HOARD OF GOLD

Waipa Post, Volume 32, Issue 1927, 28 October 1926, Page 7

HOARD OF GOLD

BURIED IN MESOPOTAMIA. The greatest hoard of gold in the van-id. declares Mr F. A. Wright, in the Nineteenth 'Century, is buried at ancient Ecbatatana, now modern Ramadan. south of the Caspian Sea. This (enormous hoard was the .royal treasure of Persia, UaTieG there by Darius after lils defeat by Alexander the Great at Arbela, near Nineveh. Darius got away with baggage in the darkness, but,when Alexander followed him a.ncl engaged in, the pursuit which resulte'dl in |t,hje death of Darius, the Persian king was travelling light with .a few companions. Mr Wright thinks that the existence of the treasure was known or suspected by the Romanis, and that when they vffiire paiticularly in need of funds their leaders organised their disastrous eastern expeditions in ithe secret hope of finding It. This, he thinks, is the explanation of the calamitous Parthian wads, in (wlhich tl\|3 .regular legions, 'instead elf attacking the rich cities of the south, welre thrown in vain against .the mountain wall, and broken by the irregular tactics of the Parthian light horsemen. Grasses, the richest man in Rome, pdrislted ,t'h|ujs alt, Garrh'a'ei. Hiis head was cut off and sent to the Parthian king, ilt arrived at*a very opportune moment, when a group of strolling Greek players were performing the “ißacchae” L'efoiju liim. Molten gold was poured into the mouth, and the head was used in the play inslt.ead of the property head) of Pentheus. Antony frittered away his chance of defeating Octaviuls for the ilordsli'ip of the world by wasting 20,000 men and If wo years on these mountains. Octavius’ son Gaius and Tiberius’ son C-ermanicus, and then the Emperor Trajan, dind trying ito penetrate 'them Tlie treasure, wherever it is, is enormous. In the east gold was .moi'e than mb nay. It was the mystic source of life and) power. TherefoW, eastern kings could never have enough of it. iii Lire council chamber of the Persian monarch was a great .plane tree of gold, which 'was continually being inedeasod. Plate abso/r.bed miuloh, huf gold bullion accounted for the great bulk of iit. This Persian treasure was the accumulation of c'entulries of farflung labour and conquest. Where ths rivers of ,Asia Minor run deep in flood to the spa, naked slaves stretched sheepskins and held them tauit against the tide so that they might catch in the fleeces the grains of got'den sand borne down in the turbid tide Phoenician caravans traded 'cloth Sot the gold in .southern Arabia, and Indian expeditions .ransacked the dust of desert anthills. There 'in Mesopotamia rests that great hoard. Mr Wright believes that the arehaeologislt may now succeed whore the legions failed. Bagdad would be a convenient base.