SEARCH FOR A TOMB

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 53, 4 March 1939, Page 16

SEARCH FOR A TOMB

From Cosenza, in Southern Italy, comes news of a search for the burial place of Alaric, the great Visigothic King, who died in 410 A.D. ’Y'hen the king died, his people determined that bis grave should be hidden and inviolable. Having carried his bodv to the banks of the little river Busento they forced their prisoners to dig a new channel for the stream, and in its vacant bed they buried their king with a vast treasure of gold, silver, precious garments and weapons. Then the river was turned back io Its former channel and the captives who had done the work were killed so that no Roman should ever know the epot. Now, after more than 1,500 years, it

appears that a French scholar, Mlle. Amelie Cruvolin, has been following the course of the river since last September, and with the aid of her scientific in’ struments has found at a certain place indications of a vast quantity of precious metal, seven metres below the earth surface. At a spot not far distant from the river, workmen engaged it, eonstruet ng u lime furnace came upou traces of antique brickwork in the ground that had evidently once been traversed by water. If the indications are correctly reported, it is possible that the Visigothic secret will be discovered in the near future