Showing posts with label Funerary Mask. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Funerary Mask. Show all posts

Sunday, December 29, 2019

12/29/19 Report - 2019 Reviewed. Mostly About Storms and Finds. Prosecution for Object Found in Garden.


Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.


Well, one more year coming to a close. It seems not that long ago I was sitting here writing the first post of 2019.  Now it will be one of the last.

Overall, it wasn't the most productive of years, either in the water or on the beach.  There were finds, as always.  And there was excitement - not all of it good.

2019 actually started out pretty good.  We had some good erosion, and I issued a "3" beach conditions rating on my January 28 report.  A couple days later (February 2), I posted the many shipwreck finds made on the beach by Jonah M.

The next highlight was the gold mystery find made by Terry S. reported in my post of April 2.   We had a few days of good discussion on that topic.

The next highlight was the gun parts found by Will R.  Will found an encrusted barrel which he was able to reconstruct by making a mold.  That was detailed in my 6/25 post.

Then came the big excitement that was followed by a big let down.  Hurricane Dorian looked like it might be the worst storm to ever hit the Treasure Coast, but after threatening for what seemed like days on end, turned away and left us little changed, except for all the beach closures.  You can relive that by rereading my 9/1 - 9/5 posts.  I kept everybody up to date on what was going on, sometimes multiple updates during the day.  Those posts were read by hundreds of people.

Few finds were reported after all the Dorian excitement, but one Potosi reale find attracted a lot of attention (9/10 post).

Then there were a lot of storms in the Atlantic, including Humberto, Jerry, and Imelda to name a few, but they didn't do much for us on the Treasure Coast (9/18 post, for example).

Here are the most read posts of the year.  There is a definite skewing towards the beginning of the year.  People continue to read old posts as well as the new ones.

Most of the most read posts usually come from the beginning of the year, but this year all of the Dorian excitement resulted in a lot of blog activity in September.  Of the ten most read posts of 2019, there were two from January, two from February, one from April and five from September. The top three posts of the 2019 were posted in September when everybody was closely following Dorian.

Top Ten  Most Read Blog Posts of 2019
(descending order)

1/24 Controversial Incan Funerary Mask(?) from Treasure Coast
https://treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com/2019/01/12419-report-incan-funerary-mask-made.html


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The following was reported in 2010.  



A woman who found a 700-year-old silver 'coin' whilst digging in her garden as a child has become the first in the country to be convicted of failing to hand in suspected treasure. 

Kate Harding, 23, was prosecuted under the Treasure Act after she ignored orders to report the coin-like artefact to a coroner...

Here is the link.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2460215/posts

I think there have been more justified prosecutions.  I have a hard time with someone being prosecuted for something they found as a child in a garden and kept as a memento.  I don't know the entire situation, but that is how it feels to me.

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The surf is decreasing and will be low for at least a few days.

Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net


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Wednesday, April 10, 2019

4/10/19 Report - Pre-Columbian Metallurgy and Gold Analysis. More On Terry's Gold Artifact. Avoiding Treasure Hunting Wild Goose Chases.


Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.



What do you see in the above picture?  Some people will see a vase.  Others will see two faces.  You can see both, but you will generally see one first and stick with that until your focus changes.

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.


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... 

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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

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Friday, April 5, 2019

4/5/19 Report - More Thoughts On The Gold Mystery Item. Treasure Beach Ring Find. Tide Coefficient Tip.


Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

Corroded Old Silver Ring Treasure Coast Find
Photo and find by Richard W.

It is not uncommon for me to receive a photo of a heavily corroded small silver ring that was found on a  Treasure Coast shipwreck beach.  When found on one of the beaches where old shipwreck coins and items are found, it is natural to wonder if the ring came from a treasure wreck.  After finding the ring shown above, Richard W. sent me the above photo with the following email.

Detected this ring at Golden Sands Beach on March 19 with my Minelab Equinox 800. I took it to the Mel Fisher Treasure Museum and they said it looked “very interesting”. Back home here in Colorado my Jeweler just examined it and she said it’s silver and very old. Also it could have been cast from a mold as opposed to hammered. I detected all the beaches every day from Bonsteel to John Brooks from March 5 thru March 20 and this was the only thing of interest I found except clad coins and lead fishing weights. Met some nice people and had fun at the TCAS Hunt at Wabasso. Hope to be back next year!

It is very difficult to put a date range on these types of rings, but they are obviously old enough to be very heavily corroded, but that can happen in much less than three hundred years.

Without more information or perhaps some kind of inscription or something, I can't say any more than Richard has already been told.

The most experienced treasure diver on the Treasure Coast has said that no silver rings have been found on 1715 Fleet wrecks.  We do, however, know that they have been archaeologically found on land sites of similar age, so it is difficult to ignore the possibility.

I wonder if they might be trade rings. They are generally small and thin and do not show any outstanding design work that would in any way suggest that they belonged to anyone of high status.

