Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
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The point is that who you are will determine in part what you see. Perception involves more than simply what is there. How you perceive things will be influenced by your history.
Your brain interprets what your eyes see. As a result, different people see things differently. People reveal something about who they are by what they see. Perception is not as passive and simple as we tend to think. That is the basis for the entire field of projective testing (a method of personality testing used in psychology that includes ink blot tests and word association, to name just two).
Almost everything presents something of a projective test. That is something people can't entirely avoid. They might think that what they see is what is out there in the world, but there is also a degree of interpretation. Past experiences, learning and memory play a roll in perception. Social scientists go to great length to keep their own biases from affecting their experiments.
This is a complex topic, but I'm going to try to keep it brief.
Treasure hunters approach the world with a perspective that is a little different from other people. When they dig up something that is ambiguous to a degree, their unique perspective comes into play. That is just what humans do.
When a treasure hunter digs up a key or lock, one of the first things he might think of is a treasure chest, even though there are many other types of keys - those used for toys, clocks and music boxes, for example. You see that type of thing all the time. I see it all the time on some of the TV treasure shows.
Treasure hunters have a tendency to see coins in ambiguous lumps. One of the most common questions I get is about those lumps of rust that are found on the beach. People wonder if they might be old coins.
It is natural for a TV show that wants to attract viewers to manufacture drama. The participants are rewarded for it. That is how they get face-time.
Some people will see gold in any flash of yellow. They'll see Spanish treasure galleon spikes in any old spike, or a cutlass in any long thin flat object, or a spear point in a cribbing spike. It is natural for a treasure hunter to be excited by such things, but hopes and dreams won't solve the problem.
You won't see the slow tedious work of archaeology or any other science on TV. The pursuit of truth is too slow, and nobody wants to watch it. It requires too much discipline.
Our hopes and desires influence our perceptions and interpretations. Everybody has a unique perspective that they carry with them. That is natural, but it is something that a scientist, or anybody that wants to find truth, needs to limit and control. They go to great lengths to be objective. Let the data speak - not your wishes.
If you are hoping to get clues from the things you find, you want to avoid wild goose chases. An incorrect interpretation can be very costly. It is better to avoid quick conclusions and continue to entertain competing theories and suspend judgment until you have a wealth of evidence, and even then remain open to changing your mind when new evidence is presented.
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Yesterday one of my topics was XRF analysis, which determines the metallic composition of tested items. It is a useful way to analyze items such as coins and artifacts.
I just found the following table giving the metallic composition of various types of gold.
I just found the following table giving the metallic composition of various types of gold.
Color of Gold Alloy Compositions Containing Copper
Yellow Gold (22 kt) Gold 91.67%, Silver 5%, Copper 2%, Zinc 1,33%
Red Gold (18 kt) Gold 75%, Copper 25%
Rose Gold (18 kt) Gold 75%, Copper 22.25% Silver 2.75%
Pink Gold (18 kt) Gold 75%, Copper 20%, Silver 5%
Gray-White Gold (18 kt) Gold 75%, Iron 17%, Copper 8%
Light Green Gold (18 kt) Gold 75%, Copper 23%, Cadmium 2%
Green Gold (18 kt) Gold 75%, Silver 20%, Copper 5%
Deep Green Gold (18 kt) Gold 75%, Silver 15%, Copper 6%, Cadmium 4%
You can use the following link to go to the article that provides the above table along with a technical discussion of Pre-Columbian depletion gilding. It was published in Mechanics, Materials Science and Engineering in 2017.
There is a lot in that article that you might find interesting. Here is a very brief excerpt from the article just to give you the idea.
Because all the metals that reached Europe were melted back into their constituent metals in Spain,
there is only an example of such a load, a group of over 200 tumbaga bars, discovered in the
remains of an unidentified shipwreck (around 1528), off Grand Bahama Island. This shipwreck was
found in 1993...
Terry S. has continued to research his gold pendant-looking find. He recently talked to a very accomplished world-wide expert about it. I'll pass along what Terry was told, as Terry explained it in an email. The following is what Terry said.
… He then told me that these were often low karat gold anywhere from 8 karat on up. I told him that the one I found was 22 karat and he said then it was probably made well before the Spanish arrived probably 1 to 2 hundred years before the 1715 Spanish fleet. He told me he knew of a sunken 1600 ship that was filled with this type of jewelry. He explained there were 3 ships that were filled with trade items, blankets, beads and other items of interest to the natives. They had orders to trade for this type of gold jewelry from the Aztec, Inca or Maya Indians in Mexico and Central and South America. Only two of these ships returned to Spain. He told me where he believes this ship sank and went on to say that this is the only sunken ship that he knows of that is filled with this type of native jewelry.
When trying to identify any piece like this there is always room for error but I think I can be pretty comfortable in saying I have a small piece of history. I believe that it is probably from a Aztec or Inca funerary mask or another ceremonial gold jewelry piece.
Thanks Terry. I hope you'll keep us up to date on any additional developments.
I saw a few more pictures of funerary masks with very similar attachments to Terry's mystery item. I'm also reminded of the funerary mask find reported in my 1/24/19 and 1/27/19 posts. That was found in the Melborne area and was said to be associated in some way with a 4 billion dollar shipwreck that was being sought. There was no evidence of such attachments on that mask, but it was not complete. It was initially reported as Incan, which, was reported by another source as being wrong. With the inaccuracies and controversy, that story got to be pretty messy.
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I have some other topics I've been working on. One has to do to the slope of a beach.
I also have a detecting spot that I'm dying to check out when the conditions are right.
I should have gone into engineering. I need a digging/sifting robot.
We won't have much surf for a couple of days at least.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
