There are many impressive historic things that we know existed due to various records and reliable witnesses and yet, aren’t able to track them down. The reasons for it may vary from the thing being destroyed, scattered at the bottom of the sea to it being stolen or purposely hidden during times of trouble.
Either way, even hidden from people's eyes ancient treasures remain an important part of the world’s history and these people listed things of the sort that are still missing, answering one Redditor’s question: “What treasures that we 100% know existed still haven’t been found?”
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The tomb of the First Qin Emperor of China exists and we know exactly where it is. The only part of the site that's been extensively excavated for artifacts is the famous Terracotta Army.
The main tomb itself is still completely sealed and no attempts have been made to open it since legend states that it was filled not only with mountains of treasure inside, but also mechanically operated rivers of flowing mercury made to resemble the major rivers and bodies of water in China and booby traps to protect the massive subterranean complex, which has been measured to be around 1/4th the size of the Forbidden City using ground-penetrating radar and other non-invasive techniques.
Apparently archeologists and scientists have found disturbingly high levels of mercury in the ground around the tomb giving some air of legitimacy to the legends which also raises concerns about the legend of booby traps. There's also concern that we do not currently have the technology and knowledge to protect artifacts we'd excavate from outside air and contamination, just like how earlier excavations of the Terracotta Army led to their original colorful paint being destroyed shortly after being unearthed.
EDIT: Since this comment got so popular, I'll add on the "Heirloom Seal of the Realm" also known as the "Imperial Seal of China". Physical possession of the object basically legitimized a claim to the Mandate of Heaven and thus rule over China. It was created in 221 BC, passing along through various emperors and factions until sometime between around 1500-1000 years ago. There's several theories on how, when, and where it was lost but we'll probably never get an answer unless some farmer happens to stumble on a fairly big square hunk of intricately carved jade in some field and realizes what it is.
Wow, this has gotta be one of the coolest things I've ever read! I hope someday we can safely and respectfully excavate the rest of the site.
A large part of Pompei. What they have excavated so far takes an hour to walk through, but a huge part of it remains hidden. This is because they've found that being discovered is causing more damage to the remains than 2,000 years of being hidden beneath the pumice and they're waiting for new technology to preserve it.
The missing Faberge eggs. There are about seven still missing, and only an old black and white photo remains of some of them, along with their descriptions.
Several have mentioned Genghis Khan’s tomb, but I’m more interested in his Black Spirit Banner which survived up until the 1960’s or so before disappearing under Soviet control of Mongolia.
The Black Spirit banner was made from black horse hair and carried by the Khan into battle and displayed during times of war. Similar to the mythos surrounding the Spear of Destiny, it was said the warriors of Mongolia would always be victorious in battle so long as they had the banner. After the Soviet Union took de facto control over the country in the 1950’s, the banner was held in a government office until it went missing sometime in the 70’s.
The book “Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World” by Jack Weatherford is a great read if you’re interested in learning more about the history of the Khans and their impact on our world today.
Yeah , and thank you. Awesome biography the Genghis Khan one . Awesome and awful live ......
"The Amber Room (Russian: Янтарная комната, tr. Yantarnaya Komnata, German: Bernsteinzimmer) was a chamber decorated in amber panels backed with gold leaf and mirrors, located in the Catherine Palace of Tsarskoye Selo near Saint Petersburg"
People are still looking, mostly in Poland
The enormous golden menorah from the 2nd temple.
The Romans took it after sacking Jerusalem. Some people think it’s being hidden by the Vatican, but I think more likely it was melted down and will never be found.
We know the Romans took it, because it is depicted on the Arch of Titus, and the Romans took thousands of gold bowls and utensils from the Temple as well. Considering the original inscription of the Colosseum said it was made with the profits from the loot of the Jewish Temple, it may have been melted down or some rich roman made it an lamp in their house. But we have no clue, but the Romans did a lot of looting in 70CE, and you can even find in the tunnel tours of the Old City of Jerusalem old roman gaffiti from the 10th Legion they marked after their conquest.
Tomb of Alexander the Great. Cleopatra and Marc Antony. Funny thing is, there are all probably buried in Alexandria beneath the modern city.
Totally plausible. Wasn't the tomb of Richard III found under a parking lot?
