Gold cross and chain from the Atocha found

The ocean floor off the Florida Keys never seems to stop giving.


Diver Bill Burt with Mel Fisher’s Treasures was looking for a section of the sunken Spanish galleon, Nuestra Senora de Atocha, this week. Instead, he came across a 40- inch gold chain shimmering on the sandy ocean floor about 30 miles from Key West.


The chain, which is believed to have come from the Atocha, contains a gold medallion and a gold cross. The cross appears to be, according to the salvors, inscribed with Latin letters. It is estimated to be worth $250,000.


Mel Fisher’s team found a portion of the Atocha and $450 million worth of artifacts and treasure in 1985. But the contents of the Atocha’s sterncastle, a wooden, fort-shaped area at the back of ship, have never been recovered. The Atocha sank during a hurricane in 1622. A second hurricane is believed to have torn the sterncastle from the Atocha and carried it miles away.

The payday

I would like to thank Rob for sending me this story. This is a follow up to a story I had posted early about a gold nugget that had been found.

Just in case you have a lot of money just laying around (don't we all?), the owner of the nugget also owns the land the nugget was found on and is auctioning that off too. 180 acres, maybe there's another huge nugget just waiting to be found!

Bidder pays $460K for roughly 8-pound gold nugget


SACRAMENTO, Calif.



A bidder has paid $460,000 for a roughly 8-pound gold nugget found in Northern California's Gold Rush country.


Spectrum Numismatics came away with the nugget on Wednesday after a feverish two minutes of bidding at the Golden West Auction in Sacramento. The company was bidding on behalf of an anonymous buyer.


What may be the biggest California gold nugget in existence was found in the unincorporated town of Washington in Nevada County last March with a metal detector.


At current gold prices, the nugget would have fetched less than $138,000. But auctioneers say its connection to the 19th century Gold Rush helped boost its value.


Auctioneer Don Kagin says the person who found the nugget also plans to auction the 180 acres where it was discovered.

The Gold Cube

For those of you that like to find your gold in it's original form, you might want to take a look at this video. Rob sent this to me (since we are thinking about doing a little panning of our own) and I thought I would share it with our readers.

The find of a lifetime, made twice!

OK, so maybe for some people this isn't that exciting but as treasure hunters, I can't believe this wouldn't be of interest to everybody.

I have been interested in the crystal skulls for a long time, even before they were made popular by Indiana Jones!

This skull has been lost and found, or hidden and found, twice. Once by the Mayans and once by the Nazis.

I was made aware of this story from a forum I am a member of and I would like to thank the man who posted it for bringing it to my attention.

From the web:

Mayan crystal skull believed to have been owned by SS chief Heinrich Himmler discovered in Germany


A crystal skull believed to have occult powers that was part of a treasure trove of architects held by S.S. chief Heinrich Himmler has been unearthed in Germany.

The skull, found resting in an attic in the roof of a house in a small Bavarian village, has excited treasure hunters who say it was with a list showing it was part of a larger trove of booty once owned by the most sinister man in the Third Reich.

Early indications are that it is part of a series worshipped by ancient Mayan cultures in what is now Mexico which, legend has it, are vital to stop the world from ending next year.

The Mayans believed that after a ‘Great Flood‘ destroyed Atlantis, the survivors wished to preserve their wisdom. They shaped thirteen crystal skulls; nine were coloured and represented the races of men and four were as clear as glass to represent ``the beasts that walk, crawl, slide and fly."

They were then sent to their place of "birth" until such a time when all are needed to avert the catastrophe that man will wreak on the planet.

The Mayans were a race of highly gifted astronomers and mathematicians.

Using their knowledge of planetary and galactic progressions, the Mayans were able to record a time and date for this ‘end of days‘ - the winter solstice, 21st December 2012.

Himmler, who ran the modern industrial-scale murder programme of the Jews, was also spellbound by myths and legends all his life. He financed expeditions to far-flung corners of the earth by Indiana Jones-type S.S. men seeking proof of the supremacy of Ayran man - ie, the Germans.

The skull, which weighs nearly 20lbs, is of the same design as the death’s head which adorned the uniforms of his killers. It was found in a wooden and leather box in the home of an old lady and it is now in the hands of Swiss journalist Luc Burgin.

With it, it is claimed, was a list of 35 treasures which the S.S. was seeking to bring back to Germany from Sudetenland on the border with Czechoslovakia as the Reich crumbled in 1945. Part of it reads;"Nr. 14; the crystal skull - 263-2 RFSS Collection Rahn, No 25592, leather case, crystal death‘s head, South America."

