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‘Passion’ Category

  1. Where To Now?

    April 20, 2014 by Melissa Shallcross

     

     

     

    Well, since this is my last “passion” post relating to all things treasure, I figure I should leave you with a few television shows that will continue to show you the great thrill of the hunt. Of course there are so many out there on History Channel and Discovery Channel that I love to watch. It’s amazing to see the kinds of things that people can find all over the country, where they find them, and especially how they came across them. I’ll give you a little synopsis of a few I’ve watched many times.

    Auction Hunters

    Auction Hunters

    – Auction Hunters – This show gives “treasure hunting” a different perspective. The stars of the show, Allen and Ton, travel around the country in search for storage unit auctions. When a person with a storage unit doesn’t pay their rent for a set amount of time, their unit can go up for auction to the public. The trick to these auctions, though, is that they don’t always know what’s actually in the unit, what they’re bidding on. Usually the auctioneer will give the crowd a few minutes for everyone to get a look at the unit. However, they aren’t allowed to touch anything. So behind that gigantic dirty old couch could be pirate’s treasure chest – or nothing. Allen and Ton are experienced and use clues of the objects they can see and judge what else the person could have hid inside the unit. You’d be surprised what some people have!

    Link

    American Pickers

    – American Pickers – Mike and Frank are a duo of “pickers” who travel the country and love to get down and dirty looking for valuable antiques and collectibles in people’s own collections and junk yards. While they find so many great treasures on the show and make a pretty good profit, one of my favorite things about this show is the people they run into on the show. Usually the people they find have such unique stories of how they got involved in “picking” and their personalities are almost always just as unique. The people can be seen as treasures themselves.

    Link

    Antiques Roadshow

    – The Antiques Roadshow – I grew up with The Antiques Roadshow on PBS, so obviously it’s my favorite. The Antique Roadshow is a traveling group of antique appraisers who travel the United States and who welcome anyone to bring their antique belongings to be analyzed by professionals. I don’t know if there’s a permanent group of appraisers that travel the country or not, but I do know they have appraisers who specialize in certain areas of cultures and arts in different areas they travel to. Whether the guest has an idea of what their item is worth – or even an idea of what their item is – or not, the appraisers on The Antique Roadshow always seem to figure out just how much it’s worth and explain the history of each.

     

    I’ve seen just about everything on the collection of antique and collectibles shows I watch. It’s amazing what people find and how something can be worth millions of dollars and was just found in the closet. So, I hope this little list will open you up to a world of antiques and treasures that will continue my stories of the thrill of treasure hunting. Enjoy!

     

    Works Cited:

    http://www.sentryjournal.com/2011/03/08/history-channels-american-pickers/

    http://www.allposters.com/-sp/Antiques-Roadshow-2013-Box-Daily-Calendar-Posters_i8928425_.htm

    http://www.tvrage.com/Auction_Hunters


  2. To Europe!

    April 10, 2014 by Melissa Shallcross

    One thing about Europe that I am very jealous of is its age. Castles and ruins and old churches, from the middle ages to the Roman era and beyond. You can’t find any of that in the United States, which was only settled a few hundred years ago. The U.S. is like a baby compared to its older brother Europe.

    Greater age means older relics – and more relics – to find. Sure, every once in a while in America someone will stumble upon some impressive discovery of a stash of coins from the eighteen hundreds or old wartime relics buried in battlefields. But Europe’s rich history over thousands of years of occupancy has created so much culture and so many diverse stories, all waiting to be told through a relic lifted from the ground. Not just two hundred-year old coins and old belt buckles from the U.S. Civil War, but things like ancient Roman coins and relics from biblical times!

    Imagine living on a piece of land that has been occupied for thousands of years! For all you know, if you live in Europe, your house could be sitting on an ancient burial ground from the Black Death or the site of an old Renaissance era house that burned down. Here in the U.S., I’d be happy finding an old wartime souvenir or a coin from the 1800’s, because I know the U.S. hasn’t had all that much time to gather enough history to provide a ton artifacts than those few hundred years. (Granted, I know there’s history from the Native Americans, but in the long run, I believe Europe still provides a more diverse and historic treasure trove.)

