The Anomaly by Michael Rutger

This book ably works through a theme near and dear to me: that of hidden mysteries. 

The lead character is a jaded former screenwriter, now reduced to hosting a YouTube series on unexplained phenomena. He and his second-rate production team set forth to locate a cavern in a remote part of the Grand Canyon. Discovered by a 1909 expedition but long since forgotten, it's rumored to contain "wonders". 

The author, Michael Rutger, is a screenwriter by trade. Perhaps that's why he chooses to tell this tale using clever characters who constantly trade snappy dialogue. It's an odd choice given the subject matter of this tale. But the wry banter falls away whenever the action kicks in, which happens frequently. Rutger knows how to keep the pace moving along briskly. The Anomaly is a page-turner. I just kept reading it and reading it until there was nothing left to read. 

These virtues more than balance a couple of shortcomings. A couple of incidents are a bit too similar to certain popular movies (I won't name them, to avoid spoilers). And the author makes an effort to end most chapters with a cliffhanger phrased as a short, punchy sentence, which feels just a bit too manipulative. 

Don't be put off by the negative Kirkus review. The Anomaly is much better executed than Dan Brown's books. It's not as finely crafted as Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation or John Langan's The Fisherman. But it's still a rattling good read for lovers of weird fiction and conspiracy theories.

The Voynich Manuscript

This isn't in the same league as the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred's Necronomicon, or the accursed The King In Yellow. But at least it actually exists. 

The Voynich Manuscript: Decode the World's Most Mysterious Book

Strange Things

I want to be clear on this: I don't believe these things. But they are strange.

• Jimmy Carter, Henry Kissinger and other public figures are in fact dead and are being impersonated by "organic robotoids," according to attorney and financier Peter David Beter. 
• There is a longstanding theory that the Earth is hollow, with access points to the interior at the north and south poles.
• Horror fiction author Whitley Streiber claims that non-human "visitors" to his secluded cabin in upstate New York changed his life forever. 

  

  Ball lightning

• The existence of ball lightning has been debated for centuries.
• A drilling project delved so deep that it reached Hell, according to The Well to Hell hoax. 
• Mel's Hole, an allegedly bottomless pit in the state of Washington, was the subject of a 2008 art exhibit curated by LA Times art critic Doug Harvey.
• The Emerald Tablet, an ancient alchemical treatise, was supposedly discovered in a vault beneath a statue of the god Hermes in Tyana, Turkey, where a corpse on a golden throne held the tablet.  

If you have your own strange story, I'd love to hear about it.

Further Reading

Beter, Peter David. Index of Audio Newsletters. www.peterdavidbeter.com.

Biblioteca Pleyades. http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/esp_tema.htm

Coast to Coast AM Radio: The Latest Paranormal News. https://www.coasttocoastam.com

Colby, C.B. Strangely Enough. Scholastic Paperbacks. 1963.

Streiber, Whitley. Communion - A True Story. Avon. 1987.

Birthday Numerology: The Power of 64

Today is my 64th birthday. This has opened my eyes to many things. I've come to the realization that 64 is a special number. A number great and powerful, like the Wizard of Oz. 

If you divide 64 in half, the result is 32. If you continue the process as far as possible, the result is always a whole even number until you reach the number 1, as shown below: 

• 64/2 = 32
• 32/2 = 16
• 16/2 = 8
• 8/2 = 4
• 4/2 = 2
• 2/2 = 1. 

The fact that you can extend the sequence shown above all the way back to the number 1 is impressive, at least to this blogger. To the ancient Greeks, the number 1 symbolized the first thing that came into existence when the universe was created. Ancient numerologists believed the number 1 represented the origin of all things. All numbers can be produced by adding 1, and only 1, to itself. For example, 3  = 1+1+1. For certain monotheistic religions, 1 represents God.

The divided-by-two sequence works because 64 is a doubly even (or evenly even) number, which means it is divisible more than once by 2.  A doubly even number is even and its quotient when divided by 2 is also even.

Viewed from another angle, 64 can be expressed as: 

• 8 to the second power = 64. Therefore, 64 is a square number (8 x 8).  A matrix with 8 rows and 8 columns contains 64 squares. That is the number of squares comprising a chess or checker board. 
• 4 to the third power = 64. Therefore, 64 is also a perfect cube (4 x 4 x 4). 
• 2 to the fifth power = 64. I am still groping for the meaning of that one.  

