''Crusader Gold'' is an archaeological adventure novel by David Gibbins. First published in 2006, it is the second book in Gibbins's Jack Howard series. It has been published in more than 20 languages and was a New York Times bestseller.

Plot summary

Following a prologue set in AD 71 when the golden menorah from the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem is locked away in Rome, the novel picks up in present-day Turkey with marine archaeologist Jack Howard on a hunt for ancient treasures in the harbour of

Istanbul ) , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 34000 to 34990 , area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side) , registration_plate = 34 , blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD , blank_i ...

, formerly

Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya ( Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis ( ...

. One item not among the treasures thrown into the harbour when the Crusaders pillaged the city is the menorah, and Jack soon learns from colleagues Jeremy and Maria that it may have been stolen from Constantinople by Norse warrior Harald Hardrada during his service to the emperor of

and taken by him on his explorations of the New World. Jack goes to the monastery at Iona in Scotland to see a priest who tells him that the Nazi Ahnenerbe were on the trail of the menorah in the 1930s. The priest is found gruesomely murdered, showing that there are present-day Nazis who are shadowing them. In

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland i ...

Jack and his friend Costas dive inside an iceberg, where they find a perfectly preserved Viking ship burial containing one of Hardrada's warriors. They go to

L'Anse aux Meadows L'Anse aux Meadows ( lit. Meadows Cove) is an archaeological site, first excavated in the 1960s, of a Norse settlement dating to approximately 1,000 years ago. The site is located on the northernmost tip of the island of Newfoundland in the ...

, the Viking site in Greenland, where further clues lead them to the Yucatán in Mexico, where Hardrada and his men had a final standoff with the

Maya Maya may refer to: Civilizations * Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America ** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples ** Maya language, the languages of the Maya peoples * Maya (Ethiopia), a popul ...

. After a perilous dive into a

cenote A cenote ( or ; ) is a natural pit cave, pit, or sinkhole, resulting from the collapse of limestone bedrock that exposes groundwater. The regional term is specifically associated with the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico, where cenotes were commonly ...

, Jack discovers the truth of Hardrada's last stand and the fate of the menorah, and he has his own final standoff with the latter-day Nazi and his henchmen who have been following him. The book ends with a chapter-length Author's Note in which Gibbins details the historical and archaeological facts behind the fiction in the novel.

External links

David Gibbins's website

References

2006 British novels British adventure novels Archaeology in popular culture Headline Publishing Group books {{2000s-adventure-novel-stub