What do you think about this?
Among the Dead Sea Scrolls, the ancient documents found in caves near the shore of the Dead Sea, there is one that is nothing like the others. Discovered in a cave at Qumran in 1952, it is not written on fragile parchment or papyrus. It is engraved on thin sheets of almost pure copper. And it does not contain scripture or prayer. It is a treasure map.
The Copper Scroll lists sixty four locations across the ancient Holy Land where staggering amounts of gold and silver were said to be hidden. It names cisterns, tombs, aqueducts, and buried courtyards, with directions like so many talents buried under the steps, or bars of gold beneath a certain terrace. Added together, the totals it describes would amount to tons of precious metal, a fortune almost too vast to believe.
And here is the puzzle that has haunted scholars for more than seventy years. Not one item on that list has ever been found. The directions use landmarks that vanished two thousand years ago, so a stairway or a cistern that made perfect sense to the writer means nothing to us now. Some believe it records the hidden treasury of the great Temple in Jerusalem, spirited away before the Romans destroyed it.
Is it possible that a genuine ancient fortune is still out there, sitting exactly where a scribe carved its location into copper, waiting on directions we can no longer follow?
A list of real buried temple gold, or an ancient legend set in metal? What do you think became of the treasure of the Copper Scroll?
What do you think about this? The Abenaki spoke of something in Lake Champlain long before Europeans arrived, and Port Henry still keeps a sign counting sightings. In 1977 Sandra Mansi photographed a long neck and a dark hump, and no hoax was ever found in it. Log, or a real animal?
What do you think about this? In 1579 Francis Drake beached the Golden Hind somewhere on the northern California coast and claimed the land for England. Nobody can say which beach. A brass plate found in 1936 was celebrated for decades, then proved a hoax. Point Reyes, or somewhere else?
What do you think about this? Among the Dead Sea Scrolls, one is engraved on copper instead of parchment, and it is a treasure map. It lists 64 hiding places holding tons of gold and silver. Not one has ever been found. Real temple gold, or an ancient legend set in metal?
What do you think about this? On August 15, 1977, an Ohio telescope caught a 72 second burst from Sagittarius, 30 times stronger than background, right on the hydrogen frequency. The astronomer circled it and wrote Wow. It never came back. Fluke, or one word of a conversation?
What do you think about this? The Shroud of Turin carries a full length image of a man that behaves like a photographic negative, which nobody noticed until it was first photographed in 1898. Carbon dating said medieval. Nobody can explain how the image formed. Artwork, or something else?
What do you think about this? In December 1900 three lighthouse keepers vanished from a rock off Scotland. Door shut, meal uneaten, clocks stopped, one oilskin still on its hook, so a man walked into a storm without it. No bodies found. Rogue wave, or something stranger on that island?
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