RFSS referred to Reichsfuehrer-S.S. - Himmler‘s official title in Nazi Germany While Rahn referred to Otto Rahn, an S.S. officer and chief occultist for Himmler who has been described as as the inspiration behind the Indiana Jones movie Raiders of the Lost Ark, although neither George Lucas nor Steven Spielberg have never spoken of him.

Burgin says he is commissioning experts in the coming weeks to examine the skull to try to prove its authenticity. He said; "I am 99 percent sure that this is one of the skulls of the Mayans, but we need clarity and all available tests will be carried out to ascertain authenticity."

A footnote on the box stated; "Do not open! The personal property of the Reichsfuehrer-S.S.!"

The old lady who handed it over in a village near Munich was once married to a high ranking S.S. officer.

The full details of the booty on the list found along with the skull haven‘t been revealed but are thought to include details of S.S. silver rings worth 50 million pounds in today‘s money.

They are said to be buried in the hills surrounding the eerie triangular-shaped castle of Wewelsburg near Paderborn. Himmler used the castle as a Black Camelot for his knights-of-the-dark-side.

As the Reich crumbled he abandoned Wewelsburg. Some 9,280 special S.S silver rings struck for his men, and returned on his orders to him after death, were stashed in secret cave in the nearby hills.

Pirate treasure found!

Aaaaaaarrrrgggg!!

Oh come on, you can't seriously be tired of me doing that everytime I mention a pirate treasure can you?

This is another story from the web that I have to thank Rob and Homer for sending to me to share with our readers.

This isn't treasure in the truest form but to me, finding anything left behind by a pirate is treasure.

From the web:





Captain Morgan's Cannons Found

What may be the first artifacts from legendary pirate Henry Morgan's shipwrecked vessels near Panama were recently discovered.


Scuba diving archaeologists recently found six cannons from Morgan's vessels that sunk on a mission to capture a fort in the 17th century, the Los Angeles Times reported.


Morgan is a legend in Panama. He's commonly thought of as a pirate, but he was what's called a privateer — a legal pirate. He was paid by the English crown to defend its Caribbean colonies.


The cannons, if truly Morgan's, would be the first artifacts of his that have been found near Panama.


As the story goes, Morgan, along with three ships carrying 470 men, set out to take over a fort guarding the entrance to Panama City. Morgan was sailing on the Satisfaction, his flagship, but all four ships crashed on Lajas Reef in shallow water. Despite losing their ships, Morgan's men still were able to paddle ashore and capture the fort.


The ships were abandoned, and treasure hunters have picked through the reef over the years. The cannons were found covered by layers of sedimentary rock in the shallow water. At least two other guns are buried nearby, as well as an anchor, ceramics and bottles. Metal detectors indicated that more artifacts may be buried deeper.

Mayan treasure found?

I would like to thank two of our readers for this one. Homer and Rob both sent me this story and a few others on the same days. Keep them coming guys!

The good news with this story is that someone may have cracked a code leading to EIGHT TONS of gold! The bad news is that if they are right, it's at the bottom of a lake!

From the web:

Cracked Mayan Code May Pave Way to Lost Gold

Led by Joachim Rittsteig, an expert in Mayan writing, a group of scientists and journalists left Germany Tuesday, on a mission to Guatemala in search of a lost Maya treasure allegedly submerged under Lake Izabal.

According to the German newspaper Bild, which sponsored the expedition, the expedition includes two reporters from the publication, a photographer, a television camera, and a professional diver who will submerge into Lake Izabal in an attempt to find eight tons of gold said to have been lost there.

The expedition is led by Joachim Rittsteig, an expert in Mayan writing, who claims to have cracked the famous Dresden Codex and discovered specific information in one of its chapters that leads to a treasure in Lake Izabal.

"The Dresden Codex leads to a giant treasure of eight tons of pure gold," said Rittsteig, who has spent more than 40 years studying the document, to Bild.

A professor emeritus at Dresden University and author of various publications about the Maya culture, Rittsteig stressed that "page 52 talks about the Maya capital of Atlan, which was ruined by an earthquake on October 30th in the year 666 BC. In this city, they kept 2,156 gold tablets on which the Maya recorded their laws."

The treasure sank, along with the city, into the waters of Lake Izabal, located in eastern Guatemala. But the German academic claims to have found the remains thanks to radar images taken in the area.

Rittsteig calculates that "just the gold in the tablets is estimated to be currently worth up to 211 million euros (290 million dollars)."

The Dresden Codex, drafted in the year 1250 AD by Mayan priests, is one of the four major documents that remain from that culture. It has been housed by the Saxon State Library in East Germany for the last 272 years.

The code was discovered in 1739 in the possession of a wealthy man in Vienna, though no one knows how he got a hold of it. He then donated it to the Dresden Library, where it is kept under bullet-proof glass in a room with other treasured documents.