    Let’s look at some of the things people have found in the last several decades in the old land of Europe.

     

    <—- Anglo-Saxon gold, from war items to crosses and a strip of engraved gold with a biblical inscription on it (pictured at left) were all found by a metal detector hobbyist in Staffordshire, England. In 2009, this man, Terry Herbert, went metal detecting in a field and found and excavated over 500 artifacts before contacting professionals, who then excavated another 800 pieces. This is said to be one of the best archaeological Anglo-Saxon finds ever, with its contents dating all the way from the 7th century. Go find that in America.

     

     

     

    Talk about luck! At only 3 years old, James Hyatt dug up an amazing treasure in Hockley, Essex, ——-> England. After only a few minutes of holding the metal detector in the field, as James recalls, “I was holding the detector and it went beep, beep, beep. Then we dug into the mud. There was gold there. We didn’t have a map – only pirates have treasure maps.” How insanely adorable is this equally insanely lucky kid? It is believed that what they found is a reliquary (a locket holding a religious relic) dating back to the 16th century, around the time of Henry VIII.

     

    Well, I’ve run out of room… but if you want to see more insane treasures found by ordinary people in Europe (… well it seems I’ve focused on Britain) then check out this article which talks about another discovery of ancient Celtic silver coins found in England and has a list of several other significant finds!

     

    Works Cited:

    http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/09/24/staffordshire.uk.gold.hoard/

    http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jersey-metal-detector-treasure-hunters-941566

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1330198/James-Hyatt-unearths-2-5m-treasure-trove-FIRST-metal-detecting-expedition.html


  3. Saddle Ridge Hoard

    April 4, 2014 by Melissa Shallcross

    Hunting for world coins in antique shops and just collecting them on my travels is definitely exciting to me, but the idea of going out and searching for old coins on a dive or out on old land with a metal detector sounds like so much more fun!  Although my dad used to go scuba diving on old wrecks all the time years ago and I would love to learn how, I really don’t think scuba diving is fit for me. I’d be too afraid of there being an accident and the ocean isn’t a very forgiving place. Plus, I don’t live that close to the shore, so scuba diving for coins doesn’t seem to be an option for me.

    Diving for treasure

    Diving for Treasure
    http://www.exploring-the-outer-banks.com/wreck-diving.html

    Metal detecting for coins on a place rich with history, like near a battlefield or on an old settlement, would be super exciting! I have a metal detector and we’ve used it before on the beach. Found a Kentucky state quarter – not quite what I was hoping for. Once again, I don’t live near any place of such historical importance to be able to just go out and find something really old. So I’ll stick to the metal detecting the few times in the summer I do end up on the beach.

    But do you really need to be near the ocean or an old battlefield to find something really cool? Apparently not! About a month ago, the media caught wind of the story of a couple in California who stumbled on the find of a lifetime. Last February, while walking their dog on their property in Northern California, the middle-aged couple, who have asked to remain anonymous, noticed an old can sticking out of the ground. Curious, they dug it out, and seven others like it.

    What they found in those eight cans is considered by the couple’s representative, veteran numismatist Don Kagin, to be one of the

    Saddle Ridge Hoard

    Saddle Ridge Hoard
    http://news.yahoo.com/calif-couple-strike-10-million-gold-coin-bonanza-183614916.html

    largest coin discoveries of the kind in the U.S. What makes the Saddle Ridge Hoard such an amazing find is the near mint condition of the 1,427 gold coins dated from the 1840s and 1850s. With a face value of about $27,000, this load of coins is estimated to be worth over $10 million because of the rarity of its age and condition. Some are so rare they’re valued at about one million dollars a piece. Why are these coins so rare? Well, until the 1880s, California had banned the use of paper money, so coins from before then were usually well worn and few were intentionally preserved. Check this article and video here to hear more about the treasure.

    Graded Saddle Ridge Coin http://news.yahoo.com/calif-couple-strike-10-million-gold-coin-bonanza-183614916.html

    Graded Saddle Ridge Coin
    http://news.yahoo.com/calif-couple-strike-10-million-gold-coin-bonanza-183614916.html

    No one knows the real story behind these coins, why they were taken freshly-minted stored in cans buried in the ground. One theory is that in the 1850s or so, the person who buried these coins did so because they mistrusted banks at the time and buried them as their own security measure.

