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Through out history, the thought of finding treasure has driven men to travel around the world. A good example of this was Hernando Cortez, the conquer of the Aztec Empire. Cortez had gone to school to become a lawyer but dropped out after a couple of years and became a soldier and farmer. When he joined the army he was under the command of Diego Velazquez who became the governor of Cuba. When Mexico was discovered, Velazquez decided to send Cortez there to establish a colony. Cortez was the wrong person for the job because he was really a treasure hunter. Valazquez discovered this too late and the rest is history. The treasure of the Aztecs was looted and the Aztec people were murdered, subject to disease and their rulers slaughtered.

But not all treasures were so easy to find. Over the course of time there have been many treasures that just disappeared. Some of them may never have existed. People have spent many years of their lives looking for these lost treasures but not too many have been found, but some have.

A city had existed before Troy and its King had amassed a grand treasure. Troy was built on the same spot. It had been lost for over 3,000 years, but Troy was thought to be a myth and because of this so was the treasure. Troy was found in the 1800s and on June 14th 1873 the golden treasure was discovered at one of the excavations. The treasure was something to behold and was composed of all sorts of objects including, but not limited to, gold bracelets, diadems, chains, broaches, gold wire and thread, buttons, brooches and many bronze weapons. The treasure was not only valuable because of its gold but it was also valuable because of its antiques and ancient artifacts. The treasure made its way to Germany through Greece and disappeared again. After World War II the Soviets discovered the treasure and hauled it away to the USSR where it disappeared again. The amazing thing is that it seems that as many as eight different cities existed in the same place as Troy. Only fragments of the treasure were ever seen again.

The ship was named The Nuestra Senora del Carmen and its nickname was the Genoves. The Carmen was a very large ship for its time. It weighed over 700 tons and carried a formidable brace of cannons, 72 in all. It was picked to haul a very valuable cargo which consisted of somewhere between 80,000 pesos to 3,000,000 pesos of gold and silver, depending upon which legend you believe, along with gold dust, rare woods, cocoa and dry goods. The ship was thought to be safe from attack due to its great defenses but no one had figured that mother nature would destroy what other men couldn't. The ship was caught in a hurricane and went down when it was smashed against the Banner Reef in the Cayman Islands. In the early 1900s it was reported that at least $6,000 in gold was recovered from the wreck but as for the rest of the treasure, it may still be down there somewhere.

Pennsylvania's lost treasure has been talked about and looked for, for many years. The story goes this way, a British naval captain in the early 1800s was commissioned to raise the wreck of a Spanish galleon. It had sunk in the late 1600s but it was easy to see the wreck and it was only in about 20 fathoms of water. The reason the British wanted this wreck raised is that it contained a vast treasure. It was estimated that the treasure of gold and silver contained on the ship was worth $1,500,000 at that time. The captain was able to raise the ship and towed it into Baltimore. From there he unloaded the treasure and went overland to Pennsylvania where he buried it, intending to dig it up at a later time when he returned from England. When he did return he came back with Col. Noah Parker and sent him to dig up the treasure. Parker said he couldn't find it and after several years of looking nothing was found and the English captain died. Parker showed evidence of some affluence from time to time but nothing like the fortune that the ship carried. The British captain was named Blackbeard, not to be confused with Blackbeard the pirate. This Blackbeard was an expert on maritime salvage.

The American Indians are responsible for some legends of treasure. Supposedly indians wiped out a mule train of gold being shipped by the US Army to pay soldiers in the North. The gold was taken and stored in a cave. But the indians died out and at one point only one old woman was left. She took trips into the hills for days at a time and always returned with 20 dollar gold pieces. Many people had tried to follow her but she always managed to allude them. She never told anyone where she went.

The last treasure I decided to talk about is one of the most famous, Captain Kidd's treasure. The real problem is that Captain Kidd was only in business for about a year and a half, if that long. Reports of the treasure, 24 chests of it, were probably greatly exaggrerated or maybe the chests had other things in them and not the reported 86 pounds of gold and precious stones The legend goes on to say that the chests were buried in a swamp on Gardner's Island, off the coast of Long Island, New York. Kidd had told Gardner that if he ever revealed the location of the chests he would cut off his head. Then fate took a strange turn. Kidd was arrested and then executed. Gardner claimed that the treasure was dug up and returned to the authorities in Boston. Despite this claim, people have been looking for the treasure for hundreds of years.

We have only scratched the surface here. There are thousands of lost treasures around the globe just waiting for people to find them. Maybe we will discuss this topic again in the future.