Lego models tell the story of the Beale treasure
For the first time today I present pictures of the most famous treasure find in the history of cryptology. I created them myself with the help of Lego models.
In 1885, a book entitled “The Beale Papers” was published in the USA. It talks about a treasure whose location was described by a certain Thomas Beale in three coded messages. Only one of them could be deciphered so far. To find the treasure, one would have to decode another message.
Quelle/Source: Wikimedia Commons
It has long been clear that the whole story is a pure invention. But that hasn’t stopped whole generations of adventurers and knights of fortune from searching for the treasure. Presumably, some incorrigibles are still out digging up the ground in the area in question in Virginia today.
For those interested in crypto, the story about the Beale treasure at least has the advantage of being able to deal with the encrypted messages. If you want to do this, you can read the corresponding chapter in my book “Codebreakers against Codemakers”. There you can also read why the story about the treasure is nothing more than a nice owl play. There are so many inconsistencies in the “Beale Papers” (they are the only source) that one can easily expose the whole plot as invented.
Unfortunately, there is little usable visual material on the Beale treasure – which is hardly surprising for a fictional story. So I resorted to a tried and true method to create such: I built Lego models and photographed them. Today, for the first time, I will present the resulting pictures to the public.
The treasure find
The story began when a group of 30 buffalo hunters set up camp in a canyon in New Mexico in 1817.
Quelle/Source: Schmeh
They are said to have been gentleman adventurers from Virginia. Not much more is known about this group. The exact location of the camp has also not been passed down and has never been found.
Quelle/Source: Schmeh
At some point, one of the buffalo hunters discovered a shiny yellow rock in the rock: gold.
Quelle/Source: Schmeh
After this find, the men abandoned the buffalo hunt and engaged in gold digging at their campsite.
Quelle/Source: Schmeh
With success: a considerable amount of gold was collected.
Quelle/Source: Schmeh
One of the men, his name was Thomas Beale, was put in charge of bringing the gold that had been found (plus silver that had also been discovered) back home to Virginia.
Quelle/Source: Schmeh
The journey across the USA with about three tons of gold in his luggage must have been quite arduous.
Quelle/Source: Schmeh
In Virginia, Beale made a deposit and hid the gold treasure there.
Quelle/Source: Schmeh
In addition, Beale handed the three encrypted messages to a hotel manager named Morriss.
Quelle/Source: Wikimedia Commons
Only the middle message was decoded. Especially the left message (“Locality of the vault”) has remained an unsolved mystery until today. The treasure was never found.
The corpse in the cryptology cellar
The Beale story is given here somewhat abbreviated. You can learn more in my book “Codebreakers vs. Codemakers” and on numerous websites. I honestly admit that the Beale treasure and the story behind it is not one of my favorite topics. There are so many exciting things to report about cryptology that one should not hang such a loading too high, even if there is supposedly a treasure to be found. That’s why I haven’t blogged about the Beale treasure too often.
Despite everything, I thoroughly enjoyed creating the models and taking the photos. I’ll be using the images more often for sure.
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Further reading: Fälschungen in der Kryptologie (1)
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