    Whatever may be the true story behind the coins, the point is, an ordinary couple in California found a huge treasure in their own backyard. They didn’t need scuba gear or metal detectors (initially at least), all they needed was an observant eye and a curious mind. We don’t have to be insane treasure hunters like Indiana Jones, we can just be ordinary – maybe with a little more luck than most people, but ordinary overall.

    P.S. – Did I mention the finders are planning on selling most of the coins on Amazon?

     

     

     

     

    Works Cited:

    http://news.yahoo.com/calif-couple-strike-10-million-gold-coin-bonanza-183614916.html


  4. Shark Tooth Hunting

    March 28, 2014 by Melissa Shallcross

    Let me tell you about something I think is an interesting and unique kind of treasure hunt: shark tooth hunting. Sounds funny! What do you do? Go to a shark infested part of a beach and look for teeth scattered along the shore like you’d normally find shells? Well, I guess you could find some place like that, but there’s at least one place I know of where you don’t have to be afraid for your life when you wade into the water – well, sort of, but I’ll get to that later.

    So, where can you find shark teeth besides at the ocean, you ask? How about a bay? Oh trust me, bays are full of sharks. We love to sit out and watch the not so little dorsal fins break the water in Delaware where we go camping. But most of the shark teeth I’m talking about aren’t from the little fins you see swimming out in the water.

    When I was in elementary school, my family took a vacation out to a place called Calvet Cliffs State Park in Maryland, right off the

    Chesapeake Bay. The park is open for anyone to enjoy, with miles of hiking trails, great fishing spots, and sandy beaches – everything set up for a nice weekend trip. But the one unique aspect of the park that makes it unlike any you can find in, say, Pennsylvania, is its supply of fossils lying in the shallow water and in the sand, waiting for anyone to stumble upon.

    According to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources website, over 600 species of fossils have been identified at Calvet Cliffs State Park. Most of these fossils are anywhere between ten to twenty million years old, stored there during the Miocene era. Last week I mentioned my treasured coin from 1821. That doesn’t nearly compare to picking something out of the dirt that has never been seen by any other human or just about any type of living being for millions of years!

    Walking along the shore is certainly a way to stumble upon fossils, anywhere from Miocene era oyster shells to shark teeth, but if you really want to hunt for this treasure, you’ll want to grab a sieve and shovel and wade out into the shallow murky waters of the bay. There, with a few little scoops, you’re destined to find tons of shark teeth, anywhere from a half inch long to over four inches long!

    As I mentioned before, though, you do need to be careful when you’re out hunting, at least at Calvet Cliff State Park. Visitors aren’t allowed to hunt under the cliffs to the side of the beach because of the danger of landslides. Of course, my personal bad experience there wasn’t from falling rocks, but rather jellyfish… SO, just remember you’re sharing the water, just being a guest in the bay creatures’ home! As you may think, our trip to the state park was cut short, but I have plans to go back this summer! If you love the thrill of the hunt and are nearby in Maryland, stop by Calvert Cliff State Park and find yourself some multimillion-year-old shark teeth!

     

    Works Cited:

    http://www.dnr.state.md.us/publiclands/southern/calvertcliffs.asp


  5. Coins Galore

    March 21, 2014 by Melissa Shallcross

    Find me in an antique store, and I’ll probably stay there til I’m an antique myself. There’s just something about walking around, searching through piles of treasures, from paintings to old toys and classic soda machines, that gets me so entranced. No doubt this hobby of going to antique stores stemmed from my grandfather and his garage that I talked about before. And my parents love to go through antique stores, too. My absolute favorite things to hunt for in an antique store, though, are coins. World coins, to be exact.

    http://www.wallpapersshop.net/wallpaper/coins-of-the-world/

    http://www.wallpapersshop.net/wallpaper/coins-of-the-world/

    I get a thrill from finding a box full of world coins sitting in a glass cabinet at an antique store. My favorite shop I go to over in Lancaster, PA has boxes and boxes full of world coins, starting at fifty cents a piece. Now, honestly, I don’t go hunting through these coins like an expert or anything. I’m not researching the years and mint date of coins from tons of different countries. I’m not really looking to find a jackpot of a coin, something worth hundreds of dollars, although that can be nice sometimes. What I look for in those old wooden, dirty boxes labeled $.50 is beauty and history.

