I’m asking about Things of Great Importance - be they art, historical artifacts, treasures, etc. - that are “lost.” Here “lost” means that the Thing probably still exists and is somewhere, but nobody knows where. “Lost” doesn’t mean “pulverized into dust” or “burned to a crisp” or “sank to the bottom of the sea” of whatever.
I’ll start. The Amber Room, a glorious Russian artifact that may have been dismantled and put into hiding at some point before or during WWII, but has since been lost to history. It could still very well be in some vault somewhere.
One of my mother’s favorites. There are numerous books and novels about it.
The paintings stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum in 1990, including Storm on the Sea of Galilee, invariably described as “Rembrandt’s only seascape”
And of course, the biggie of all lost artifacts, going back to the first Indiana Jones movie: The Ark of the Covenant. Rumored to be hidden or kept in a few places, including a church in Ethiopia.
I don’t remember where, but I believe I read that supposedly the staff of Moses that turned into a serpent and the 10 Commandment tablets were stored inside the Ark. So find the Ark, and maybe find a trifecta of lost artifacts! If one dares to open it, that is
Yeah, there was a streaming TV report on it, too. It’s disgusting to think that the only reason these works were stolen were as a way for a gangster to bargain his way out of a steep sentence, and now they might be deteriorating in improper storage, or already gone.
Would fossilized bones count as artifacts? If not, then they’re surely treasures: the two footlockers with the bones of Peking Man.
Peking Man is now considered an offshoot of the Homo erectus line, Homo erectus pekinensis, rather than a seperate species, but they are of incredible scientific value.
In 1941, with war looming, the bones of at least 40 individuals were loaded into two wooden footlockers to be transported (via various stages) to the American Museum of Natural History in New York. They never made it there, and their location has been an enduring mystery. (They might be under a parking lot in an Qinhuangdao.)
The source is the Bible. The Ten Commandments were the source of God’s covenant with the tribe of Israel. And the staff did not turn into a serpant, it bloomed into life.
Hebrews 9:4, “The ark of the covenant [was] covered on all sides with gold, in which was a golden jar holding the manna, and Aaron’s rod, which budded, and the tablets of the covenant.”
Ok, I got it straight from the OG source. For some reason I thought that was apocryphal.
It did turn into a snake at one point according to the bible, but perhaps it was not the same staff that went into the Ark. This is the part to which I referred:
Exodus 7:10:So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the Lord commanded. Aaron threw his staff down in front of Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a snake.
A shockingly large percentage of the Moon rocks that have been brought to Earth are unaccounted for - up to the point of a criminal justice professor routinely giving the search for rocks as assignments to students. Stolen and missing Moon rocks - Wikipedia
The paintings stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum in 1990, including Storm on the Sea of Galilee, invariably described as “Rembrandt’s only seascape”…
It was purchased by Bernard Berenson for Isabella Stewart Gardner in 1869
Given than Bernard Berenson was born in 1865, this is pretty good for a 4 year old.
In the year before California entered the Union, Norris, Gregg, & Norris, a private company, minted $5 gold coins, most of which had “San Francisco” on the obverse. There is one, and only one, labeled “Stockton”.
" . . . instead of stating “SAN FRANCISCO” under the “1849” date on the reverse, this piece has replaced San Francisco with “STOCKTON”. Only one piece is known and it resides in the National Coin Collection of the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington DC."
I’d like to see a second one. All N.G.N. coins are rare because most were melted down after statehood.
