
 The place where a treasure has been buried may reveal itself by optical or even acoustical signs, above all by a light. This light is visible especially on Midsummer Eve. For different reasons, success in the endeavour to dig up a treasure is very rare: Challenges were constituted by facing the frightening apparitions, breaking the silence during digging up a buried treasure, forgetting to give an offering, etc. One prerequisite for success mentioned is to throw a knife or some other metal object over the fire, which is one of the bonds with the earth spirits. Especially in more recent sources, they are mentioned as owners of buried treasures. The legends also cite other guardians.

Diving into the collections: Analysing two excavated Sotho-Tswana compounds in the Suikerbosrand, Gauteng Province

In this article, we set out to publish the results of extensive excavations conducted in the late 1980s and early 1990s by staff and students of the Archaeology Department, University of the Witwatersrand, at two Late Iron Age stone-walled compounds in the western foothills of the Suikerbosrand massif, near Johannesburg. While these two compounds, Sun Shadow and Boschoek, have been extensively cited in the literature, their data have never been published. Here, we analyse the distribution of their collected artefacts, in conjunction with their field maps, to better understand the spatial organisation of these two Molokwane-style stone-walled compounds. We were also interested to assess the merits of revisiting under-analysed archaeological materials housed in the University of the Witwatersrand’s collections. The results revealed frustrating gaps and shortcomings in the collections, but also shed new light on the social organisation of these settlements. Overall, we feel that the exercise was worthwhile and we encourage similar such studies in the future, allowing researchers to explore the scientific potential of the masses of buried treasure within the university’s collections.

ОБРАЗОВАТЕЛНА ИГРА НА SCRATCH, СВЪРЗАНА С УЧЕБНИЯ ПРЕДМЕТ ЧОВЕКЪТ И ПРИРОДАТА ЗА 4. КЛАС

The following work presents an educational game created with the Scratch programming language, which includes part of the teaching material on the subject Man and Nature for the 4th grade. The aim is to help the activity of the primary teacher by providing additional learning resources, which it could use when it necessary. An alternative way of organizing the educational process in the form of a game is presented – more interesting, more attractive and more dynamic (if we compare it with traditional methods). The game is titled „The Treasure of Anubis“ and the story revolves around a hero who is searching for a long buried treasure. Arriving at the pyramids, the hero understands that in order to get inside and find the treasure, he must answer several questions. There are five questions and they include specific material, but if the teacher decides to change the questions from another educational material, the structure of the game allows it. Only the questions and their answers need to be changed, which does not require digital competence related to the Scratch programming language. The game could be used as a template and modified a lot of times by including material from other subjects.

Beyond the Boundaries of Childhood: African American Children in the Antebellum North

Beyond the Boundaries of Childhood: African American Children in the Antebellum North

Cunning Distortions: Folk Christianity and Witchcraft Allegations in Early Mormon History

Cunning Distortions: Folk Christianity and Witchcraft Allegations in Early Mormon History

Quest for Destiny in Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist

In the novel, The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho explores how people attain their destiny. The novel revolves around the story of Santiago (the protagonist), a young Andalusian Shepherd. He dreams of buried treasure in Egypt while sleeping under a sycamore tree in an abandoned church in Spain. He undergoes difficulties and moves to Egypt to discover his destiny. In his journey, he gets assistance from disguised teachers. Ultimately, he finds his treasure not in Egypt, but in the abandoned church, back in Spain. The study has particularly used Jung's theory of shadow, anima, and personality as theoretical tools to analyze the narrative as it delves into the unconscious.

DIY Magnetometer: Search for buried treasure for less than $100

In the 1968 movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, an oddness in the moon's magnetic field leads scientists to an alien monolith buried under Tycho crater. The notion of being led to a hidden object by virtue of the magnetic anomaly it creates must have really intrigued my 9-year-old self, because a decade after seeing that movie I decided to build a circuit to measure the strength of Earth's magnetic field. So I read some World War II-era journal articles and learned about the magnetometers used to locate sub-merged German submarines. With that information, I constructed what's called a fluxgate magnetometer. It was crude, but it worked.

