Latest Treasure Stories

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Indiana Jones managed to retrieve the trinket he was after in the opening moments of "Raiders of the Lost Ark.'' He pretty much wrecked everything else in the ancient South American temple where the little gold idol had rested for millennia. Though he preaches research and good science in the classroom, the world's most famous archaeologist often is an acquisitive tomb raider in the field with a scorched-earth policy about what he leaves...

Treasure hunters in Germany say they have detected a cavern they believe holds stolen Russian artifacts and Nazi gold hidden since World War II. The team thinks the man-made cavern about 65 feet underground near the village of Deutschneudorf on the German-Czech Republic border holds the so-called Amber Room, an 18th-century chamber decoration the Nazis stole from the Soviet Union during the war, Spiegel Online reported Tuesday. They claim to have detected about two tons of gold last weekend...

By Aubrey Woods, The Tribune, Seymour, Ind. Oct. 6--A local company claiming to have found buried treasure in what was once a cemetery has asked Jackson Superior Court for permission to recover it. In a lawsuit filed Sept. 19 against the city of Seymour and the Jackson County Health Department, Farlow & Fitzpatrick LLC declined to name what kind of treasure had been found and where the now abandoned cemetery lies because doing so might lead to theft. According to local legend, many area...

By Mary Rogers, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas There is something about the idea of treasure hunting that worms its way into the damp folds of the imagination. Legends grow fat there and sing sweet and low of pirates and priests who held plunder in their hands -- then let it slip through their fingers for others to find. For more than a decade one team of professional treasure hunters heard the siren's call, and earlier this summer Odyssey Marine Exploration hauled up an estimated $500...

By Charlie ZhuSINGAPORE -- In Tilman Walterfang's eyes, the seabed of Southeast Asian waters is a bonanza.After discovering three treasure-laden shipwrecks in Indonesian waters between 1997 and 1998, including the famous Tang Treasure that was sold to Singapore in 2004 for $32 million, the German treasure hunter is returning to the region for more.He believes there are more shipwrecks resting on seabeds across Southeast Asia, especially in the Strait of Malacca, one of the world's busiest...

By Michele KambasTSERI, Cyprus -- Residents of a Cypriot village, intrigued for decades by a tale of buried treasure and an underground flight of steps leading nowhere, have decided to get to the bottom of the mystery.More than half a century after British colonial rulers forced them to abandon their last attempt to explore the site, residents of Tseri village in central Cyprus have begun excavating the 1,500-year-old tunnel and stairway.Antiquities officials say the stone structure is part...

By Laura Myers KEY WEST, Fla (Reuters) - Hundreds of millions of dollars in silver bars, emeralds and gold chains have already been recovered from the Spanish galleon Nuestra Senora de Atocha, sunk during a Florida Keys hurricane in 1622. But the mother lode of treasure discovered by Mel Fisher two decades ago may not have finished yielding its fortunes, his heirs believe, and there may be more to come. "It's still a trail of gold," said Mel Fisher's son Kim, 49, chief executive of Key...

By Laura Myers KEY WEST, Fla (Reuters) - Hundreds of millions of dollars in silver bars, emeralds and gold chains have already been recovered from the Spanish galleon Nuestra Senora de Atocha, sunk during a Florida Keys hurricane in 1622. But the mother lode of treasure discovered by Mel Fisher two decades ago may not have finished yielding its fortunes, his heirs believe, and there may be more to come. "It's still a trail of gold," said Mel Fisher's son Kim, 49, chief executive of Key...