These ideas are not original. The Pythagoreans believed that we live in a world of numbers, i.e. that all things are made up of numbers and "are ruled by mathematical constancies and regularities," as Will Durant said (see Further Reading below).  All odd numbers were believed to be masculine, and even numbers feminine. The number 5 symbolized marriage because it is the sum of the first odd number and the first even number (2 + 3 = 5).

"The so-called Pythagoreans, who were the first to take up mathematics, not only advanced this subject, but saturated with it, they fancied that the principles of mathematics were the principles of all things." Aristotle, Metaphysics 

"The most important and first study is of numbers themselves: not of those which are corporeal, but of the whole origin of the odd and even and the greatness of their influence on the nature of reality." Plato, Epinomis

"The best-known instance of numerology is the “number of the beast,” 666, from the biblical Revelation to John (13:18). Curiously, Revelation is the 66th book in the Bible, and the number of the beast occurs in verse 18, which is 6 + 6 + 6. " Encyclopedia Britannica, Number Symbolism

My brain is whirling, on fire with numbers. So many numbers. The year ahead is going to be a great one, driven by the power of 64, because today is my 64th birthday.  But wait - the year ahead is actually my 65th year of life. Last year was my 64th year of life.  Perhaps last year was my special year and I didn't even notice it. Patterns and mysteries can be found wherever you seek them, if you just search hard enough. Whether those patterns mean anything, I cannot say.

Further Reading

Durant, Will (1953). The Story of Philosophy. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Hall, Manly P. (2003). The Secret Teachings of All Ages. New York: Penguin Group.

Michel, John (1971). The Dimensions of Paradise: Sacred Geometry, Ancient Science, and the Heavenly Order on Earth. United Kingdom: Garnstone Press

Stewart, Ian. Number Symbolism. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/number-symbolism#ref849704 January 17, 2018.

Wikipedia. The Number 64. Retrieved from  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64_(number) January 2, 2018.

The Cluny Hoard

It's been a big week for those interested in buried treasure. The latest issue of Coin World magazine reports two significant finds.

In France, archaeologists have discovered a huge hoard of about 2,200 silver and gold coins while excavating the ruins of an abbey. They were probably left there about 850 years ago.

The Cluny Hoard

And in England, a metal detectorist found a gold coin from the reign of Richard III. It was buried  about 16 inches below the surface in a farmer's field in Warwickshire. Richard III reigned from 1483 to 1485, so the coin may have been there for over 500 years.

The Warwickshire find is especially intriguing for two reasons. It was discovered a few miles from Bosworth Field, where Richard fought Henry Tudor and died in the battle described in Shakespeare's Richard III ("My kingdom for a horse").  And the fact that it came to light in Warwickshire has special significance for me, because two of my ancestors were born there around 1650.

Coin of Richard III

Medieval Hoard of Coins Found in France at Abbey of Cluny - Coin World, Dec. 4, 2017

Detectorist Finds Rare Richard III Gold Half Angel Coin - Coin World, Dec. 4, 2017

Urim and Thummim

Among the pleasures of retirement is the freedom to research anything that arouses my curiosity. That is what led me to the Urim and the Thummim. These oddly-named and hard-to-pronounce objects came to my attention when I decided to read a page of the Bible each day.  That effort is further explained in a separate post, The Bible Reading Project. 

The Old Testament

The Urim and the Thummim are briefly and cryptically mentioned in Exodus 28:30, in which God directs Moses to make "a breastpiece of judgment," to be worn by the high priest Aaron:

"In the breastpiece of judgment you shall put the Urim and the Thummim, and they shall be on Aaron's heart when he goes before the Lord; thus Aaron shall bear the judgment of the Israelites on his heart before the Lord continually."

There is a similar reference in Leviticus 8:8. But apparently the Bible contains virtually no direct explanation of what the Urim and the Thummim actually are.  They seem to be objects, since they are put in the breastplate.  Based on 1 Samuel 14:41, scholars suggest that they were somehow used in divination by the high priest. These may have been objects (perhaps stones or bones) which were cast in attempting to discern God's answer to a yes-or-no question. 