    The feeling I get from picking up a coin from another country, another century, is completely indescribable. The idea that I can hold a piece of history and culture that survived both the World Wars, or kept itself in pristine condition after a century and a half, or depicts someone once infamous or not fully remembered, is amazing to me. My sister shares my passion for collecting world coins, and I can tell she thinks I’m crazy for picking out old, dented coins with holes drilled into them and the wording and etchings barely readable. But the thing is, I feel myself holding so much personal history in those coins. How did it get to be like this? Who drilled into the coin? Were they making a necklace? Was this a prized possession of theirs?

    Of course, I don’t just love those worn out coins. As with all of my world coins, I love to think about how they could have gotten to be where they are now, sitting in my hand at an old antique shop in the middle of PA. One of my favorite coins is one of the oldest I own, from 1821. It’s almost 2 centuries old! And it’s from South America! How could this old coin have possibly survived this long and how did it get here? I love to think about all of that.

    http://www.portlandcoins.com/products/coins

    http://www.portlandcoins.com/products/coins

    However, one of my favorite things about world coins is the culture you can see. Different etchings of royal seals and national animals and so many different languages and styles and calendars. Different thicknesses and edges, various symbols and materials. I could sit and stare at my coin collection forever. Researching my coins is so intriguing, finding out the political and historical background of when the coin was born.

    Even though most of my coins probably don’t cost any more than what I paid for them, they’re still valuable treasures to me.  And hey, you never know, one day I might stumble upon a coin in the $.50 box that’s worth hundreds and hundreds of dollars! You never know, and that’s just one aspect of the thrill of the hunt!


  6. From Old Garages to Treasure Hunting

    March 6, 2014 by Melissa Shallcross

    Picture a garage full of miscellaneous items; old gardening tools piled in the corners, a spattering of different state license plates hanging from the ceiling, and a stack of old Life magazines by the tool chest. Piles upon piles of scrap metal and bolts and tools fill the garage, with a wide line of “junk” outlining where the underbelly of a small silver car sits. The only part of the old concrete floor you can see is when the car is gone, where two tire tracks remain.

    This is my grandfather’s garage. Whenever we traveled to my grandparents’ house, my favorite thing to do was go down to the basement or out to the garage and sift through all the rusted treasures. My grandfather’s passion for collecting unique, old items, it seems, has been passed down to me. As the years went by, the thrill of the hunt for something unique in that old garage grew to a passion for collecting coins and gemstones. For this post, I’m going to focus on those vibrant, gleaming gems that every girl loves. But they can be a guy’s best friend, too, when it comes to their value.

    http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/julian-mining-company-julian?select=N2PBVucPh1-Hrqbk7N4NuQ#N2PBVucPh1-Hrqbk7N4NuQ

    When it comes to finding treasures, gemstone hunting is probably the most accessible to anyone and everyone. My first experience gem stone hunting was back in elementary school. It was at one of those many sites where you bought a bucket of dug up dirt and rocks and sift through little bits at a time and keep what you think looks anything like a valuable gem. And just because you’re not going out into some ditch somewhere and digging up the gravel yourself doesn’t mean you don’t find anything. Believe it or not, the businesses that do this usually don’t search through the gravel before giving them to out to customers. We found loads of gems from that one day, some slightly invaluable, but others worth well enough to pay off the buckets we bought.

    What I’m getting at is that you don’t have to be a world traveler or a trained scuba diver to find treasures. You just have to go to the right places. I’ve seen those gem businesses everywhere from state parks to local hometown attractions.

    But if you want to go for the big bucks, there are specific places here in the U.S. that are hot spots for gem hunters. The Travel Channel has a great list of these places, and I’ve been to a few! If diamonds are what you’re looking for, try the perfectly named Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arizona. Believe it or not, this is the only place in the world where the public can go to search for diamonds and can keep what they find.

