Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
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Where are you going to find the most stuff? The answer is obvious: you'll find the most stuff where the most people with stuff lived, worked and played over the years and where stuff was lost and remains. That doesn't really say much, but it can be worth thinking about. |
| Source: CNN.com. See link below. |
The Grünes Gewölbe (English: Green Vault) in Dresden is a unique historic museum that contains the largest collection of treasures in Europe. Founded by Augustus the Strong in 1723, it features a rich variety of exhibits from the Baroque to Classicism. It is named after the formerly malachite green painted column bases and capitals of the initial rooms. It has some claim to be the oldest museum in the world; it is older than the British Museum founded in 1759, but the Vatican Museums date their foundation to the public display of the newly excavated Lacoon Group in 1506.
After the devastation of World War II the Grünes Gewölbe has been completely restored. Today, its treasures are shown in two exhibitions: The Historic Green Vault (Historisches Grünes Gewölbe) is famous for its splendors of the historic treasure chamber as it existed in 1733, while the New Green Vault (Neues Grünes Gewölbe) focuses the attention on each individual object in neutral rooms. (From Wikipedia.)
I think you'll want to take a look. The Green Vault is known as Europe's treasure chest. Some of the treasures are beyond anything I ever imagined. You might be especially interested in those from the 17th and 18th centuries.
Here is a link to an article about the Green Vault.
And here is a link for a virtual tour.
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There are three important parts to that answer. For one, the number of people is a factor. Second, the types of activities conducted by those people is a big factor. You can have lots of people, but if they either don't have much to lose or are very careful not to lose things, it won't help much. And third, the lost items have to remain in place where they can be found. If they are removed by either man or nature, that is an important consideration also.
You're probably still not convinced that my answer was very helpful. Here is another question for you. Where do you think you could find the biggest treasures? Where were precious items gathered together in one place? How about Fort Knox? You'd have trouble getting in there, so think about it in more general terms.
Do you think there would be more to be found in the city or country? There would be more peope in the city. They would be involved in a wide range of types of activities. And there would be years of accumulation as the city grew, and many of those items would be protected by new layers of pavement, building and development.
I know that many of you metal detect on the beach because it is relatively easy. You don't have to ask permission and you can easily scoop up and sift through the sand. People metal detect on the beach because it is easy and still somewhat productive (some beaches much more than others).
Shipwreck salvage, for example, is not so easy. You need a lease, a boat, a small crew, diving equipment, etc. Most places that hold a lot of treasure are not the easiest to detect and if and when there is a lot of treasure at an easy location, it quickly gets taken.
Urban environments are not so easy to detect, for various reasons, but there is really a lot of accumulated items waiting to be found under cities. Cities usually have a long history.
What I wanted to do today is point to the urban environment as a very promising treasure hunting environment. There are definitely obstacles - perhaps too many for most of us. Much of the land is owned by the government or private corporations or individuals and much of it is paved over or deeply buried. I always say to look at obstacles as opportunities. Obstacles protect treasure until someone figures out how to get it. It is the person that overocomes the obstacles that wins the game. Just doing the easy thing is fine, but it will seldom get you a big win.
If you want to take your treasure hunting to the next level and you've already mastered some of the basic skills, the next thing you'll have to do is overcome another kind of obstacle. You'll have to go a step beyond where you are now and where most other people are. You'll have to do something a little different, and it might not be the easiest thing in the world.
One thing you can do is be the first one to recognize a new opportunity. Watch for earth being moved, for example. A lot of the time when a new pipe is laid, or a building is torn down, or there is a new construction project, old items are uncovered in urban environments. Items are there in great numbers, buried in layers.
You don't have to dig in the middle of a city, a suburb or surrounding area might be nearly as good. If you read about the history of an area, you might learn that there were once heavily used areas that are now accessible for one reason or another. Sometimes entire neighborhoods or city bloks are cleared.
I just wanted you to think about metal detecting in urban environments. There is a lot to be found there. You can get some ideas by reading about urban archaeology.
Here is a link for a starter.
http://chrsinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Urban-Archaeology.pdf
Of course there are many such web sites, but if you start reading a little about urban archaeology, it might give you some good ideas for some new prospecting sites.
One of the obstacles you will have to learn to deal with is the amount of trash. I've talked a little about how to work through trash before. There are also some alternative techniques that you might use in trashy areas. I'll have more about some of those techniques in the future. Those are the same techniques you can use in a trashy beach picnic area, if you know how to approach areas like that.
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If you want to see some of the most amazing treasures ever, including but not limited to 18th century items that make anything found on the 1715 Fleet look trivial, take a look at Dresden's Green Vault, which is a an unbelievable museum. Some of the items are similar to some of the items found on the 1715 Fleet. You might want to take a look.
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Yesterday was pretty windy. In the morning it was coming out of the west but later more from the south.
As you might expect, the south winds pushed sand up onto the Treasure Coast beaches. I looked at Seagrape Trail, Turtle Trail and John Brooks beaches this morning, and all had a lot of new sand.
We're going to have a spell of small surf.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