I hasten to add that these are the findings of biblical scholars, not my own. But I will offer this observation: the names Urim and Thummim are vaguely disturbing. I can barely pronounce them. Thummim is particularly bothersome. It contains too many "m" letters. Those words sound ancient, far removed from any modern language. They remind me of Bifur, Bofur and Bombur, the dwarves in The Hobbit, or something from an H.P. Lovecraft story. 

The Mormon Connection

Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (the Mormons), claimed that he possessed the Urim and the Thummim. He stated that this came about after he was visited in 1823 by the Angel Moroni, who had been sent by God. 

The angel, Smith said, revealed the location of the breastplate of judgment, with the Urim and the Thummim attached, and golden tablets revealing "the fullness of the everlasting Gospel." Upon looking into the Urim and the Thummim (two "seer stones" set in silver bows), Smith claimed to receive revelations from God. He also claimed that he used the Urim and the Thummim to translate the tablets into at least part of what ultimately became The Book of Mormon. 

There is much more to this story, involving magic spectacles, a sword, a second set of golden tablets, and the bizarre process by which the translation occurred (one witness claimed Smith dictated the words while gazing into his hat). The matter is complicated by conflicting accounts from Smith's associates, his wife and the prophet himself. Those with an interest can consult Fawn Brodie's excellent and objective biography of Smith. It reveals that in addition to Urim and Thummim, Joseph Smith had certain "peep stones" that enabled him to detect the presence of buried treasure of a very secular nature. 

The New Age

Among New Age mystics, interest in the Urim and the Thummim continues to this day. Authors have published entire books on the subject, despite the fact that virtually nothing is known beyond what I've summarized above. And to my dismay, I have discovered products for sale which are supposed to be replicas of Urim and Thummim and the breastplate of judgment. In fact, I was given one of the latter years ago as a housewarming gift, and did not even know what it was supposed to be. 

Further Reading

• No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith - by Fawn Brodie
• Urim and Thummim: A Guide for Using the Breastplate of Judgment for Decision-Making, Advice and Divination -  by D.W. Prudence
• The Breastplate of the High Priest: Unlocking The Mystery of The Living Stones - by Gwen Mouliert

The Gnostic Gospels

By Elaine H. Pagels
1979; Vintage Books/Random House; 182 pages
ISBN 0-679-72453-2

I wasn't seeking religious enlightenment when I started reading this book. I bought it mainly because I'm interested in archaeology and history. But I got much more than I bargained for.

First, as to the archaeology and history which so intrigued me: in 1945 an Egyptian peasant discovered a jar buried in the desert near the town of Naj Hammadi. In it were 13 papyrus books, bound in leather. Sold on the black market through antiquities dealers in Cairo, some were eventually acquired by a Dutch biblical scholar. The first line he translated was: "These are the secret words which the living Jesus spoke, and which the twin, Judas Thomas, wrote down." 

He recognized this as the first line of the Secret Gospel of Thomas. Written by a gnostic Christian sect in the second century AD, this was one of many texts that early church leaders excluded from the New Testament. As Pagels put it:

"What we call Christianity – and what we identify as Christian tradition – actually represents only a small selection of specific sources, chosen from among dozens of others. Who made that selection, and for what reasons? Why were these other writings excluded and banned as 'heresy'?"

Pagels makes a convincing argument that what we know as Christianity was influenced not only by competing religious beliefs, but also by church politics in the first two centuries AD. What follows is a summary of Pagels' key ideas.

The roots of this conflict lay in disagreements over the nature of the creator, and how one gains  access to the supreme being. Some of the gnostic Christians who wrote these gospels believed that the self and the divine were identical. They believed that to know oneself at the deepest level is simultaneously to know God. 

The gnostic Christians believed in a supreme being who started the process of creation - brought the universe into existence out of nothingness. But they also believed that a lesser and imperfect divine being, the demiurge, took what the supreme being created and fashioned it into the form and substance of the universe - an artisan god, if you will. Since the demiurge was not perfect, this explained why the universe is not perfect.

Gnostics believed that orthodox Christians were mistakenly worshipping the demiurge, believing it to be supreme being. They also believed that the bishops and priests of the established church understood only the elementary doctrines. The gnostic Christians claimed to offer access to secret mysteries and higher teachings, which came from the supreme being. 

Thus, for the gnostics, the established church could not be the ultimate religious authority. The individual gnostic did not need the established church hierarchy in order to attain self-knowledge, and thereby to know God.  

