Page 126 - Purple Butterfly Book 2

Date:
Montezuma’s Treasure:
After mortally wounding the Aztec Emperor Montezuma on July, 1, 1520, Hernan Cortes and the rest of his men were attacked by the Aztecs in Tenochtitlan, their capital. After days of fighting, Cortes and his men tried to escape with many of the Aztecs’ treasures, but were attacked by the Aztecs again. The Spaniards, trying to save their own lives, threw the wealth into the Tezuco Lake. The hoard was made up by a huge amount of jewels, along with uncountable gold and silver ornaments. Cortes and some of his men managed to escape, and came back a year later for their revenge. When the Aztecs heard of their plans, however; they buried the rest of the city’s wealth around the lake, preferring to lose it than to let the greedy men keep it. Even now, a huge amount of the wealth stays hidden under mud and buildings on the fringes of Mexico City. The lake has even been searched, but none has ever been found.
The Amber Room
A room is a bit of a strange thing to be
hidden. It’s not like a box that can be buried
underground, or jewels that can be sold.
The Amber Room is considered by many to
be one of the strangest missing treasures in
history. The room is an 11-foot-square hall with
large walls that have been inlaid with many
treasures, including amber gold-bordered
mirrors, four Florentine mosaics and glass
display cases that held some of the most
valuable Russian and Prussian art ever made.
This room was made for King Friendrich I
of Prussia and given to Peter the Great, a
Russian czar, in 1716. The room was located
in Catherine Palace, close to St. Petersburg
(now Leningrad). When Germany stormed
Leningrad, the owners of the Amber Room wanted to save it, but since the amber was fragile, it was very hard to move, so the Nazis claimed it for their own, and displayed it in Königsberg Castle for the rest of the war. When Köningsberg surrendered in 1945, the Amber Room was nowhere to be found. The Room hasn’t been seen since, and there are many rumors floating around about it? Was it hidden in an underground bunker outside the city? Was it destroyed? Is it true that it was cursed? Nobody knows, and today, the Amber Room is supposed to be worth more than 140 million dollars. A copy has been made, however, which is displayed in the Catherine Palace.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amber_Room http://www.egyking.info/2012/05/gold- mask-of-king-tutankhamun.html