Treasure Hunting

Today I found an older article that I thought ya’ll mind find interesting. It was written for The BBC in September 2008, and is called “Living off the sewers of gold.”

From what the article says, the sewers of Dhaka, Bangladesh, are disgusting. The city is overcrowded and polluted, and basically as awful as one can imagine. But many people make a living by panning for gold in the sewer’s dirty water.

With stained fingers, men pan for gold in the drains in exactly the same way as the treasure-seekers of “the legendary California gold rush of the 1850s.”

So how does the gold get there?

Tiny specks of gold are accidentally brushed into the open sewers that run alongside the narrow streets of Dhaka’s historic “gold bazaar.” The area is lined with shops selling gold jewelery, about 350 shops which employs about 20,000 people! The gold is softened over charcoal fires or gas burners and then made into necklaces and earrings.

Every morning all the workshops and gold shops are swept clean, the gold specks (and sometimes even precious stones!) get swept into the streets and ending up in the sewers.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the price of gold has been tempting everyone at nearly $1,000 an oz. But on the flip side - gold is now so expensive that many people aren’t buying it anymore, the district is slimming in size, and the amount of gold being swept into the streets is getting smaller and smaller.

Share This

One of our favorite sites had something a little related to treasure hunting today so we thought we’d share.

National Geographic Magazine’s Photo Gallery shows some amazing images taken deep within the Crystal Palace of Mexico.

The conditions are extreme but the find is extraordinary. Massive beams of selenite have formed deep below the Chihuahuan Desert over the last millennial. These crystals are some of the largest every discovered on Earth and completely dwarf human explorers.

So how far beneath the Chihuahuan Desert are these crystals? Nearly 1,000 ft. down.

Researchers have to descend by truck through a serpentine mine shaft. Temperatures in the Cave of Crystals can reach upwards of 110 degrees Fahrenheit and researchers must wear ice-cooled suits, breathing packs and respirator masks to cool their body from the inside, out. This enables the researchers to be in the cave for at least 20 minutes, but many choose to stretch it to 80 minutes - which is well after the ice has melted. They also have air conditioned tents to provide short-term relief.

Currently the caves are privately owned and access to is limited, but researchers soon hope for legal protection to keep looters and foot traffic from harming the delicate, perfectly luminous crystals.

Which begs the question - Who the heck would loot 1,000 ft. down?!

Anyway - the longest crystal measures 37.4 ft in length and the oldest likely began growing about 600,000 years ago.

I know this isn’t treasure as we normally report, but it’s amazing none the less. Now if only we could get a metal detector to pick up treasure buried 1,000 ft. below the surface…. nah… we wouldn’t wanna dig that far down anyway! Check out the website at National Geographic for some of the most amazing, stellar, stunning, mind-boggling pictures you have ever seen in your LIFE.

- Shaun

Share This

A friend sent us this article and thought it would make an excellent blog,… and while we agree, we can’t help but confess that the following images and stories are sad and even a little disturbing.

In Southeast Asia the people of Loas are reliant on the trade of scrap metal to face the challenges of both poverty and food security. Entire communities, including young children, search the local paddy fields and jungles with $10 Vietnamese metal detectors and small shovels for any sign of scrap metal. Unfortunately, the scrap metal they are looking for is often found in the form of very dangerous, live bombs.

MAG International tells many heartbreaking stories on their website, but here is an excerpt…

“The older and more experienced villagers will recognize and leave a majority of the dangerous items - especially the round, orange sized cluster bomb submunitions - where they find them, but many of the younger people do not know the difference.

Eighteen-year-old Chai and her 12 year-old brother Song look for scrap metal high in the mountains near the Vietnamese border in Khammouane province. They camp out for up to a week at a time, living on the rice they bring with them and bamboo shoots and roots they find in the forest. They spend the day searching and digging and bring their finds to the roadside. Traders in trucks and pickups collect the scrap from them daily.

“We can make money for our family doing this,” explained Chai. “I know it can be dangerous and people in the village have been killed, but we are careful.” However, when asked about the different kinds of ordnance common in the area it became clear that they didn’t realize what the dangerous items looked like.

People say that they have no choice but to look for scrap metal. “We don’t grow enough rice,” said Kam in Phanop village. “Our land has flooded a lot in recent years so the harvests have been very bad. We grow only 20 per cent of the rice we need. I know collecting scrap metal is dangerous, but my family has to do it to live.”

In the past all the metal collected went to smelters in Vietnam but now factories have been built in Laos. It is very organized. The scrap collectors get $1.50 for a kilo of iron, and $2.50 for a kilo of aluminum. On average they find about seven kilos of metal a day.”

To read the rest of this article, see more stunning photos, and see a side of metal detecting that we never knew existed, please visit MAG International. This organization does everything they can for these region and while it breaks our heart to write this article, we’re happy to make people more aware. We’re very fortunate to be able to curse pull tabs and can slaw…

~ Liz ~

Share This

When I say “Relic Hunting” most of you imagine searching for old items of historical value and displaying, reporting or otherwise honoring them. Today “Relic Hunters” are often the metal detectorists and armature archaeologists who seek these items in an effort to hold history in the palm of their hand and learn more about the civilizations before us.

But an article titled “Relic-Hunting,” written for the New York Times on August 4, 1881 paints a very different picture. I thought it was interesting and overall I’m quite proud that us Relic Hunters are no longer thought of in such a fashion. Here are some excerpts from the article:

“Mr. Ruskin made a great mistake when he said that we have no ruins in America. The truth is that the country is full of ruins, Roman, Grecian, Egyptian, and Syrian. They have been brought here piecemeal by enterprising American tourists, and a scientific person has estimated that up to and including the 1st of June last (1881) the total amount of imported ruins in the United States amounted to 833,000 tons in round numbers.”

“Persons who have formed the habit of collecting relics have no conscience whatever. They will lounge behind the guide at Pompeii in order to tear up a piece of mosaic pavement, or will knock off the corner of an Egyptian obelisk without the least remorse.”

“Every tourist of this variety brings home a half bushel of relics - pieces of brick, stone, or glass - all of which he has collected by breaking precious relics of antiquity. He exhibits these to his friends and actually glories in his shame.”

“The relic-hunter has of late shown his inventive genius by the way in which he defaces objects which are beyond the reach of a hammer. Ruins, crude or manufactured, should be ruthlessly confiscated by the Custom-house officers. If the relic-hunters knew that every bit of stone for which they could not honestly account would be seized and thrown into the river they would recognize the uselessness of defacing European ruins merely to increase the weight of their trunks.”

Go to The New York Times Online Article Preview to read the rest of this article.

And the next time you see someone tear up because they realize that the Civil War relic they hold in their hand is one of the few and precious pieces of a long-lost life, be thankful that our country learned to respect relics.

Be thankful for your fellow metal detectorists who learn about history, seek out relics, and preserve them for our future generations to learn from.

~ Liz ~

Share This