     

    Here’s a quick list of where to go to find other precious gems that fit your taste!

    http://newstonesandgems.com/gem-hunting/

    http://newstonesandgems.com/gem-hunting/

    – Emeralds – Emerald Hollow Mine, North Carolina

    – Opals – Bonanza Opal mine, Nevada (Opals are my favorite!)

    – GOLD – Roaring Camp, California

    – Turquoise – Royston Mine, Nevada

     

    So, if you’re a treasure enthusiast like me, but don’t have scuba diving training or aren’t an expert in hunting for precious gems, you can always find a place to go. Local or at least within the U.S., there are tons of places to find those precious gems. Good luck and happy hunting!

     

    Works Cited:

    http://www.travelchannel.com/interests/history/articles/top-10-treasure-hunting-hot-spots

    http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/julian-mining-company-julian?select=N2PBVucPh1-Hrqbk7N4NuQ#N2PBVucPh1-Hrqbk7N4NuQ

    http://newstonesandgems.com/gem-hunting/


  7. The Atocha

    February 27, 2014 by Melissa Shallcross

    atocha2

    Pirates. Hurricanes. Treasure. Royal fleets. Sounds like a telling of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic, Treasure Island. Although I

    would absolutely love to talk about my love of the old world novel, this story requires us to jump forward a few centuries from the time of Jim Hawkins to the more recent period of Mel Fisher. Have you heard his name before? Maybe you have. He’s a world famous treasure hunter. But unlike most treasure hunters these days, he definitely hit the mother lode.

    Off the coast of the Florida Keys, about 55 feet under water, lies the wreck of the Nuestra Senora de Atocha. If Mel Fisher doesn’t ring any bells, does that? The Atocha was a Spanish Galleon, a huge ship that transported gold, silver, and other pricey royal goods from the new colonies of the Americas back to Spain. Way back in the year 1622, this galleon met with the rest of it 28-vessel Spanish fleet in Havan, Cuba, carrying goods with a total worth of about two million pesos. With several unexpected delays and a report of an enemy Dutch fleet nearby, the Marquis of the fleet was forced to split his fleet into two groups and begin sailing back to Spain with a heightened fear of pirate raids and in the heart of hurricane season.

    Well, you can imagine what happened next. The fleet took a beating by a hurricane soon after leaving port. Twenty of the fleet’s twenty-eight vessels pushed past the hurricane and were thrown out into clear, calm water, where they continued on their way home. The other eight weren’t so lucky, among which was the Atocha. Being thrust into the dangerous reefs of the Florida Keys, the Atocha was ripped apart.

    Over $700 million of treasure was laid to rest in the hull of the Atocha alone. That is, until about 363 years later, when the location of the wreck was found. This brings us to our famous treasure hunter, Mel Fisher. In 1985, after over fifteen years of searching, starting each day with his famous optimistic motto “today’s the day”, Mel’s “Golden Crew” hit the mother lode. His website paints a picture of the discovery: “Thousands of artifacts, silver coins, gold coins, many in near mint condition, period and earlier amazing Spanish objects and wares, exquisite jewelry set with precious stones, gold chains, disks, a variety of armaments and even seeds (which later sprouted!) were recovered.”

    Mel Fisher’s determination and lifelong dreams inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island had finally paid off. With the work he contributed, up to his unfortunate passing in 1998, and the continuing work of his crew and business mainly run by his children, over $400 million of the $700 million has been salvaged and preserved from the Atocha.

    1715 Fleet 8 Reales Silver Coin, Grade 2 with 14K Mount $2,025.00 http://store.melfisher.com/collections/other-shipwreck-coins/products/1715-fleet-8-reales-silver-coin-grade-1-with-14k-mount

    1715 Fleet 8 Reales Silver Coin, Grade 2 with 14K Mount
    $2,025.00

    With that said, over $300 million of the gold awaits to be discovered at the bottom of the sea off the coast of the Florida Keys.