The Cave 3 Copper Scroll: A Symbolic Journey by Jesper Høgenhaven

Reviewed by: The Cave 3 Copper Scroll: A Symbolic Journey by Jesper Høgenhaven Al Wolters jesper høgenhaven, The Cave 3 Copper Scroll: A Symbolic Journey (STDJ 132; Leiden: Brill, 2021). Pp. x + 267. €116/$140. In this substantial monograph the author takes a fresh look at the Copper Scroll (3Q15), one of the most enigmatic of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which is often described as a list of buried treasure. The monograph is divided into five chapters, followed by an appendix in which a new translation of the scroll is presented. [End Page 302] The first chapter, entitled "Legend or History: A Brief History of Scholarship," gives a comprehensive survey of the scholarly literature surrounding the Copper Scroll, highlighting especially the debate between those who consider the hidden treasure to be real, possibly deriving from the Second Temple before its destruction by the Romans in 70 c.e., and those who regard the treasure as folklore or fiction. In the second chapter, somewhat oddly called "A Walk on the Wild Side: A Suggested Reading of 3Q15," Høgenhaven takes the reader on a guided tour of the Copper Scroll on the assumption that it is not just a list of places where treasures are hidden but rather an itinerary, in which the scroll's author directs the addressee to go on a journey, moving sequentially from one hiding place to the next. Most of the journey involves traveling in Judea and includes three separate visits to Jerusalem (which is never explicitly named) and five visits to a mysterious place that H. calls "Kohlit," which he equates with Tell es-Sultan near Jericho. The last part of the itinerary takes the addressee on a trip well to the north of Judea, before returning again to Kohlit. The third chapter is entitled "A Map of Meanings: Places and Items in the Copper Scroll." Here, H. goes through the itinerary of the Copper Scroll again, this time noting what he calls the "inherent symbolic meanings" (p. 96) of the place-names and treasure descriptions of 3Q15. Drawing especially on the "phenomenology of landscape" developed by Christopher Tilley (A Phenomenology of Landscape: Places, Paths and Monuments [Oxford: Berg, 1994]), H. highlights the dialectic between story and place and discerns various artful arrangements in the itinerary, as well as multiple literary allusions and historical reminiscences in what might appear at first glance to be a dry catalogue of locations and valuables. Thus, "the valley of Achor" (3Q15 1.1), reminiscent of both Joshua 7 and Hosea 2, is a place of both divine wrath and divine blessing (p. 108). Similar patterns of significance can be discerned in the distribution of sacred objects that are included among the hidden treasures. There is a suggestion that the cult in the temple in Jerusalem has become illegitimate and that Kohlit replaces Jerusalem as the current cultic center. Analogous symbolic inferences may be drawn from the books and other valuables included among the treasures, as well as from the buildings and installations where the treasures are hidden, many of which convey the picture of a desolate and derelict landscape. The fourth chapter, called "What Is Real? The Copper Scroll as a Material Artefact," covers a lot of different ground. It discusses the significance of copper as the writing material, describes how in many ways the scroll is a metallic imitation of a regular scroll of parchment or papyrus, argues that it was not a secondary deposit after the other Qumranrelated material, defends a paleography-based dating to the mid-first century c.e., discusses the mysterious Greek letters in the first four columns, analyzes the type of Hebrew used, describes the way numbers are expressed and abbreviations used, and lays out the stereotypical literary pattern of the sixty-four distinct entries. In addition, drawing on current genre theory, H. in this chapter defends the view that the genre of 3Q15 is not "list" or "inventory" but rather "instruction for retrieving hidden treasures" (p. 172). Finally, he returns to the question whether the treasures recorded in 3Q15 were real or fictitious, lays out the arguments for and against each position, and concludes that the dilemma posed by the...

Cousin Marvin's Secret

Cousin Marvin's Secret

Observing and modeling the effects of production infrastructure in electromagnetic surveys

Electromagnetic (EM) methods are among the original techniques for subsurface characterization in exploration geophysics because of their particular sensitivity to the earth electrical conductivity, a physical property of rocks distinct yet complementary to density, magnetization, and strength. However, this unique ability also makes them sensitive to metallic artifacts — infrastructure such as pipes, cables, and other forms of cultural clutter — the EM footprint of which often far exceeds their diminutive stature when compared to that of bulk rock itself. In the hunt for buried treasure or unexploded ordnance, this is an advantage; in the long-term monitoring of mature oil fields after decades of production, it is quite troublesome indeed. Here we consider the latter through the lens of an evolving energy industry landscape in which the traditional methods of EM characterization for the exploration geophysicist are applied toward emergent problems in well-casing integrity, carbon capture and storage, and overall situational awareness in the oil field. We introduce case studies from these exemplars, showing how signals from metallic artifacts can dominate those from the target itself and impose significant burdens on the requisite simulation complexity. We also show how recent advances in numerical methods mitigate the computational explosivity of infrastructure modeling, providing feasible and real-time analysis tools for the desktop geophysicist. Lastly, we demonstrate through comparison of field data and simulation results that incorporation of infrastructure into the analysis of such geophysical data is, in a growing number of cases, a requisite but now manageable step.

Two manuscript messages: 1. Difference between Plural and Collective Noun and the Noun for Ibn Al-Nathem 2. The adverb coupled with Maybe for Amir Badshah: Investigation Study: رسالَتا: 1. الفرق بين الجمع واسم الجمع واسم الجنس "لابن النّاظم 2. الحال المقرونة بـ " قد" لأمير باد شاه: دراسة وتحقيق

This study aims to investigate two manuscript texts on some syntactical and morphological issues, which are “The difference between the plural, collective noun and the gendered noun” by Ibn al-Nazim, and the second the adverb which is connected with"Qad’ by Amir Badshah. Those twoscholars left many precious scientific works. The researcher found these issues deserve to be published since they consider as one of the main issues that had been discussed by the scholars with their students during lessons. These issues did not reach the size of huge classifications, but it is one or two issues where the classified book express its opinion in concise and focus, which is considered of fruitful and great benefits in language research and the intellectual activity in general, and they were not attainable and accessible, particularly in obtaining second copies of those letters. Accordingly, in order not to remain a buried treasure waiting for someone to discover or get it out to the light, the researcher has obtained one letter with two different versions from two different places; and the other one is a unique copy where the researcher followed the scientific methodology in its publication and verification.

