# Buried Pirate Treasure **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [October 5, 2007, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-pirate-treasure/421622 "2007-10-05T12:26:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2007, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-pirate-treasure/421622/21 "2007-10-06T03:22:53Z")
[QUOTE=John W. Kennedy] [ul] [li]If it’s well understood that pirates don’t keep their loot aboard ship, then there is no profit for other pirates in attacking them in the first place.[/li][/quote] This doesn’t work because they have to get the loot _sometime_. And if they’re suspected of having just hidden the loot, then a spot of torture would be in order. > [@](#): > > [li]It has been pretty well established in modern times that career criminals have trouble processing the concept, “If you keep doing this, bad things will eventually happen to you.” Pirates generally looked forward to a long and happy retirement; a rather surprising number of them actually succeeded.[/li][/ul] I believe that the list of pirates who made it to happy retirement is an example of selection bias. They’re the famous ones, not necessarily the average ones. I agree with the others here who say that the norm was to split the loot in shares at the end of a voyage, not to save it for some nebulous future. In fact, that seems to be what Stevenson turns into fiction. Flint betrays his crew to keep treasure for himself, but dies before he could dig it up. Good fiction; bad logic. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2007, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-pirate-treasure/421622/22 "2007-10-06T21:07:29Z")
[QUOTE=ftg] Keep in mind that piracy usually wasn’t a full time job. Could be a privateer, a smuggler, a regular shipper, or any combination. Times and circumstances dictated what you may be doing. . [/QUOTE] Also the geopolitical perspective made a difference; the Spanish considered Francis Drake to be a pirate; the English considered him a hero. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2007, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-pirate-treasure/421622/23 "2007-10-07T01:16:49Z")
[QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus] Also the geopolitical perspective made a difference; the Spanish considered Francis Drake to be a pirate; the English considered him a hero. [/QUOTE] Drake was a privateer, someone officially commissioned by Queen Elizabeth to attack ships of an enemy country. That why what ftg wrote is inaccurate. In formality, privateers are not pirates. They are more like the guys in western movies that the marshal pins a temporary deputy badge on. As long as they are sailing under a letter of marque they are as official as the English Navy would later be, though under different rules. Any plunder was to be returned to the Queen, and only what she gave back then parceled out. Keeping and hiding any of it would be treason. All countries of the time operated this way, and letters of marque are mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. The [Wiki page](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privateer) on privateers does a good job of both explaining what a privateer officially was and the way individual circumstances allowed them to shade into what we and even they would call pirates. That doesn’t change the formal difference between them any more than the fact that posses in the Old West at certain times engaged in what amounted to legal lynchings meant that lynch mobs were legal. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2007, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-pirate-treasure/421622/24 "2007-10-07T05:26:34Z")
As for Oak Is and the Money Pit, the Master has spoken: [http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2\_441.html](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_441.html) ---
**Author:** ![Uncommon\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Uncommon\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncommon_Sense)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2007, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-pirate-treasure/421622/25 "2007-10-07T13:11:03Z")
Also, if the pirate ship was having seaworthiness issues they might have chosen to bury the loot rather than limp around in a vulnerable state. Or if they happened to break down near an out of the way place they could stash the treasure until the boat was repaired, maybe getting killed before they could return for it. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2007, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-pirate-treasure/421622/26 "2007-10-07T16:41:59Z")
[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase] That why what ftg wrote is inaccurate. [/QUOTE] Umm, where? Note that I listed privateer among the _other_ things that a pirate might do from time to time. ---
