posted on Dec, 24 2007 @ 10:13 PM
This remind me of an Indonesian newspaper article I read 8-10 months ago, about "Ancient Grave Looting"
In a small poor village in West Java (I forgot the village name), dry season was bad, no crops grow and the whole village was starving.
From their forefathers, the villagers know that there is an ancient cemetery, which belonged to a powerful race, and is filled with treasures. So, for
generations, these villagers guard the cemetery complex and never tried to dig the treasure, because of respect & these people are highly
superstitious.
But, since they are starving, and all of the harvest fail, so the villagers gather and decided to dig the cemetery.
They agreed to only take what's needed (the gold), not disturb the corpse, and after taking what they need, bury again the corpse in a respectful
manner. So they went to that ancient cemetery complex in their village. Some have doubt, because the cemetery is very old and there might be no
treasure at all. But they took the chance.
When they dug, they were shocked to find out that the skeletons in each grave are 7 feet tall. The powerful race was a giant race. There were around
20-30 graves in that complex, and each skeleton was wearing gold jewelries.
They wore crowns, ear rings, various bracelets, necklaces, rings and amulets..all made of gold & precious stones.
They realize that their forefathers told them the truth, that these tall people buried in the cemeteries were not ordinary people. They must be
royalty.
The poor villagers took the gold, bury the skeletons again, and sold the gold to the nearby market for the price of approx USD 20 per gram.
They need the money desperately to buy food & basic necessities.
When the Indonesian government hear about this, they regret this incident. The Indonesian archeological community also regret that the villagers did
the excavation without the government's knowledge. But the government didn't do anything about it, they say 'It's driven by their need to
survive'.
When I read this story in a small section of the Indonesian newspaper, I was so intrigued.
Who were these giant people buried there, wearing so much gold jewelry?
Those tombs must be thousands of years old!
I wanted to go to the village to see the tombs, to go to the village market and buy any of the old ancient jewelry they sold from the tombs...those
must be worth MILLIONS of dollars, if you bring it to Christie's or Sotheby's!!
But you know these poor people never think of that. All they care about is to have food on the table for today, that's it.
And those simple gold shop owners in the village, looking at those old ancient jewelry, will think "This is so old, not suitable with today's trend.
Let's burn & liquify it, then mold it into something more fashionable, so people will buy it"
They never realize how valuable those things are.
How ironic.
[edit on 24-12-2007 by tatyara]