This brought the gnostic Christians into conflict with the orthodox church, which insisted that there is only one God. Orthodox Christians believed their church's legitimacy came directly from the 12 apostles, who had direct contact with Jesus during his lifetime.  The apostles' successors, and the inheritors of their authority, were the bishops, priests and deacons of the established church. Therefore, according to orthodox church thought, theirs was the one true faith, and none could come to the father except through Jesus, who died to save the world from sin and thereby redeem all believers.

In contrast, gnostic Christians viewed Jesus as a spiritual instructor who came from the supreme being to show the path to God, which proceeded through self-knowledge. Once the individual had attained this gnosis (usually translated as "knowledge"),  Jesus was no longer the instructor, but an equal.

For these reasons, gnostic Christian beliefs represented a threat to both the doctrine and the authority and hierarchy of the established church at Rome. That, Pagels says, is probably why the gnostic gospels were called heresy, suppressed, and excluded from the New Testament.

I was baptized and confirmed in the Episcopal Church. But I have never been a person of faith, because the church's concept of God has internal contradictions that I can't accept. I cannot accept the idea of a creator, king of the universe, who loves us but also stands ready to judge each and every one of us for doing or thinking the wrong things. I can't bring myself to believe that a supreme being with the power to create all things visible and invisible would also watch us and insist that we worship and obey him. But to this reader, what Pagels has written is nuanced and acceptable. History is written by the victors. Christianity is a doctrine shaped by the victors in a dispute over fundamental matters of theology. The gnostic scriptures put the early church in a less than divine light. 

Further Reading

The New York Times, June 14, 2003 - The Heresy That Saved A Skeptic (interview with Pagels)

Gnosis.org -  The Gnostic World View: A Brief Summary of Gnosticism 

The Catholic Encyclopedia - Gnosticism

Wikipedia - Catharism (two Gods, one good and the other evil)

The Internet Classics Archive - Timaeus, by Plato (demiurge as a craftsman who created the visible and tangible world as a model of something greater)

Vero Beach Shipwreck Gold

Treasure hunters are still finding gold coins from a Spanish fleet that sank off Vero Beach, Florida in 1715. The most recent discoveries: over 200 coins recovered about 100 feet offshore, in only six feet of water.

Link:

Recently salvaged shipwreck gold from 1715 Plate Fleet reaches market

Coin World, October 7, 2016

The Truth About Halloween

A Christian friend once told me that he didn't like Halloween because it was "the Devil's holiday." That struck me as dreadfully misinformed, but when I tried to set him straight, I found I wasn't quite sure of the facts. Thus began my one-man crusade to uncover the truth about Halloween. 

Pagan Festival of the Dead
In the Catholic liturgy, Halloween is the same day as All Hallow's Eve. According to folklore scholar Joseph Campbell:  

"The day after Hallowe’en is All Saints’ Day, followed by All Souls’ Day. In Europe on these days people go to the graves of their beloved ones who have passed away. Hallowe’en, the eve of the holy days (that’s what the word means), is a festival of the ancient Celtic world particularly... In the Celtic world—the world with which Hallowe’en is associated—it is the dead who come to visit the homes. Hallowe’en is the night of the re-entry of the dead into their domiciles, visiting again the people with whom they had dwelled." (Joseph Campbell on the Roots of Halloween - The Daily Beast)

Looking further back, scholars believe the historical origin of Halloween lies in the Celtic festival of Samhain. Larousse World Mythology refers to October 31 as "Samhain's feast." In his monumental work The Golden Bough, Sir James Frazer refers to Samhain as "an ancient pagan festival of the dead": 

"Halloween seems to have been the night which marks the transition from autumn to winter... when the souls of the departed were supposed to revisit their old homes in order to warm themselves by the fire and comfort themselves with the good cheer provided for them by their affectionate kinsfolk." (The Golden Bough - A Study in Magic and Religion, Sir James George Frazer)

Frazer states that on Samhain, the Celts used "manifold methods of divination... for the purpose of ascertaining their destiny in the coming year." He also suggests  that it may have been the Celtic new year.  Nora Chadwick's excellent book The Celts also describes Samhain as "the beginning of the Celtic year, when any barriers between man and the supernatural were lowered." 

Going beyond dead relatives, there was a further supernatural side to Samhain, as Frazer points out: 

"It is not only the souls of the departed who are supposed to be hovering unseen... Witches then speed on their errands of mischief... the fairies, too, are all let loose, and hobgoblins of every sort roam freely about." 