Not that it isn't found, but the Forbidden Vault (Vault B) in the Padmanabhaswamy Temple in India remains unopened and is thought to contain treasure to a wealth of US$ one trillion. Other vaults opened there were found to contain 18' gold chains, a solid gold sheaf weighing 500kg and a three-and-a-half feet tall solid pure golden idol of Mahavishnu, studded with hundreds of diamonds and rubies and other precious stones.
The reason they don't open Vault B? It's said to be cursed.
It's not said to be cursed. According to legend, a great famine is predicted , and once when the famine becomes so severe , so that there is not even enough food to offer to deity ( very small amount ), it is supposed to be opened to save the country. Source. I'm from the same place
I went to college beside that museum in Boston that got robbed. They never found the thieves or the paintings. The famous Gardner museum theft. No one knows what happened to the paintings still.
Almost all Homo Erectus Pekinensis remains. They were packed up during WWII with the intention of shipping them from China to the US for safekeeping, but the ship supposedly carrying the fossils was attacked and ran aground. Photographs and drawings of the originals still exist but the actual fossils were never found.
This one really isn’t talked about as much as it should. In 1996, billionaire couple Marvin and Kaye Lichtman who collected tons upon tons of priceless items art, chess sets, Faberge eggs, etc were murdered by a glass installer that they hired. Before burning the house down, the glass installer made off with as much of the couple’s riches as he could haul away. Shortly after he tried to flee to avoid prosecution and before he was caught, 3 men involved with the salvage operation at the scene were arrested for peddling items that were salvaged and they stole. Most of the lichtman’s collection including the items stolen by the glass installer who murdered them have never been found.
King Johns Crown Jewels. Lost while crossing the Wash on the east coast of England. Over 800 years ago
The shipwreck of Flor de la Mar. Sunk with the equivalent of $2 billion in todays money.
The horde of Aztec gold stolen and lost by Hernan Cortez and the Spanish conquistadors during the night of sorrows.
While trying to escape from Tenochitlan in the night with the gold, the conquistadors were set upon by the Aztecs. During the fighting and confusion it's thought the gold fell into lake Texcoco. Hernan Cortez escaped with only a small number of his soldiers and the gold has never been found.
$190 million worth of bitcoin on a hard drive in a particular landfill.
It will be one of the most useless treasures to find in the future 😂
Portrait of a Young Man by Raphael. Missing since the end of ww2, all signs point to it having been sold for traveling money by Hans Frank.
If so, that traveling money didn't take Frank far enough. He was executed as a war criminal in October of 1946.
No one mentioned the Ark of the Covenant.
The Honjo Masamune samurai sword.
Irish Crown Jewels.
www.dublincastle.ie/the-theft-of-the-irish-crown-jewels/ EcOVnKCU4A...d-jpeg.jpg 
Tomb of Genghis Khan
everyone at the funeral were killed to not reveal it's location. is that true?
Olavsskrinet; The sarcophagus of Olav Haraldsson.
Remember the christian viking from Vikings: Valhalla? Yeah, he was real. After his death, he became a saint and a bridge between old Norse faith and Christianity.
He was eventually laid to rest in a jewel adorned sarcophagus in the Nidaros cathedral. It was Northern Europes biggest destination for pilgrims until the reformation.
When Norwegians broke with the catholic church, Olavsskrinet - maybe with Olav still in it - disappeared. Buried under the cathedral? Sent to Denmark? Nobody knows.
The entirety of DB Cooper's loot.
This is not correct. Some of the money was recovered at Tina's bar on the Columbia River. The interesting question is was the money placed there, or did it end up there naturally? The river was dredged by the army core in between the hijacking and the discovery of the money. It was still bundled together oddly enough.
When Alexander the Great was returning from India laden with uncountable riches plundered he decided to lead his troops through the Gedosian desert, emulating some ancient queen who did the journey and barely survived, it is a brutal environment. The army was reduced to a slog through hell, moving on average only 5-7 miles a day amidst endless harsh dunes and dire heat, the ~130 mile trek took them nearly a month. At least a third of his army perished and conditions got so bad that Alexander turned a blind eye and even eventually ordered the slaughter of the baggage train animals so their blood could be drank. Who knows how much treasure lie forever buried in those dunes
Doesn't sound a great thing to do, maybe we should change his moniker to Alexander the Foolhardy
About 83% of the caches from Byron Preiss' "The Secret."
