Starting My Treasure Hunting In England

It is not surprising that industrial diamonds appear on ships transferring supplies. After all, these things are very important to industrial production.

It's just that during World War II, there weren't many people who could identify diamonds, so those people probably hid them after discovering that they were diamonds, without even thinking that these things couldn't be used as gemstones.

However, not all of the 15 iron boxes contained diamonds. In addition to three boxes of diamonds, there was also a box of large and small gold bars, a box of platinum blocks of the same size and ten boxes of silver.

"You are right, our luck cannot always be bad. Although the silver is not that valuable, the gold and platinum nuggets are still very valuable."

After checking these iron boxes, the second step is to check the wooden boxes containing cultural relics. The boxes originally had seals on them, but they have been almost destroyed now, but several museum marks can still be seen from the remaining seals.

At this time, everyone started to unpack the largest box. After opening the box, they found that the items inside were some small statues of gods, both Buddhist and Hindu.

The original inhabitants of the main island of Java are the Javanese and Sundanese ethnic groups of the Malay race. After the first century AD, the island and Sumatra in the west became colonies of India and were ruled by the Indian royal system.

In the Sanskrit book "Ramayana", "Java" is recorded as Yava-dvi^pa, and its scope includes western Java Island and eastern Sumatra. The Han Dynasty in China transliterated Yava-dvi^pa as Yediao or Yavati.

According to the seventy-sixth volume of biographies of "Book of the Later Han", in the sixth year of Yongjian of the Later Han Dynasty (131), King Ye Tiao paid tribute to the Han Dynasty. Later in the Tang Dynasty, the eastern part of Sumatra was called Sri^-vijaya (Srivijaya), and today's Java Island was called Haling.

Even in the early 5th century AD, in the eighth year of Yixi in the Eastern Jin Dynasty (412), the eminent monk Faxian landed in Yapoti to seek Buddhist teachings. The Yavati mentioned here is the antithesis of Yava-dvi^pa, which means ancient Java.

In addition, because there are a large number of people of Indian descent in the area, this area was also a Hindu area in the past, and a large number of Hindu-related relics still remain today.

For example, the Prambanan temple complex built by the Rakaji Picardan dynasty in the 8th-9th century AD in East Java, or the Srivijaya dynasty, is the largest and most beautiful Hindu temple monument in Indonesia.

This important relic is a carrier that records the splendid culture of Indonesian ancestors, although now Indonesians use it for religious reasons. It is less recognized, but it is still included in the World Cultural Heritage together with the neighboring Borobudur.

From this point, we can also see the degree of harmony between ancient Javanese Buddhism and Hinduism. Therefore, after the collapse of the ancient Indian royal family, Buddhists and Hindus who were unwilling to convert fled to the East to preserve traditional customs.

In this process, the two religions also began to merge, which is why the Hinduism in Bali is very different from that in India, and even regards Sakyamuni as the main god of worship.

Considering that both Buddhism and Hinduism like to make various statues of gods, several boxes of things taken out of these museums contain statues of gods from these two religions.

However, perhaps considering the convenience of transportation, these boxes do not contain any oversized statues, but rather smaller, even miniature statues.

"These statues can be regarded as a collection of fine works from different eras in Java. They should be the fine works chosen by the museum at that time after it found that it could not take away everything." After inspecting these statues, Liang En came to a conclusion.

"Anyway, the people at the museum were very capable at that time. At least they picked out the top quality items. Even though these items are stones, they are more expensive than gold of the same weight."

Perhaps because the climate in this area is hot and humid, which is not conducive to the protection of cultural relics, there are not many wooden products and metal objects left. Apart from these stone statues, there are only some fragmentary things.

For example, there are some wooden statues here that incorporate local styles. They look colorful and interesting. Unfortunately, the earliest ones were made at the end of the 18th century, so the prices are not very high.

In addition, similar miscellaneous items include shadow puppets, kites and a series of other gadgets. It is obvious that these things were taken away because they were light and small enough.

It is very common for such things to appear in museums, because for the colonists, these things are the products that best represent the local indigenous people, so they naturally have exhibition value.

"It's a pity that these things need to be restored before they can continue to be displayed or sold." Nelson said with some helplessness. "After all, this kind of organic matter is too easy to damage."

"I personally suggest that it would be more appropriate to display it, because if you want to sell it, these things are too niche and cannot be sold at a high price." Liang En said while opening another box. "Hey, it seems we are pretty lucky. There are actually weapons here."

Some other boxes are filled with almost all kinds of weapons, the largest of which is a cannon that is more than 1m long, but very slender. It is obvious that it is an artillery weapon aimed at people.

The artillery in this area mainly came from the Ottoman Turkish Empire during the Age of Discovery. After realizing the power of gunpowder weapons from the Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch, local rulers went to the Ottoman Empire to learn it.

However, after those artillery technologies were introduced to this region, they also underwent a lot of localization processing. For example, the muzzles of these artillery pieces were all like faucets with an open mouth.

Obviously this is not the style of Ottoman Turkey. For religious reasons, they will never draw or carve animal images on anything, so this must be the result of localization.

"This cannon should fetch a good price." Nelson said very seriously. "Especially for artillery collectors, this gun is definitely something they want."

"Besides artillery, there are many things here." Liang En opened another box and found that there were more than a dozen small boxes inside, all filled with various Western sword hilts.

"Why are these things listed separately?" Jeanne asked curiously. "It's not even a sword, it's just part of a sword."

"Because it involves international trade in the Age of Discovery." Liang En said and opened a small box. Then he pointed to the sword hilt inside which had a distinct Japanese Edo period style.

"At that time, the Dutch had a global trade network, so they also produced many things globally, such as using the human resources of Ma Gang or Edo to produce some things."

"That's what happened with sword hilts like these. They would be made in Asia and brought back to Europe, and then fitted with fine blades from Germany, and then sold all over Europe."

"What's interesting is that before these swords were assembled, they were not regarded as weapons, but as luxury goods, so they were transported over long distances. After all, only luxury goods had the value of long-distance transportation in that era."