Buried treasure is a

literary trope A literary trope is the use of figurative language, via word, phrase or an image, for artistic effect such as using a figure of speech. Keith and Lundburg describe a trope as, "a substitution of a word or phrase by a less literal word or phrase." ...

commonly associated with depictions of

pirate Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable goods. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, v ...

criminals In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Can ...

, and

Old West The American frontier, also known as the Old West or the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that began with European colonial ...

outlaw An outlaw, in its original and legal meaning, is a person declared as outside the protection of the law. In pre-modern societies, all legal protection was withdrawn from the criminal, so that anyone was legally empowered to persecute or kill th ...

s. According to popular conception, these people often buried their stolen fortunes in remote places, intending to return to them later (often with the use of a pirates

treasure map A treasure map is a map that marks the location of buried treasure, a lost mine, a valuable secret or a hidden locale. More common in fiction than in reality, "pirate treasure maps" are often depicted in works of fiction as hand drawn and cont ...

Pirates

Pirates burying treasure was rare. The only pirate known to have actually buried treasure was

William Kidd William Kidd, also known as Captain William Kidd or simply Captain Kidd ( – 23 May 1701), was a Scottish sea captain who was commissioned as a privateer and had experience as a pirate. He was tried and executed in London in 1701 for murder a ...

, who is believed to have buried at least some of his wealth on

Gardiners Island Gardiner's Island is a small island in the Town of East Hampton, New York, in Eastern Suffolk County. It is located in Gardiner's Bay between the two peninsulas at the east end of Long Island. It is long, wide and has of coastline. The isl ...

near

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United States and the 18 ...

before sailing into

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Kidd had originally been commissioned as a

privateer A privateer is a private person or ship that engages in maritime warfare under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign or deleg ...

for

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

, but his behavior had strayed into outright piracy, and he hoped that his treasure could serve as a bargaining chip in negotiations to avoid punishment. His bid was unsuccessful, however, and Kidd was hanged as a pirate. In English fiction there are three well-known stories that helped to popularize the myth of buried pirate treasure: '' Wolfert Webber'' (1824) by

Washington Irving Washington Irving (April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859) was an American short-story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He is best known for his short stories "Rip Van Winkle" (1819) and " The Legen ...

, ''

The Gold-Bug "The Gold-Bug" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe published in 1843. The plot follows William Legrand, who was bitten by a gold-colored bug. His servant Jupiter fears that Legrand is going insane and goes to Legrand's friend, an ...

'' (1843) by

Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wid ...

and ''

Treasure Island ''Treasure Island'' (originally titled ''The Sea Cook: A Story for Boys''Hammond, J. R. 1984. "Treasure Island." In ''A Robert Louis Stevenson Companion'', Palgrave Macmillan Literary Companions. London: Palgrave Macmillan. .) is an adventure no ...

'' (1883) by

Robert Louis Stevenson Robert Louis Stevenson (born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson; 13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as '' Treasure Island'', ''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll ...

. These stories differ widely in plot and literary treatment but are all based on the William Kidd legend.Paine, pg. 28 David Cordingly states that "The effect of ''Treasure Island'' on our perception of pirates cannot be overestimated," and says the idea of treasure maps leading to buried treasure "is an entirely fictional device." Stevenson's ''Treasure Island'' was directly influenced by Irving's ''Wolfert Webber'', Stevenson saying in his preface, "It is my debt to Washington Irving that exercises my conscience, and justly so, for I believe plagiarism was rarely carried farther... the whole inner spirit and a good deal of the material detail of my first chapters... were the property of Washington Irving." In 1911, American author Ralph D. Paine conducted a survey of all known or purported stories of buried treasure and published them in ''The Book of Buried Treasure''. He found a common trait in all the stories: there was always a lone survivor of a piratical crew who somehow preserved a chart showing where the treasure was buried, but unable to return himself, he transfers the map or information to a friend or shipmate, usually on his deathbed. This person would then go search in vain for the treasure, but not before transferring the legend down to another hapless seeker.Simon Garfield. ''On the Map: Why the World Looks the Way It Does'' (2012). Pgs. 176-180

Cases

The Roman historian

Dio Cassius Lucius Cassius Dio (), also known as Dio Cassius ( ), was a Roman historian and senator of maternal Greek origin. He published 80 volumes of the history on ancient Rome, beginning with the arrival of Aeneas in Italy. The volumes documented the ...

says that, in the early 2nd century, the

Dacia Dacia (, ; ) was the land inhabited by the Dacians, its core in Transylvania, stretching to the Danube in the south, the Black Sea in the east, and the Tisza in the west. The Carpathian Mountains were located in the middle of Dacia. It ...

n king

Decebalus Decebalus (), sometimes referred to as Diurpaneus, was the last Dacian king. He is famous for fighting three wars, with varying success, against the Roman Empire under two emperors. After raiding south across the Danube, he defeated a Roman invas ...

had changed the course of river

Sargetia The Strei ( hu, Sztrigy) is a left tributary of the river Mureș in Transylvania, Romania. The upper reach of the river, upstream of the village of Baru, is also known as ''Râul Petros''. It flows through the town Călan and the villages P ...

and buried tons of gold and silver in the river bed. Later, he ordered the river to be restored and the slaves involved in the works to be executed. However, one of his nobles revealed the treasure's location to the Romans. The Byzantine historian

Jordanes Jordanes (), also written as Jordanis or Jornandes, was a 6th-century Eastern Roman bureaucrat widely believed to be of Gothic descent who became a historian later in life. Late in life he wrote two works, one on Roman history ('' Romana'') an ...