Chadwick puts this into perspective by pointing out "the naturalness with which men, women and the gods to pass in and out of the natural and supernatural spheres (in Celtic mythology). In many circumstances, there does not seem to have been any barrier." 

Based on the above, it's hard to make the case that Halloween is the Devil's holiday. Rather, Halloween seems more like a relic of an earlier belief system, in which looser rules were thought to be in effect on this one day of the year. 

The Lord of the Dead
A diabolical controversy erupted when I consulted The World Book Encyclopedia, the fount of all knowledge when I was a child. The World Book describes Samhain as "the festival of the Celtic god Samhain, lord of the dead." Could this "lord of the dead" be an earlier representation of Satan? 

A detailed treatment of that subject by the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance maintains that there never was a Celtic lord of the dead called Samhain. Rather, they say, this was an 18th-century author's error that has been perpetuated by the popular media. 

Cernunnos, the horned god

That appears to be the case. After further searching, I found no scholarly source which mentions a Celtic god called Samhain. The Celts did worship a horned god, Cernunnos. He was the lord of wild things, according to The Encyclopedia Britannica. Some say he was the Celts' god of fertility, life, animals, wealth, and the underworld. To my mind, that description is too multi-faceted to support a belief in Cernunnos as an evil supernatural being.

What then was the original source of the connection between Halloween and the Devil? The most satisfying explanation I have found is that of tensions between early Christianity and the pagan religions which preceded it:   

"(The feast of) Samhain, with its emphasis on the supernatural, was decidedly pagan. While missionaries identified their holy days with those observed by the Celts, they branded the earlier religion's supernatural deities as evil, and associated them with the devil. As representatives of the rival religion, Druids were considered evil worshippers of devilish or demonic gods and spirits. The Celtic underworld inevitably became identified with the Christian Hell." (Halloween: The Fantasy and Folklore of All Hallows by Jack Santino, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress)

Here, perhaps, we have come to the heart of the matter: an ancient pagan festival of the dead returning from the underworld, later characterized by Christians as a night when evil beings from Hell are let loose. It's only one step from this explanation to that of "the Devil's holiday."  

The Old Devil
Unless my sketchy research has missed something,  it seems we safely can lay to rest the notion that Halloween is the Devil's holiday -- a conclusion made easier by the fact that I don't believe in "the ol' Devil" (as my granny used to call him) anyway. I welcome any information or opinions to the contrary. Just share your thoughts by leaving a comment in the space provided below. And have a frightfully happy Halloween.  

Further Reading

• All Hallows Eve - Catholic Education Resource Center
• All Saints Day - The Catholic Encyclopedia
• Cernunnos - The Encyclopedia Britannica
• Halloween's Celtic Roots - The Archaeological Institute of America 
• Halloween in Scotland, by Ben Johnson: article published in History UK - The History and Heritage Accommodation Guide
• Halloween, Samhain, All Saints Day - The Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance 
• Samhain: Season of Death and Renewal, by Alexei Kondratiev: article published in An Tríbhís Mhór: The IMBAS Journal of Celtic Reconstructionism, volume 2, issue 1/2

Elusive Polish Treasure Train

According to this story in The New Yorker, there is a culture of treasure hunting in southwest Poland. With good reason: they keep finding abandoned tunnels.  

The Nazi Underground: Is treasure hidden beneath the mountains of Poland?

by Jake Halpern

The New Yorker, May 9, 2016

"Starting in 1943, the Nazis began building a series of underground bunkers beneath the Góry Sowie, or Owl Mountains, in Lower Silesia. All told, there were seven facilities...Historians believe that the Nazis intended to connect these facilities with tunnels; and some treasure hunters...insist that the tunnels were completed and then sealed off by the German military in the last days of the war. The problem with the tunnels, from the treasure hunters' point of view, is that they present a seemingly endless number of possibilities. Each new passageway, even if it is empty or a dead end, leads to a spot where another passageway may start." 

The Watlington Hoard

Selected items from the Watlington Hoard

Probably buried over 1,000 years ago, this coin hoard was discovered in a farmer's field in Oxfordshire, England. It includes over 180 coins from the reigns of Alfred the Great of Wessex and Ceolwulf II, last king of Mercia, as well as arm rings and ingots. The hoard has the potential to shed new light on the history of the period when Alfred defeated the Vikings and united Wessex and Mercia to form England, according to this article in Coin World magazine (April 27, 2016).

