Did you ever wonder about the fact that ancient peoples had no where to keep their money or treasures? They couldn't drive down to the bank and put their jewelry into their safe deposit box or make a big deposit into their account. They couldn't even buy stocks or municipal bonds. How did these people get treasures in the first place? I guess there were a couple of very popular ways to make money. You could have a business such as growing crops and selling them or butchering animals for meat or you could pursue a very popular way to get riches and that was looting. There was nothing like joining the army of the day and conquering some race of people and as your reward you had a limited time to take the spoils. What this really meant was you could pillage and rape the poor people. You could keep what ever you found, after of course your leaders had first choice. This made the military very attractive to some people of the time.

What about those big time looters? There were some races like the Vikings that had treasures stashed all over the place. Some thought that they could take the treasure with them and had it buried with them. Look at the ancient Egyptians, some of the pharos had incredible treasures buried with them to ease their way in the afterlife. Unfortunately for them, all it did was spur on the grave robbers. As incredibly smart traps were devised to protect those ancient tomb treasures, the ingenious ancient grave robbers would figure out how to get around them. These ancient robbers were like the computer hackers today. They must have found out about the treasures and just had to figure a way to get to them. Sure the treasure was important, but the challenge must have been as or more important to them to take such a risk. Think about it, the ancient Egyptians build a pyramid out of solid, huge stones. There are no modern tools. Somehow these grave robbers have to tunnel through tons of stone and find the location of a tomb that may have all the passages blocked. We know that some tombs were blocked by stones that were set in motion as the tomb was being closed. Sand would be taken out from under them by ramps and the stones would fall into place, all 20 or 30 tons each of them. This might happen all along a passage. What a challenge this was.

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About a week before I wrote this article, which is about three weeks before it gets posted, a Viking tomb and a Viking treasure were both found. The tomb was very interesting, it belonged to a wealthy farmer. What made it interesting was the fact that it contained a Viking sword and a Viking suit of armor. There was a spear tip in the grave also. The tomb was in Orkdal, Norway. Some scientists disagree that the man in the tomb was only a successful farmer, they think that he was a chieftain because his horse was killed and buried with him and this was a very expensive thing to do, because horses were worth a lot of money in those days. Ah, now for the treasure. That was found on the island of Gotland off the Swedish east coast. How much was this treasure worth? There are people that actually figure these things out and it is calculated that this is the 25th largest treasure ever to be found on an island. The treasure consists of at least 1,100 silver coins and many bracelets. In the 9th century the Vikings used to trade with the Islamic empires and Russian territories and were very fond of Arabic silver coins. They would trade them to the Russians. Here is an interesting stat for you, there were 689,000 Arabic and Byzantine coins found buried in Sweden, 51,300 come from Gotland.

Even more ancient treasures have been found in Bulgaria. Yes I said Bulgaria, I know it is hard to believe. Many thousands of years ago the Thracians lived in that country. In 2004, near the village of Shipka a beautiful solid gold mask was found that depicted a face. It is thought that the mask contains the face of King Seutus III. He ruled the area in the 5th century B.C. The mask was not alone, there was a beautiful ring with a rower on it and bronze and silver vessels. So far, no body has been found. This is not the only Thracian tomb to be discovered. About fifty others have been found along with many treasures. Also found in this tomb was a complete set of body armor made out of bronze along with a sword that was inlaid with gold on the handle and a crown made of gold into oak leaves and acorns. The tombs were hidden under mounds. One grave that had been plundered, had part of a Roman soldier's shoe in it, showing that Romans may have emptied it many thousands of years ago.

The world's oldest treasure may not seem like a treasure to us after all. Tiny beads have been found that were made from shells and they date back over 100,000 years ago. They were discovered years ago and then forgotten after being placed in a museum's archives. It is thought that their place of origin is either Israel or Algeria. This is not the first find of shells that were made into beads. In 2004 a cave in Blombos in South Africa yielded a pile of beads that were about 75,000 years old. As archeologists began to search for these types of beads in many different cellars and back rooms of museums, they began to discover that there were a lot more of these ancient beads than anyone suspected. Archeologists were shocked to find some of these beads very far inland, because it meant that very ancient people probably traded for them and that they were a lot more sophisticated in those early days than we ever suspected.

There must be many more tombs and treasures out there just waiting to be found. Each time we find something like this, we add to our knowledge of the history of man. It could turn out that we might find out that there were lost civilizations even in this country that left great and ancient legacies.