tells a similar story of the burial of the

Visigoth The Visigoths (; la, Visigothi, Wisigothi, Vesi, Visi, Wesi, Wisi) were an early Germanic people who, along with the Ostrogoths, constituted the two major political entities of the Goths within the Roman Empire in late antiquity, or what is kn ...

king

Alaric I Alaric I (; got, 𐌰𐌻𐌰𐍂𐌴𐌹𐌺𐍃, , "ruler of all"; c. 370 – 410 AD) was the first king of the Visigoths, from 395 to 410. He rose to leadership of the Goths who came to occupy Moesia—territory acquired a couple of decades ...

and his treasure under the river

Busento The Busento ( la, Bucentius) is a left tributary of the Crati river, which flows about in Calabria, southern Italy, from the Apennines to the Ionian Sea. The Busento joins the Crati in the center of Cosenza. The legend of Alaric and his buria ...

in 410. The burial places of the

Khazar The Khazars ; he, כּוּזָרִים, Kūzārīm; la, Gazari, or ; zh, 突厥曷薩 ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a semi-nomadic Turkic people that in the late 6th-century CE established a major commercial empire coverin ...

kings (''qoruq'') and other inner Asian people were also under a rerouted river. There are a number of reports of supposed buried pirate treasure that surfaced much earlier than these works, which indicates that the idea was at least around for more than a century before those stories were published. For example, extensive excavation has taken place on

Oak Island Oak Island is a privately owned island in Lunenburg County on the south shore of Nova Scotia, Canada. The tree-covered island is one of several islands in Mahone Bay, and is connected to the mainland by a causeway. The nearest community is th ...

(in

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Eng ...

) since 1795 in the belief that one or more pirate captains had hidden large amounts of valuables there. These excavations were said to have been prompted by still older legends of buried pirate treasure in the area. No treasure has yet been reported found. The

Treasure of Lima The Treasure of Lima is a legendary buried treasure reputedly removed from Lima, Peru, in 1820 and never recovered. It is estimated to be worth up to £160 million or $208 million in today's money. History Spain had controlled Lima since the 16th ...

is a supposed buried treasure on

Cocos Island Cocos Island ( es, Isla del Coco) is an island in the Pacific Ocean administered by Costa Rica, approximately southwest of the Costa Rican mainland. It constitutes the 11th of the 13 districts of Puntarenas Canton of the Province of Puntare ...

in the Pacific abandoned by pirates. The treasure, estimated to be worth £160 million, was stolen by British Captain William Thompson in 1820 after he was entrusted to transport it from Peru to Mexico. The only authenticated treasure chest in the United States, once owned by

Thomas Tew Thomas Tew (died September 1695), also known as the Rhode Island Pirate, was a 17th-century English privateer-turned-pirate. He embarked on two major pirate voyages and met a bloody death on the second, and he pioneered the route which became kn ...

, is kept at the Pirate Soul Museum in

St. Augustine, Florida St. Augustine ( ; es, San Agustín ) is a city in the Southeastern United States and the county seat of St. Johns County on the Atlantic coast of northeastern Florida. Founded in 1565 by Spanish explorers, it is the oldest continuously inhabi ...

. Pirate

Olivier Levasseur __NOTOC__ Olivier Levasseur (1688, 1689, or 1690 – 7 July 1730), was a French pirate, nicknamed ''La Buse'' ("The Buzzard") or ''La Bouche'' ("The Mouth") in his early days for the speed and ruthlessness with which he always attacked his enem ...

, also known as "The Buzzard" (La Buse), was rumoured to have hidden treasure before his death in 1730. No such treasure has been found. During the 1666

Great Fire of London The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through central London from Sunday 2 September to Thursday 6 September 1666, gutting the medieval City of London inside the old Roman city wall, while also extending past th ...

, wealthy residents of the city buried luxury goods such as gold and wine in the ground to protect it from the raging flames above.

Samuel Pepys Samuel Pepys (; 23 February 1633 – 26 May 1703) was an English diarist and naval administrator. He served as administrator of the Royal Navy and Member of Parliament and is most famous for the diary he kept for a decade. Pepys had no mariti ...

, the noted diarist, buried a wheel of cheese in his garden to protect it from the fire. Buried treasure is not the same as a

hoard A hoard or "wealth deposit" is an archaeological term for a collection of valuable objects or artifacts, sometimes purposely buried in the ground, in which case it is sometimes also known as a cache. This would usually be with the intention of ...

, of which there have been thousands of examples found by archaeologists and metal detectors. Buried treasure is as much a cultural concept as an objective thing. It is related to pirates and other criminals who leave stolen artifacts behind for later retrieval, typically in remote places like islands, sometimes with maps leading back to the treasure. The

Fenn treasure The Fenn Treasure was a cache of gold and jewels that Forrest Fenn, an art dealer and author from Santa Fe, New Mexico, hid in the Rocky Mountains of the United States. It was found approximately a decade later in 2020 in Wyoming by an anonymo ...

was reportedly buried by millionaire Forrest Fenn around 2010 and found in 2020, somewhere in

Wyoming Wyoming () is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the southwest, and Colorado to t ...

References

{{Pirates

Treasure Treasure (from la, thesaurus from Greek language ''thēsauros'', "treasure store") is a concentration of wealth — often originating from ancient history — that is considered lost and/or forgotten until rediscovered. Some jurisdictions le ...

Pirate treasure Treasure

Pirates

Cases

See also

References