The Reading Hoard

Archaeologists recently found about 300 Roman coins buried on the grounds of a school in Reading, England. These intrepid explorers came upon the hoard while inspecting the area in advance of a construction project. Buried in a pottery urn, they were. 


This find would have been much more interesting had it been made by daring schoolboys, sneaking out in the dead of night to dig holes all over the school property. Were there no school legends of buried treasure on the property, guarded by spiders and grinning skeletons? My own school had such tales. Older boys whispered of a Playboy magazine and a pack of cigarettes hidden in a paint can in our school basement. I actually searched for them.    

Roman Coins Discovered Buried at The Ridgeway Primary School 

May 11, 2015

Man Finds Hidden Treasure

This hoard was concealed in a secret compartment in a chest of drawers. How long had the treasure been hidden there? That's anyone's guess, but the dresser itself is thought to date to 1890. The lucky guy bought it for $100 at an estate sale.  

Texas Man Finds Treasure Hidden in Chest
Good Morning America, May 12, 2015

Abandoned Station on London Underground

The Londonist reports that the long-abandoned Down Street Underground station may reopen, if it can be converted to some new public use. Built in 1907, it has been closed for some 80 years. Yet it's still down there (pun intended), dark and empty, a ghost station on the Piccadilly Line. 

From a passing train you may catch a glimpse of it between Green Park and Hyde Park Corner. But that won't be easy. The platforms were disguised during the Second World War, when the old station was an underground hideout for War Office workers. Read more about that here.

Down Street station, street level

Stairs down to platform

There are many such abandoned stations. It's a subject avidly followed by a well-developed subculture of enthusiasts. What accounts for such deep interest in this obscure subject? I believe it is the seductive attraction  of... hidden mysteries. They are right there beneath our feet, like abandoned mines or the underground stream central to the bizarre speculations of  The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail, a 1982 treatise on a hypothetical link between Jesus, the Holy Grail, the France's royal Merovingian dynasty and painters of the 16th century.

But don't be distracted by that now-discredited theory. Abandoned Underground stations are real. The long-shuttered Down Street station could return to service in some new form. I hope it does. We need to make use of historical spaces before we throw up yet another dreary modern building.   

Further Reading:

• Connor, J.E., London's Disused Underground Stations, Capital Transport Publishing; 2nd edition (January 1, 2001), 128 pages, ISBN-10: 185414250X
• Connor, J.E., Abandoned Stations on London's Underground, Connor & Butler Ltd, 2000, ISBN 0947699309 
• London's Abandoned Tube Stations: http://www.abandonedstations.org.uk/
• Urban Ghosts: http://www.urbanghostsmedia.com/2013/11/13-abandoned-stations-disused-platforms-london-underground/
• Disused Underground Stations (official Transport for London site): https://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/culture-and-heritage/londons-transport-a-history/london-underground/disused-underground-stations

Centuries of History Unearthed in Quest to Fix Toilet

Repairing a toilet in this old building in Lecce, Italy, Luciano Faggiano discovered a false floor. Beneath it were underground corridors, a Messapian tomb, a Roman granary, a Franciscan chapel, and many relics. I ask again: why can't something like this happen to me? I am always open to uncovering hidden mysteries. But I simply cannot find them.

 New York Times

Link: 
Home Repair Opens a Portal To Italy's Past
New York Times, April 15, 2015

The Caesarea (Israel) Hoard

Amateur divers recently found nearly 2,000 coins from the 11^th century in this ancient harbor in Israel:

Link:

Israel's largest-ever gold hoard discovery reported at ancient harbor

Coin World, March 9, 2015

Despite being underwater for nearly 1,000 years, the coins didn't need cleaning or conservation. That's gold, brother. It resists corrosion and tarnish. 

Discovered in Caesarea National Park, Israel

But let us be honest. And precise. This is not a hoard. Proper hoards are accumulated by eccentrics, gathered  obsessively, guarded jealously in secrecy for years. Hoards are hidden. They are bricked up in walls, hidden beneath false floors, and stashed in chests in the basements of derelict houses, as in The Hardy Boys: The Mystery of the Applegate Treasure (Mickey Mouse Club, 1956).