    Spread out over a 50-mile stretch, the treasure can still be salvaged today. If you are an experienced diver and want to take a shot at finding sunken treasure, the Mel Fisher crew offers to take people out on the wreck to help find the treasure yourself! Or, if you’re a little less sea-going, but still love the history, there’s a variety of coins from the wreck for you to purchase online through their website.

    Someday, maybe I’ll get my dad to teach me how to scuba dive. I’m sure the thrill of finding sunken treasure is something to experience!

     

    Works Cited:

    http://www.melfisher.com/default.html


  8. Forrest Fenn’s Treasure

    February 19, 2014 by Melissa Shallcross

    If you knew for sure that there was a chest full of ancient valuables worth upwards of three million dollars just lying around the mountains of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and there were nine clues given in a poem to lead you directly to it, would you go look for it?

    Forrest Fenn's Treasure http://dalneitzel.com/

    Forrest Fenn’s Treasure
    http://dalneitzel.com/

    What if it looked like this? —————————————————————–>

    Yep, that’s the treasure a man named Forrest Fenn left in the mountains, tempting everyone and anyone to go out a find. Why, do you ask? Well, it’s a pretty great story.

    It all started when he was 9 years old, walking a newly plowed field, and coming upon an arrowhead lying in the dirt. Thrilled to think that the arrowhead had awaited thousands of years for him to pick it up right at that moment, his passion for hunting for treasure was ignited. Over the next few decades, Mr. Fenn traveled the world and collected as many treasures he could find, from relics in Pompeii to rare gold coins, jewelry to gold nuggets. He and his wife even opened an art gallery in Sante Fe, which came to be a huge success.

    His good fortune took a turn for the worse, however, when in 1988, Mr. Fenn was diagnosed with cancer and about to lose a kidney. His doctors told him he only had a 20% chance of living another three years.

    Deciding to continue his reputation of being anything but ordinary, Mr. Fenn  collected all of his most prized possessions, reported by the Huffington Post to be “265 gold coins, hundreds of gold nuggets, some weighting more than a troy pound each, prehistoric gold fetishes, a 2000 year old necklace made of carved quartz crystals and other semi-precious stones, hundreds of rubies, diamonds, emeralds, two Ceylon sapphires, and two ancient Chinese carved jade figures.” Having packed all these relics into an old, ornate, bronze chest (pictured above), he drove out into the mountains above Santa Fe to a spot he claims is extremely special to him, and left the 42 lb chest lying there for anyone to find.

    It’s not even buried treasure. It’s just lying there!

    Now, Mr. Fenn didn’t expect everyone to just go searching blindly for his treasure. He published a book aptly titled “The Thrill of the Chase” which included a poem, found on the right of Mr. Fenn’s webpage here, with nine clues that are supposed to lead you straight to the prized chest.

    So, has anybody found the chest yet?

    Nobody knows! It could still be there, or maybe somebody found it and hasn’t made the discovery public. The only way to find out, is to go looking for it yourself!

    Having overpowered the odds and beaten his cancer into remission, Forrest Fenn has no regret for hiding away his treasure and continues to hold his silence about the exact location. Currently spending his time happily and peacefully excavating the site of an old pueblo residence in Santa Fe, Mr. Fenn is still searching for treasure, and enjoys watching everyone else hunt for his! In a short documentary (here), Mr. Fenn says he wishes that whoever finds the chest, even if that’s 2000 years from now, that they will donate it to the Smithsonian for everyone to see. What a great story that would make.

    With new clues hidden in his brand new book “Too Far to Walk,” will somebody finally find the treasure?

    Will it be you?

     

     

    Sources:

    http://www.oldsantafetradingco.com/

    http://dalneitzel.com/

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/margie-goldsmith/3-million-treasure-still-_b_3024459.html

    This Youtube documentary


  9. Qin Shi Huang – The Secret Tomb

    February 7, 2014 by Melissa Shallcross

    http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/archaeology/emperor-qin/

    http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/archaeology/emperor-qin/

    Everybody knows the terracotta warriors. The clay statues found in an ancient tomb in China, protecting their emperor in death. The statues seem like common knowledge to most people. But did you know that the emperor’s tomb itself has never been opened?

