All that glitters is not gold
A search for treasure beneath a 19th-century Indian fort has ended, yielding a few bones and terracotta bricks but none of the gold predicted by a Hindu holy man's dream, an official said on Friday.
The search began in October in the state of Uttar Pradesh, northern India, after a Hindu swami, Shobhan Sarkar, told a government minister that a former king had appeared to him in a dream and told him of a hidden cache worth more than 3bn rupees (ÂĢ29m).
The leader of the dig, Praveen Kumar Mishra, said the hunt had been suspended. The government spent 1.6m rupees (ÂĢ15,700) on digging at the site, said Durga Shankar, a local magistrate.
The opposition said the government search was prompted by the swami's dream.
However, the Geological Survey of India said it had found signs of heavy metal about 20 metres (66ft) underground before deciding to dig in the area around Unnao district, about 50 miles south-west of the state's capital, Lucknow. Mishra said on Friday that apparent discovery appeared to have been an error.
The state-run Archaeological Survey of India found some artefacts and reached sediments of calcium carbonates in the first trench, Mishra said.
There was no hope of finding any archaeological objects beyond that as the diggers had hit rocks in the second trench, he told AP. "There is no indication of [the presence of] any alloy as reported by the GSI team," Mishra said in his report.
[SOURCE:UK Guardian]