Luca Pacioli, algebra, and double entry

This paper proposes that Pacioli, an accomplished mathematician, recognised that the Venetian method of bookkeeping had an algebraic underpinning, although, when writing his treatise, he converted this algebra into rules. The algebra that he may have used is deduced from a combination of his own words - derived from the translation by Geijsbeek, checked against that of Von Gebsattel and other translations - with quotations from the literature. Perhaps this is the ‘buried treasure waiting to be rediscovered’ referred to by Macve in ‘Pacioli’s Legacy’(Macve, 1996, 22). Chapter 23 in the treatise is central to this paper. Here Pacioli advises a merchant on how to run a store, using an approach that is now known as ‘the entity theory’. Pacioli also advised the merchants to exclude information about their private possessions from the public domain and this paper describes how this could be achieved. The paper ends with a presentation in the Appendix of the evolution of double entry expressed algebraically in tabular form, along with an illustration of a matrix method approach to recording transactions.

Котлы и клады Среднего Енисея эпохи раннего железа

Purpose. The article dwells upon discoveries of cauldrons and buried treasures of the Early Iron Age on the territory of the Middle Yenisei region. The work contains a review of such main recent discoveries and an analysis of different variants of occurrence of cauldrons in the buried treasures of the Paleometal Epoch. They include self-containment of a cauldron hidden as part of the buried treasure; a cauldron as one of the containers for the buried treasure items; integral small-sized cauldrons as part of the buried treasure object set; pieces of cauldrons as part of the buried treasures. Results. The authors developed a map of 21 buried treasures on the territory of the Middle Yenisei region, whose object set included cauldrons. It allowed identifying a territorial uniqueness of location of cauldrons being part of ‘accidental’ discoveries as well as buried treasures. The archaeological microzoning approach enabled to define several compact areas that were characterized by multiple discoveries of buried treasures with cauldrons. One of them is the northeastern territories of the Middle Yenisei. This is the middle course of the Kan river valley in the vicinity of Terskoe village. Other areas of localization of finds of cauldrons are located in the northwest – from the Kosogolskie lakes to the middle course of the Iyus river. The same can be said about the presence of the distribution of such finds in the southern territory. It is localized mainly from the Askiz steppe and to the left bank of the Yenisei river in this area. The analysis of object sets focused on identification of repeated sets of items (mirrors, axes, belt fixtures, jewelry) in buried treasures that included cauldrons. Conclusion. The publication puts forward a hypothesis concerning the potential of using cauldrons as a buried treasure container in terms of its dating range. Based on the contents of buried treasures that included cauldrons, relative chronological lines of these object sets from the Scythian to the Xiongnu and Xianbei time for the Middle Yenisei region was proposed.

Materializing Religion, Heidegger, and the Stability of Joseph Smith’s Seer Stones as Religious Objects

This article examines the stability of religious objects by asking how Joseph Smith’s seer stones, from which he dug for buried treasure and produced the Book of Mormon, were materialized into religious objects. This analysis challenges the assumed stability of material objects by demonstrating that the seer stones could potentially lose their religious qualities and values once they were examined, displayed, or explained. This is framed by using Martin Heidegger’s practical descriptions “ready-to-hand” and “present-to-hand” to explain the unstable nature of religious objects and why public examination and explanation of religious objects can potentially strip them of their perceived sacredness.

Mark Twain among the Indians and Other Indigenous Peoples

Mark Twain among the Indians and Other Indigenous Peoples

Metaphysics of Search in Short Stories by Fedir Potushniak

Fedir Potushniak’s works were closely connected to historical and cultural tendencies of literary process of the late 19th – early 20th centuries and therefore reflected Modernism in its European and particular Ukrainian patterns, especially in its transcendental aspect concerning the metaphysical nature of human being. Thus the literary works by Fedir Potushniak require a study that takes into account philosophical ideas of his epoch.
 Fedir Potushniak created his own philosophical conception considering human existence in connection with its spiritual aspect. The writer’s attempt of uncovering the transcendental sense of things is a peculiar feature of both his lyrics and prose. The paper interprets Potushniak’s short stories in the light of his philosophical understanding of metaphysics. Philosophical and aesthetic approach to the analysis of text involves using hermeneutical and aesthetic research methods.
 Images, symbols, time and space variations and other literary details in the works by Fedir Potushniak have been examined with regard to the metaphysical nature of human being and the motif of search reflecting the way of the characters to perceiving their own life and art. A special accent has been made on the issue of human being in the writer’s short stories. The aim of search for magic things such as buried treasure, fire, stone, flower, leads the characters to happiness, prompting them to realize their own spiritual roots beyond time and space. Looking for their dream the characters of Potushniak’s stories pass the inner way of spiritual formation. Interpretation of short stories by Fedir Potushniak with regard to their philosophical background contributes to better understanding of the writer’s creative phenomenon. The paper aims to reveal new meanings in Potushniak’s fiction and outlines the aspects of interpreting it within interdisciplinary research.