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The World Today - Treasure Island identified
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The World Today - Monday, 26 September , 2005 12:29:00
Reporter: Julia Limb
TANYA NOLAN: Like any good pirate story, the discovery of
the island home of fictional character Robinson Crusoe now involves
treasure.
Treasure hunters claim to have located a cache of 18th century jewels and gold coins worth $13 billion on an island off the coast of Chile in the Pacific Ocean.
The island was the base camp of Alexander Selkirk, the marooned 18th-century mariner, whose ordeal inspired the story of Robinson Crusoe.
And it was believed to be a haven for pirates crossing the vast ocean and legend has it that a Spanish navigator stashed the treasure trove there in 1715.
Since then, treasure hunters have spent years searching for clues that might lead them to the fortune, which it's believed was later reburied by British sailor Cornelius Webb.
Julia Limb has been speaking to Australian archaeologist Simon Haberle, who has spent some time on the island and has doubts about whether the treasure will ever be uncovered.
SIMON HABERLE: Well, it would be a great find if it is true, but I have my suspicions that the people who are making this claim may be jumping the gun a little bit.
There's certainly been lots of rumour and even some written evidence that perhaps there was buried treasure and many people have been looking for this for many years on Robinson Crusoe Island. But nobody has yet really come up with any solid evidence.
The people who are reporting this week have been also looking for a number of years and using a range of techniques and I think what they're suggesting is that they've possibly found a potential locality for the buried treasure, but I believe that haven't actually recovered any treasure as yet, so we'll wait and see.
JULIA LIMB: Now there is quite a story behind this treasure trove. What is that legend?
SIMON HABERLE: There is, I mean, there are a number of legends of buried treasure. A number of the islands were used in the 1700s in particular as a sort of pirate hideaway, if you like. And so a number of pirates actually visited the island, presumably with treasure and may well have left treasure there, but all of it appears to be, sort of, hearsay and rumour with very little solid evidence.
And this is just another one of those stories that were put together and a group of fairly wealthy treasure-hunters have taken this on board and gone to see if they can actually recover this treasure.
JULIA LIMB: Now you've spent some time on this island. Did you come across treasure-hunters while you were there?
SIMON HABERLE: Yes, we did. Yes, there was one particular group and the current group who have made the claim were there, busily excavating one particular spot, which had the look of a scorpion, a red scorpion, that was just this volcanic, sort of, feature, a little mound, and that's described in one of the early letters that describes this buried treasure as a place of the scorpion. And this was a locality that this group had been digging into.
My impression of the site when I was there was simply that it was an exposed volcanic ridge that probably was very unlikely to hold any buried treasure. But this was certainly, they were pursuing this idea at the time.
TANYA NOLAN: Something straight out of the fiction books, but seems to be a reality.
Archaeologist Simon Haberle from the Australian National University with Julia Limb.
Treasure hunters claim to have located a cache of 18th century jewels and gold coins worth $13 billion on an island off the coast of Chile in the Pacific Ocean.
The island was the base camp of Alexander Selkirk, the marooned 18th-century mariner, whose ordeal inspired the story of Robinson Crusoe.
And it was believed to be a haven for pirates crossing the vast ocean and legend has it that a Spanish navigator stashed the treasure trove there in 1715.
Since then, treasure hunters have spent years searching for clues that might lead them to the fortune, which it's believed was later reburied by British sailor Cornelius Webb.
Julia Limb has been speaking to Australian archaeologist Simon Haberle, who has spent some time on the island and has doubts about whether the treasure will ever be uncovered.
SIMON HABERLE: Well, it would be a great find if it is true, but I have my suspicions that the people who are making this claim may be jumping the gun a little bit.
There's certainly been lots of rumour and even some written evidence that perhaps there was buried treasure and many people have been looking for this for many years on Robinson Crusoe Island. But nobody has yet really come up with any solid evidence.
The people who are reporting this week have been also looking for a number of years and using a range of techniques and I think what they're suggesting is that they've possibly found a potential locality for the buried treasure, but I believe that haven't actually recovered any treasure as yet, so we'll wait and see.
JULIA LIMB: Now there is quite a story behind this treasure trove. What is that legend?
SIMON HABERLE: There is, I mean, there are a number of legends of buried treasure. A number of the islands were used in the 1700s in particular as a sort of pirate hideaway, if you like. And so a number of pirates actually visited the island, presumably with treasure and may well have left treasure there, but all of it appears to be, sort of, hearsay and rumour with very little solid evidence.
And this is just another one of those stories that were put together and a group of fairly wealthy treasure-hunters have taken this on board and gone to see if they can actually recover this treasure.
JULIA LIMB: Now you've spent some time on this island. Did you come across treasure-hunters while you were there?
SIMON HABERLE: Yes, we did. Yes, there was one particular group and the current group who have made the claim were there, busily excavating one particular spot, which had the look of a scorpion, a red scorpion, that was just this volcanic, sort of, feature, a little mound, and that's described in one of the early letters that describes this buried treasure as a place of the scorpion. And this was a locality that this group had been digging into.
My impression of the site when I was there was simply that it was an exposed volcanic ridge that probably was very unlikely to hold any buried treasure. But this was certainly, they were pursuing this idea at the time.
TANYA NOLAN: Something straight out of the fiction books, but seems to be a reality.
Archaeologist Simon Haberle from the Australian National University with Julia Limb.
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