Page 87 - All About History 55 - 2017 UK

Lost Treasures

7

Flor de la Mar “the Flor de la Mar …

was built in 1502 to
In the early 16th century, Portuguese
fleets were spreading out across the follow the lucrative trade
globe as it began to forge an empire.
Not content to act as tourists, the ships route to india ”
returning to Lisbon could be expected
to be laden with valuable goods from LAst Known
wherever they had landed. LocAtion
The Flor de la Mar (Flower of the Sea)
was built in 1502 to follow the lucrative Of the coast of
trade route to India. Later, the trading Sumatra,
vessel was pressed into service in the Indonesia
Portuguese wars in India and Malaysia.
When the rich mercantile state of
Malacca fell, the Flor de la Mar was
loaded with all the treasures that the
Portuguese could lay their hands on.
Overloaded with booty, the ungainly
ship became stuck on shoals and was
wrecked by a storm. The treasure of the
Flor de la Mar may still be buried in the Afonso de Albuquerque escaped the Malacca shortly after its
sands and silt of the Malacca Strait. shipwreck by the skin of his teeth capture by the Portuguese, 1511

8 the Amber room

There is a Lithuanian legend about the origin of the amber that washes up the beginning of the German invasion in 1941 found they could not move the
on the shores of the Baltic Sea. The goddess of the sea lived in a palace made aged amber without it crumbling, so they disguised the room with mundane
of amber. When she angered the god of thunder, he smashed it to millions of wallpaper — but this didn’t fool the Nazis.
shards. It is these pieces of gemstone that are gathered by beachcombers. They dismantled the Amber Room in 36 hours, packed it into 27 crates and
But we don’t need to go into myth to find an amber palace. In Catherine shipped them to Königsberg Castle in Germany. Here they were studied for
Palace near Saint Petersburg, a room decorated with over six tons of amber two years until an Allied bombing raid razed the city in 1943. After that, the
was created for the delight of the Russian royal family in 1701. The Amber trail for the Amber Room was lost. Portions of the room have resurfaced over
Room, as it was predictably named, was looted by the Nazis in World War II. the years and a reconstruction of it was created at Catherine Palace in 2003,
Russian curators charged with evacuating national treasures to Leningrad at but the original is still out there waiting to be found.

A hand-coloured photograph
of Catherine Palace’s Amber
Room in 1931
LAst Known
LocAtion

Königsberg
Castle,
Germany

© Alamy, Getty Images
Catherine Palace
was built for
Catherine I of Russia

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