Article originally in the Financial Times. Other articles .
Since Bashar al-Assad’s oppressive regime collapsed in December, Damascus residents noticed a new phenomenon in the streets at night: dark figures with flashing metal detectors. Even in the countryside, men with shovels and maps arrive in private agricultural land who claim to seek where underground wealth is located.
The Syrians, liberated from the fear that ruled in Syria for Assad, but still suffering from extensive poverty and the heritage of war, were infected with golden fever. “In the regime, it was impossible to go to seek on a month’s night” because there was a danger of catching you, said 67-year-old Abu Wael, who himself declared himself a “professional” treasure hunter.
It has changed now. According to sellers in Syria, metal detectors could not be bought before, but this year several shops have been opened in the capital, dedicated exclusively to these facilities. They sell models for up to $ 10,000, their interpretations are decorated with pictures of Syrian flags, gold nuggets, and men who brand up the latest detectors.
In fashion are detectors for children
One of the sellers said a handful of people secretly kicked treasures for decades, but after Assad’s fall, they were significantly added, because “these devices can be bought with greater flexibility”. Like most respondents, he did not want to be named because it was a sensitive topic.
The seller said that many Syrians are firmly convinced of the existence of buried treasures because “our region is the cradle of many civilizations”. He added that some customers suspect that valuables are buried in their country, usually due to family legends that are handed over from generation to generation.
“But we have a lot of people who do it as a hobby. For those who go camping, it’s fun to fill your free time. There are even machines made for children,” he said. “We sell baby sizes in green and pink.”
The next dealer said that he has sold dozens of detectors in his shop in Damascus, in which he has exhibited a large poster with “metal and water detectors”. Inside are hand German, Chinese and American detectors, as well as expensive, long -range heavy devices. The sellers claimed that some Syrians even arrived from neighboring countries to engage in hunting.
They live on archaeological sites
Finding treasure is also attractive to the Syrian psyche thanks to the rich history of the country. For generations, the Syrians have exchanged legends about buried treasures, ancient gold and invaluable artifacts left by long -extinct civilizations and travelers along a silk journey or pilgrims to Saudi Arabia.
“Everyone in our region knows a relative who once dug in his house and found a container full of gold,” said AMR al-AZM, Syrian professor of Middle Eastern History and anthropology at Shawnee State University in Ohio he worked before the war at the Ministry of Monuments. “It is part of the mythology of our region.”
In the Assad regime, however, such expeditions for excavations were illegal, allegedly for the protection of monuments. Those who dared to dig made it in the dark and did not tell anyone about it. When, after the fall of the Assad dynasty, there was a security vacuum, the Syrians, of which 90 percent of whom live in poverty, rushed to the monuments to get to artifacts, dig in their yards and demolish the walls in finding hidden wealth.
Al-AZM said, “War in Syria destroyed people’s economy and living, so they were looking for other sources of income.” This concept did not seem exaggerated, as most Syrians, as he said, “lives on an archaeological site, next to the archaeological site or what a stone would have agreed from the archaeological site”.
The government closes the eyes
Damascus engulfed the rumor: A handful of men allegedly dug an ancient treasure and got rich from day to day, although the number of men, the place and the type of treasure were different every time they talk. The experts with whom the Financial Times talked about this article refused this story. They argue that if gold was found, it was probably peeled out of the museums or houses of the Assad’s minions who have decorated their settlements with antiques.
No findings have been confirmed yet. However, the Syrians captivated these rumors, especially after years when they watched the regime and its soldiers who looted and plundered where they could. A member of the Government Media Office stated that such excavations are still “technically illegal”. “But [vláda] He closes his eyes before it is unable to chase everyone and send patrols to all areas, ”they said.
Retailmen throughout the region have threw themselves on this business opportunity, even through Facebook: one store in the United Arab Emirates, which focuses specifically on Syrian customers, offers transport and promises metal detectors allegedly suitable for Syrian rocky and basalt soil.
Others offer a detector that displays buried objects in 3D and determines what depth they are. The latest is a waterproof version for those who are sinking because of gold.
Al-AZM said that hunters often focus on the areas around the Hejaz railway, which worked at the beginning of the 20th century and connected Damascus with Medina in Saudi Arabia, believing that this site is dotted with gold. He added that some believe that the retreating Ottoman forces, which were defeated by the British in Jerusalem in 1917, buried on the way to the north of the chest with gold.
Most are counterfeits
The Syrian museums boast hundreds of thousands of artifacts and manuscripts, including Greek statues and murals from the 2nd century. Approximately 300,000 of them were allegedly hidden in secret places during the bloody years after the beginning of the civil war in 2011. In 2018, when the war alleviated, some of them were exhibited in the National Museum.
It is not clear how many artifacts have been stolen or destroyed during the war. Antiques and local news site experts claim that stolen gold crowns, crosses and coins have reached the home of super -rich people around the world.
Abu Wael said that such an illegal international sales would not have been made online. However, opportunists have now taken up opportunities to sell their “findings”. “Most of what is offered for sale, social networks or oral submission of allegedly Ottoman or Roman gold coins is false,” said Professor Al-AZM.
The flood is attributed to “too lush imagination of people”. Other subjects were probably stolen goods. “They have already offered me and I have seen real examples of important artifacts from different parts of Syria. After the fall of the regime, they have been rapidly added and it is a result of a security vacuum that, unfortunately, has occurred after the fall of the regime.”
Who finds gold will lose reason
Abu Wael described the dangers related to the terrain on the so -called “real” mission of gold hunters, including the risk of attacks by local residents who will notice and chase gold hunters to seize everything they find. On the phone, he has videos of some findings sent to him by other buyers looking for him: one shows a cautious unpacking of a fragile Hebrew scroll with gold letters, reminiscent of stories about the ancient treasures buried in Jewish cemeteries.
In a quiet interview in a crowded Damaic cafe, Abu Wael said that after 40 years of treasure search he knows that wealth will not be easily found. He accuses metal detectors that they are deceiving people to spend their modest savings on an impossible dream. Abu Wael says that the so -called wizards and magicians – the most famous of them is nicknamed Red Sheikh – collected from people fees for “reading” inscriptions and ancient scrolls that allegedly led to the treasure.
Abu Wael is an experienced hunter. He was looking for a treasure for 40 years and never found none. Once he was close to his own words: years ago, after he was declining a series of inscriptions for several weeks and dug in several places, he returned to the last place of excavations just to find him upside down. “The villagers told me that a group of men were digging overnight and found a chest with gold,” he said. “But that’s probably the best: we have a saying that whoever finds gold will lose reason.”
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