buried treasure

BURIED TREASURE


As much as I hate the process of digging, the unending labor which accomplishes very little at the time ( hey, I ain’t twenty years old anymore, in shape and lusting after endorphins ), the end results fill my blackened shriveled heart with orgasmic glee. I simply love the idea of underground dwellings, structures or construction. Perhaps if I lived in an unending forest I would love gathering and burning wood for heat, for just as in gardening, your primal lusts are filled with whatever saves your life. Here in the wastes of the northern Nevada high desert, I love the thought of an earth sheltered home which keeps me snug and cozy as the temperatures plummet past zero in the middle of November. Not that I’m living in one, as of yet. I have the covered pit, as an emergency shelter if needed. And I’m one fifth done digging the earth pipe trench. I imagine eventually, if the center holds or not, I’ll be moving underground some time in the future. Unless the earth pipes really work wonders. Then it is just making the earths stabilizing feature work for the aboveground area. But I still have daydreams of an underground cave. I can’t dream of lustful females, wealth, semi-automatic weapons or even internal combustion transportation to work so I might as well dream of what is available. Alas, this is not the buried treasure that I am really thinking of. Well, I’m thinking of it but not for today’s article. Today, we talk of modern man uncovering ancient treasures hidden for nearly two thousand years.

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If I’m not mistaken, and please keep in mind I’m referring to my imperfect memory here, topsoil is renewed at a pace of about an inch every hundred years. Okay, some areas might constantly lose some by natural disasters and constant wind, some might get more if there is volcanic ash upwind, and some might see absolutely glacial speed build-up due to little composting organic growth, but as a general rule this is how long it takes for the fertile soil to build back up. If an empire uses up all the soil from overgrowing, then collapses, they need to wait a few hundred years before that area can be successfully planted again. So, if soil is constantly, albeit very slowly, being added to, it makes sense that something buried is going to be harder and harder to find with every passing century. If a Roman dude buried some precious metal coins, chances are good it is under the original amount of dirt, plus at least another foot that has accumulated since then.

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And if a plow only goes down so far, what are the changes that a buried treasure are going to be found? Close to zero. Unless a backhoe is digging a new foundation or something similar, the treasure stays buried. So, given our petroleum powered machines it stands to reason that we’ll suddenly start finding a lot more buried treasure than in previous centuries ( notice how I behaved myself and didn’t start going on and on about how the insatiable greed of bankers for more interest payments helps to get new buildings erected for no good purpose and we are raping the earths resources just for their wealth and if the foul pathetic evil pukes would just die at the hand of their own created monster most of this digging wouldn’t be happening ). To me, it seems a bit amazing that there is so many caches out there being found. And if you follow my logic here you most likely will agree that buried treasure surely indicates further proof of rapid collapse.

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A slow collapse would see wealth buried for safe keeping being passed on to the heirs of the wealthy. Roman dudes everywhere would be telling their sons, Roman dude son, I’ve buried silver in the northeast corner of the apple orchid. It is yours when these troubled times pass and the Empire stabilizes. Now, a slow collapse advocate would just tell you that barbarians invaded and killed off both father and son. Or that a plague killed off the whole family. Seriously? Are you sticking with that story? If barbarians invaded an estate that produced wealth, what is the first thing they would do? They would torture people for the treasures location. And as soon as news of a plague reached a rich household, the treasure would be dug up and the residents would flee. I’m not saying that the slow collapse is impossible. No one knows for sure because we weren’t there and no records were left of a several hundred year period. But as I’ve said before, I believe the lack of records IS proof of fast collapse. No one peacefully slowly dies off from lack of food. They leave diaries. They leave written word of the daily disintegration. I don’t care what the rate of literacy was, someone leaves a record. So why would there be no proof of slow collapse unless it was a fast collapse? Again, I know I could be wrong. It just doesn’t make any sense.

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Why would treasure be left where it lay? My guess is that by that time, only food mattered. With overpopulation and the precarious supply to Rome of northern African wheat, it wouldn’t take much of a push to send everyone into a panicked famine complete with fighting and cannibalism. Every famine sees cannibalism. It might be a last resort, but when the grain ships cease and the public bread stops, how long do you think it would take before the stewpot gets fired up? All these welfare pukes didn’t have any stored food, they were on the daily dole. As soldiers are diverted back to Rome the outlaying areas are left defenseless. It all starts falling apart quickly. Did the barbarians attack that quickly that only the wealthy citizens could take up their weapons to help defend the town? And so perished in the fight, their hoard of buried coins left a secret? Or did their fellow townsmen attack the residence, knowing that was the only place likely to have food? Remember, the Roman empire did to some degree specialize and centralize. Chances are good these places had no farms producing local food. The English pottery center comes to mind. They were a ceramic factory, one assumes with the residents churning out pottery, not working fields. Or, could the fields have been overworked? Abandoned some time ago?

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I know, I know. When you are a hammer everything looks like a nail. When you are a doomer, everything seems to point to utter and complete collapse come resource scarcity. But I just can’t come up with a rational explanation why buried treasure would stay that way in a slow collapse.

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