Joachim Rittsteig has dedicated most of his entire life to decoding the codex, which is composed of 74 pages, 3.56 meters long with 74 distinct hieroglyphics.

The Dresden Codex contains much of what is known of Mayan Culture, including their understanding of astrology, medicine and even the end of the world. In the last chapter, the codex describes the coming apocalypse, which it says will take place on December 12th, 2012.

Adventurer dies while exploring old mine

Once again I find myself apologizing to our readers for not keeping up with the posts. I would like to tell you I have been uncovering a long lost mine filled with treasure but unfortunately, this time, it has just been the things of everyday life that have kept me overly occupied.

This article comes from the web and is a good reminder of what can happen if you are not careful. Sometimes, no matter how careful you are, things like this can happen anyway so please, everyone out there, take the necessary precautions to come back from your adventures alive and well.

Man Dies After Falling Into Nevada Mine Shaft


RENO, Nev. - A father of five children has died after falling into a Nevada mine shaft so deep and treacherous that rescuers had to abandon efforts to reach him while he was still alive, officials said Saturday.

Devin Westenskow, 28, of Evanston, Wyo., worked at a geothermal drilling operation in Nevada and had gone exploring Wednesday with two friends during his off-hours when he fell 190 feet into the open shaft northeast of Reno.

His family thanked rescue workers in a prepared statement that also identified Westenskow.

"We feel they did everything possible to rescue Devin, but that there was no way to get him out alive given the extent of his injuries and instability of the mine shaft," the statement said. "We are forever grateful for their efforts."

The decision to end the rescue came after two unsuccessful attempts by search teams to descend into the shaft, where Westenskow was trapped in debris, said Doran Sanchez, a U.S. Bureau of Land Management spokesman.

An attempt Thursday caused walls of the 100-plus-year-old shaft to crumble and rocks to fall on rescuers, he said.

"One individual was hit in the head by falling rock and it split his hard hat," Sanchez said. "You're talking about two of the best search and rescue squads in Nevada, and they finally determined there was no way they could safely rappel down."

Westenskow was given his last rites Friday. He was pronounced dead at 12:30 p.m. that day, after the Pershing County coroner's office determined he had stopped breathing by reviewing images from a video camera they had lowered into shaft, Sanchez said.

Word of the death was not released until Saturday because there was no cell phone service in the remote area for authorities to stay in contact.

A video camera showed he had been breathing early Friday but not moving and had suffered serious head injuries. Images taken Thursday night revealed he had been moving his hands.

About 50,000 abandoned mine shafts have been identified as the most hazardous in Nevada, but the shaft where the man fell wasn't among them, BLM officials said.

The agency plans to permanently seal the shaft and several other openings in the area by Monday, Sanchez said.

The family statement said Westenskow was divorced and split his time between Evanston and Battle Mountain, Nev.

Sheriff's officials from Pershing and Lander counties oversaw the rescue effort, with assistance from rescuers from Washoe County, Newmont Mining Corp. and the U.S. Navy in Fallon.

Devils Kitchen

Deep in the heart of Oklahoma territory sat a out crop of rocks that was home to the Kichai Indian Tribe. Later this wild and desolate area would become known to Outlaws as "Devils Kitchen". With large rock boulders, jutting rock out crops and caves, this was the perfect safe haven for outlaws and bandits. Legend has it that there was once a cave at the base of the the "Kitchen" that has been used as a strong hold by numerous later day outlaws. This same legend tells of four outlaws robbing a train near Ardmore Oklahoma and making away with over $50,000 in gold. Knowing of Devils Kitchen and its location of solitude, the outlaws made camp inside the cave at the base of the rugged hill out crop. By early morning a posse had made their way near the entrance of the cave. The shoot out that transpired ended up claiming three of the four outlaws lives. The fourth was captured and sent away for trial and later prison. None of the $50,000 was ever recovered and still said to be hidden inside the cave some where.
Now just where oh where is Devils Kitchen you may ask? Well it sits under 6,000 acres of surface water that makes up Lake Murray. It is suppose to be right of the point that the majestic Tuckers Tower sits. It has been said that the tucker tower has a secret passage leading into the cave system beneath it. Of course the chances of that are probably the same chance that the Alamo has a basement. If you had the know how and equipment the only way to find this one is to start swimming.

On a side note the Tucker Tower was built in 1933 by Governor William H. "Alfalfa Bill" Murray. During its construction a 500 Lbs granular hexahedrite meteorite was found. One of the largest of its kind. It is believed there are many more around the area and even under the lakes surface. So if your in the mood to hunt for lost gold or old fire from the heavens Lake Murray is the place to head. Be sure and take a fishing pole with you as well.