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I received a couple more emails on Terry's gold mystery item.  That post received a lot of attention,

Sal G. thought Terry's gold mystery item could have be Incan.  He pointed out the similarity between the gold mystery item and the gold pendants hanging on the Incan funerary mask shown below.


Picture of Incan Funerary Mask
Submitted by Sal G.
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Closer View of Pendants.
Submitted by Sal G.

Bill K added these thoughts on the mystery object.

...One thing that came to mind when I saw pictures, was that there was a lot of contraband on those old wooden sailing ships and I wouldn't have put it past one of the crew to snitch some, pound it together and punch a hole through it, then tie around his/her neck with a leather strand and try to smuggle it back into Spain. Thus the crude workmanship and punched hole.

Thanks Sal and Bill.

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A lot of my recent posts have been very popular.  I judge by the number of people that read them and also comments I received in emails.

Some topics attract a lot of readers, while other topics do not attract as many readers, they are deeply appreciated by some individuals.

My posts commenting on Oak Island attract more than the average number of readers, and I get nearly universal positive comments about those discussions.  No matter what you think of the show, it gives me examples and illustrations that a lot of people are familiar with and provides a lot of sharp contrasts with my approach.  If you  read what I wrote yesterday and notice how I approach things,, I think you might be able to see some very basic differences.  

Although I don't always know why a particular post gets a lot of readers and others do not, big finds are always popular, as are big changes in beach conditions.  

There are some posts that are read by a huge numbers of people, and i don't know why.  I suspect that they are picked up elsewhere.  One of my all-time most popular posts was the post I published the day after I was interviewed by CNN.  That naturally drove a lot of people to the blog.

On the other hand, there are some posts that I really like that aren't read by many people.  Even though they are read by fewer people, they can be very meaningful to those people that relate to them in some special way, and I get emails telling me so. 

When I started doing this blog I never thought I would have something to talk about everyday, but that hasn't been much of a problem.  In fact right now I have about a hundred pages of content on my mind that might make good posts.  In fact, I keep delaying some items.

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DJ sent the following tip.

... I use the fishing tide tables to scope out future high and low tides that may be good. This site has a handy “Tide Coefficient” that lets you look for a number 90 or higher - they also show the noon phase. You can choose the location - make sure it is for the ocean not river. 

Thanks DJ,

For the next week the surf will be gradually decreasing from the two to three foot range down to about one foot.

The tides will be a bit higher.

Happy hunting,
]TreasureGuide@comcast.net

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Sunday, January 27, 2019

1/27/19 Report - More On Melborne, Florida Artifact Find Reported In Some Sources As An Ican Funerary Mask. More Surf Tomorrow.


Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com

Find Reported As Incan Funerary Mask.
A couple days ago I reported on what was said to be an Incan funerary mask found on the beach somewhere near Melborne, Florida.  As I said then, a lot of it didn't seem to make sense to me.  It turns out that I was not the only one that felt that way.  The ancient-origins.net web site also found the stories confusing and offered some corrections.  It seems that the artifact is not as old as reported and is does not included metal from a meteorite.

The ancient-origins web site reports You are immediately forgiven if you have watched the News 6 video and are in a state of utter confusion, as was I. Sparvero’s introductory scene in the video confidently states the mask is “possibly 10 or 12,000 years old.” But in reality, the Inca formed in the Cusco area of modern Peru in the mid-12th century AD. Going with professor Torres’ suggestion that it’s an ‘Inca funerary mask’ it was forged no longer than 800 years ago, but other archaeologists claim “a native civilization smelted the mask possibly thousands of years BC” according to an article in Florida Today …

 While Torres says the mask is Inca, right after that he says “it might be the first evidence of smelting” in South America. But that was thousands of years before the Inca formed. Searching for hard facts, clarity can be found in an excellent research paper, Metallurgy in Southern South America , written by three of the world’s leading scholars on ancient metallurgy; Colin A. Cooke, Mark B Abbott, and Alexander P. Wolfe. The scientists state , “The earliest evidence to date for smelting activity in southern South America comes in the form of copper slag from the Wankarani site in the highlands of Bolivia dating between 900 and 700 BCE (Ponce 1970).”

Thanks much to Dale J.. who sent me the ancient-origins link, which is probably closer to the truth than much of what has been said and reported about the mask.

 Here is the link.

 https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/inca-artifact-0011370

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 Today was the first day this year that made me want to run out to the beach.  The weather was what I consider excellent metal detecting weather, as long as you have a metal detector that can take the rain.  It was exactly the kind of weather I love for metal detecting - too bad I caught the flu and decided to stay in.

I don't know what happened to the beaches today.  I heard there was both an on-shore and long-shore currents, making it even the more tempting.

As you can see, it looks like we'll have a four to six foot surf tomorrow, along with some north wind.

Source: MagicSeaWeed.com.

If any of you went out Sunday, I'd like to see any photos you got of the beach.

That is all for today.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
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