**Author:** ![Tibidabo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@Tibidabo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibidabo)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2007, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-pirate-treasure/421622/27 "2007-10-11T09:45:16Z")
[Roman coins found](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071010/ap_on_sc/portugal_roman_coins;_ylt=AiIAutQBxiOW1ahZ3R_PRhsDW7oF) > [@](#): > > LISBON, Portugal - Archaeologists excavating a site in northeastern Portugal discovered 4,500 ancient Roman coins tucked away inside a wall. > > The bundle of 4,526 copper and bronze coins was hidden inside the wall of a 4th-century blacksmith’s home, said Antonio Sa Coixao, who is leading the excavation in Coriscada. > > The sack holding the coins appeared to have disintegrated, he said. > > “It looks like someone was trying to hide them but they never went back to get them,” Sa Coixao said Wednesday. > > Archaeologists excavating the site — believed to be an ancient Roman village — came across the coins Friday. Sa Coixao said he planned to send the coins to the University of Lyon, in France, to be cleaned and catalogued. > > In addition to the blacksmith’s home, the excavation site, about 180 miles from Lisbon, includes a spa and a large house with heated rooms and colorful mosaics. The dig is expected to last several years. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2007, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-pirate-treasure/421622/28 "2007-10-11T19:01:40Z")
Roman coin hordes are quite common, what does that have to do with buried pirate treasure? ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2007, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-pirate-treasure/421622/29 "2007-10-11T19:46:11Z")
[QUOTE=DrDeth] Roman coin hordes are quite common, what does that have to do with buried pirate treasure? [/QUOTE] Quoting from Cecil’s column: > [@](#): > > For much of human history, if you had some covetable stuff you hoped to hang onto, couldn’t or didn’t want to put it in a bank or the equivalent, and owned a shovel, burial was Plan A. (That’s why, for instance, rural Britons still find pots of long-buried Roman coins.) ---
**Author:** ![Uncertain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Uncertain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncertain)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2007, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-pirate-treasure/421622/30 "2007-10-11T23:49:35Z")
I was surprised to see this in the column: > [@](#): > > An 1850s expedition brought along one Mary Welch, who’d sailed with Graham and had a map purportedly showing the site of his trove. Surely Cecil knows that in the expression _treasure trove_ the word _trove_ is not a noun, but an adjective, meaning “found” in French (the French origin of the expression is the reason that the adjective comes second). Yes, some dictionaries list _trove_ as a noun, but this usage is beneath the smartest human ever. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2007, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-pirate-treasure/421622/31 "2007-10-12T02:45:04Z")
And I suppose you also object to calling George Washington, John Pershing, and George Patton “generals”? After all, it was originally short for _capitaine général_ where _général_ is a French adjective, not a noun. And those pesky astronomers should stop talking about novas too, because nova was originally an adjective in the Latin phrase _stella nova_. I could think of others, but I’m sure you get the point. Trove by itself has been an English noun since at least 1888 when it was used by Rudyard Kipling. Any dictionary published in the last 50 years that doesn’t list trove as a noun isn’t much of a dictionary. ---
**Author:** ![Uncertain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Uncertain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncertain)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2007, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-pirate-treasure/421622/32 "2007-10-12T22:45:17Z")
Yeah, I guess you’re right. Withdrawn. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2007, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-pirate-treasure/421622/33 "2007-10-13T00:28:10Z")
[QUOTE=Rube E. Tewesday] Also, the “provided your crew is 100% trustworthy” would give me some pause, since the crew were, by definition, thieves and murderers. [/QUOTE] Not that I know a tremendous lot about sailing practices of the period, but I seem to recall reading someplace that navigation was a fairly specialized art and the majority of the crew wouldn’t have anything more than a very general idea of where the ship might be located at any given time. If my memory is accurate, then the captain can bop around for a while, pick a secluded beach, take the loot ashore, and sail away, completely secure in the knowledge that hardly any of the men on board would be able to find their way back. I await correction on this point from better-informed readers. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2007, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-pirate-treasure/421622/34 "2007-10-13T05:08:38Z")
[QUOTE=Tibidabo] [Roman coins found](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071010/ap_on_sc/portugal_roman_coins;_ylt=AiIAutQBxiOW1ahZ3R_PRhsDW7oF) LISBON, Portugal - Archaeologists excavating a site in northeastern Portugal discovered 4,500 ancient Roman coins tucked away inside a wall. [/QUOTE] …The coins were inside an ancient Roman wallet, with identification card intact. However, despite a nationwide search, the Roman male has not been successfully contacted… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-pirate-treasure/421622.md?page=1)