In contrast, the Caesarea discovery is the result of a mere natural disaster. This is shipwreck gold. Nevertheless, I would like to find 2,000 gold coins. Hoard, shipwreck, or otherwise, sack of gold lying in the middle of the street... it makes no difference to me.

The Charleroi Hoard

Construction workers found about $60,000 in small bills hidden inside a wall while remodeling an old house. The house, built in 1910, is typical of many homes of similar vintage which one finds in the Pittsburgh area.

Link:

Judge dismisses criminal charges filed against four who found $60K

Observer-Reporter, Green County PA, 12/30/14

The Aylesbury Hoard

Treasure hunters in England have unearthed a hoard of over 5,000 coins from the Dark Ages in a farmer's field near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. One of the largest hoards of Anglo-Saxon coins ever found in Britain, it includes coins from the reigns of Ethelred the Unready (978-1016 AD) and Canute (1016-1035 AD). 

Link:

Amateur treasure hunter's £1m find of Anglo Saxon coins

Daily Telegraph, January 1, 2015

Home Again, Home Again

I'm the only person you know who bothers to think of things like this, let alone write about them. But bear with me. Once again, I've uncovered hidden mysteries.

Many moons ago, my father was fond of reciting a certain line of verse as he steered his Pontiac Thunderchief into the driveway of our New Jersey home. "Home again, home again, jiggety jig," he would always announce, as we arrived at 74 Canoe Brook Parkway, the center of my tiny universe during my formative years.  

As we all know, this is part of a much longer nursery rhyme which includes the verse: "To market, to market, to buy a fat pig/ Home again, home again, jiggety jig."  When my wife told me she had never heard of that nursery rhyme, I was taken aback. "It's that one about riding a cock-horse to Banbury Cross," I patiently explained, beginning to recite it in full until she exclaimed that I was driving her crazy. 

As it turns out, I was wrong. The two phrases come from separate and distinct nursery rhymes, although they are structurally similar. Analyzing end-word rhymes, both follow an a-a-b-b pattern: 

Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross, (a) 
To see a fine lady upon a white horse. (a)  
Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes, (b)  
And she shall have music wherever she goes. (b)

That's the same rhyming scheme we see in: 

To market, to market, to buy a fat pig, (a)
Home again, home again, jiggety-jig. (a) 
To market, to market, to buy a fat hog, (b)
 Home again, home again, jiggety-jog. (b) 
To market, to market, to buy a plum bun, (c)
Home again, home again, market is done. (c)

I frankly cannot recall from university literature courses whether the number of syllables per line is supposed to follow a strict pattern. But I counted them anyway. "To market, to market" follows a strict classical 11-10-11-10 syllabic structure, bringing to mind titan wordsmiths of the past. Spenser. Marlowe. And Shakespeare, of course. Don't forget Shakespeare. 

The first line of "Ride a cock-horse" has 9 syllables, followed by 10, 11 and 10 syllables respectively. Intriguing: 9-10-11-10. Was it deliberately designed that way? Perhaps there were two more lines, continuing the syllabic pattern to 12-10. Completing the cycle.  What happened to those two final lines, now lost in the mists of time, like in a Dan Brown novel? What secrets lie concealed here? Diabolical conspiracies? Ancient heresies? Buried treasure? What does it all mean? 

Hidden mysteries, indeed. 

The Dumfriesshire Hoard

A treasure hunter with a metal detector has unearthed a hoard of Viking gold and silver, one of the most significant ever discovered in Scotland.  This haul includes a gold cross (photo below), armbands and brooches. Estimated value: 1 million pounds sterling. 

As you can see in the video included in the excellent BBC story (link below), the lucky fellow who found it looks like a stereotypical Scottish hard man. With his burly, broken-nosed air of bald-headed  menace, this guy could easily pass for a Glaswegian knee-breaker in a novel by Denise Mina or Ian Rankin. He also resembles Phil Mitchell on Eastenders and Mike Tindall, Zara Phillips' rugby-playing husband.     

Links:

Viking treasure haul unearthed in Scotland - BBC News, October 12, 2014

1000-year old Viking treasure hoard found in Scotland - Reuters

Dumfriesshire Hoard - Wikipedia

Cross, circa 900 AD, from the Dumfriesshire Hoard.

There also exists a Dumfriesshire Hound. But that is another story.