The Secret is a treasure hunt created by Byron Preiss. The hunt involves a search for twelve treasure boxes, the clues to which were provided in a book written by Preiss in 1982, also called The Secret. These boxes were buried at secret locations in cities across the United States and Canada that symbolically represent events and peoples that played significant roles in North American history. Anyone who uncovered one of the treasure boxes was entitled to exchange it with Preiss for a precious gem; after Preiss died in 2005, his estate assumed the responsibility of honoring the terms of the treasure hunt. As of 2023, only three of the twelve boxes have been found. Preiss kept no record of the treasure boxes' exact locations before his death, leaving it a possibility that the remaining boxes may never be recovered. Source: Wiki.
Lost Dutchman Mine ? I think it was somewhere in Death Valley maybe ? been a long time since I heard it mentioned.
Arizona. Specifically, in the Superstition Mountains. Quite a few people have died trying to find it.
The last panel of "The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb", the central altarpiece of the Saint Bavo Cathedral in Ghent. It was painted in 1492, but has been lost for quite a while. A replica now hangs in its place.
According to "museum of the missing", painted in 1432, and snatched by the Nazis in 1942. There's quite a story behind it because it was taken from Germany by the Treaty of Versailles and grabbing it back was Hitler's way of thumbing his nose at that treaty.
The imperial treasures of Japan (Kusangi, the mirror, and the magatama jewel) were supposedly lost beneath the waves during WWII.
Lost Prospector’s Gold Mine, DB Cooper.
Supposedly a ton of gold that Uday Hussain withdrew from the national bank of Iraq right before the US invasion. The US was able to find/seize some of it.
« The US was able to find/seize some of it » *steal some of it. There, I fixed it for you
The 1715 Spanish treasure fleet wreck will almost certainly never be 100% recovered, meaning there’s still some out there.
Mansa Musa's gold.
It would be nice if we could have more details in the lists, we don't know who some of these people are. And no, I don't want to have to look up every time on Google!
The three brothers
An absolutely beautiful set of jewels that simply vanished from record, which is very surprising as they are beautiful and large!
I thought the three brothers had a cloak of invisibility, the elder wand and the resurrection stone?
Note: this post originally had 36 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
If any of these soft can-openers were owned by cats, their treasures are all under the sofa.
the treasure of lima, peru, lost n 1820. in that year, peru was in revolt from spain and fighting for independence. the viceroy wanted to save the wealth from the city and hired a ship, the mary dear and her captain, william thompson to transport the treasure to mexico. the crew and her officers decided to keep the treasure and killed the guards. supposedly, the treasure is in the cocos islands where the crew and ship were captured by spain. the treasure is estimated to be $600,000,000 in todays money.
These make me feel as though I can be the next Indiana Jones...but alas, I am not lol
There are plenty of places we know with massive secret treasures, but no-one knows what is there or how much it's worth. The Vatican is one. Fort Knox, the value of the gold and other treasures there is uncertain within a factor of ten. Safe deposit boxes in Swiss and American bank vaults. Possibly China as well these days.
Just imagine is someone broke into Fort Knox and found it empty, with the gold and other valuables embezzled decades ago.
Load More Replies...
The tombs of the Snake Kings in Guatemala. The tomb of Attila the Hun. The treasure of many pirates, such as Blackbeard and Captain Morgan
If any of these soft can-openers were owned by cats, their treasures are all under the sofa.
the treasure of lima, peru, lost n 1820. in that year, peru was in revolt from spain and fighting for independence. the viceroy wanted to save the wealth from the city and hired a ship, the mary dear and her captain, william thompson to transport the treasure to mexico. the crew and her officers decided to keep the treasure and killed the guards. supposedly, the treasure is in the cocos islands where the crew and ship were captured by spain. the treasure is estimated to be $600,000,000 in todays money.
These make me feel as though I can be the next Indiana Jones...but alas, I am not lol
There are plenty of places we know with massive secret treasures, but no-one knows what is there or how much it's worth. The Vatican is one. Fort Knox, the value of the gold and other treasures there is uncertain within a factor of ten. Safe deposit boxes in Swiss and American bank vaults. Possibly China as well these days.
Just imagine is someone broke into Fort Knox and found it empty, with the gold and other valuables embezzled decades ago.
Load More Replies... The tombs of the Snake Kings in Guatemala. The tomb of Attila the Hun. The treasure of many pirates, such as Blackbeard and Captain Morgan