    Found in 1974 by a group of farmers digging wells into a hillside near Xi’an, China, archaeologists, scientists, and the general public were all intrigued to see what was inside the famed mausoleum of the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang. Reportedly “city-size”, the underground groupings of caverns have only been partially excavated since the burial site’s discovery in 1974. Besides the famed rows upon rows of estimated 8,000 terracotta soldiers and horse-drawn carriages, terracotta dancers and musicians have been found in experimentally-dug pits around the burial mound. With recent technologies, archaeologists and scientists have used a type of radar sensing device that is able to analyze the ground below. A cavern with “stair-like” walls has been analyzed with this device, and it is speculated that this chamber was built for the emperor’s soul.

    The expectations of everything about the tomb are largely based off of the writings of the court historian Siam Qian during the dynasty following Qin, the Han Dynasty. Descriptions of the first emperor of China’s burial chamber speak of a huge space that was highly decorated. A portion of a translation of his text states, “The tomb was filled with models of palaces, pavilions, and offices as well as fine vessels.” Further descriptions include ceilings that depict the night sky with pearls as stars lining the ceiling.

    So why hasn’t this burial chamber been excavated yet? What are they waiting for? Well, for one, another description of the tomb describes a river of the toxic mercury flowing around his tomb. The ancient Chinese believed that mercury to helped bestow immortality on the dead. Emperor Qin Shi Huang even used to take mercury pills in order to lengthen his life, but people speculate that his consuming mercury could have been the reason for his fairly early death at the age of 39.

    As you can imagine, opening the tomb for excavation could have a very adverse effect on both the people directly working with the tomb and the environment around it. Soil testing shows a relatively high amount of mercury content in the area around the burial site, giving a level of credibility to Siam Qian’s writings.

    Another big reason the Chinese government hasn’t given the “ok” for excavating the burial chamber is the prospects of future improved excavation and preservation methods. What if they open the chamber now, and in 30 years they look back and wish the government had waited for another few years for some spectacular new device or system that wasn’t out until then. This is like King Tut’s tomb; we have so much more technology that we could have analyzed so much more today than the original researchers.

    So how long will Qin Shi Huang’s burial chamber be a lost treasure of history to us? What do you think; should curiosity overcome potential science and quench our thirst for the mysteries of the emperor’s tomb, or is patience for future technologies a virtue that will prevail?

     

    You can read more on Qin Shi Huang’s tomb at the sources for the previous information here and here.


  10. Face Off

    November 8, 2013 by Melissa Shallcross

    And the winner is………..!

    #1 Face Off

    ...

    Wilson, Megan. “Face Off Recap: Mother Earth Goddess.” The Nerdy Bomb. 11 Sept. 2013. Web. 8 Nov. 2013.

    Syfy’s Face Off seems like it was made just for me. For those of you who don’t know me too well, I’m really into art, whether that’s me doing it or seeing others create something awesome. Face Off is a reality series where contestants are makeup artists creating characters that fit a challenging theme. Of course there’s the classic Halloween episode each season, where the competitors are put in their natural environment, but the rest of the season is full of every challenge you can imagine. Sometimes, they have to re-imagine classic storybook characters or make a completely new character given a topic, such as a character that could walk out of a certain style of painting or a monster that could have been responsible for a mock crime scene scattered with feathers and claws.

    The creativity and ingenuity you see in each episode is just amazing! One of my favorite parts of the show is seeing all the techniques they use to make the characters. From sculpting to applying and even fabricating costumes and props, there’s always something that makes me just go “wow, I’ve never thought of doing it like that!” As with every good competition show, every competitor is doing their best to make it out on top, winning “top look” for their piece and keeping away from elimination. What’s unique, though, is that even though there’s a competitive edge to the show, the competitors are always there to lend a helping hand to each other when a mold is hard to open or someone gets hurt and loses time going to get stitches (yes, they tend to get hurt a bit on the show with all the rushing around and all).

    One of the main twists of the show this season is that they brought back veterans from past seasons and pitted them against newbies. It was absolutely amazing the creativity and skill they packed into one season! I had so many favorites in season 5!!! Check out the show’s site and episode 11’s photo gallery, maybe you’ll get as addicted to the show as I am!!!


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