kenb
Bronze Member
Search for Genghis Khan's tomb
Hot on the trail of Genghis Khan
$3 MIL. SEARCH | Highland Park man thinks he knows where warrior is buried
November 23, 2007
BY JENNIFER SARANOW
With as many as 1,500 active satellites orbiting the Earth and the human population approaching seven billion, you'd think that everything of value on the planet would have been discovered by now.
But some of the world's most famous shipwrecks, tombs and other historical relics, from the Holy Grail of medieval lore, to the tomb of Egyptian queen Nefertiti, to the wreckage of Amelia Earhart's plane, remain unaccounted for.
Maury Kravitz of Highland Park is seeking to raise $250,000 to return to Mongolia next year in search of Genghis Khan’s tomb.
(Jim Frost/Sun-Times)
A growing army of historians, archeologists and wealthy treasure-hunters has been raising huge sums and enlisting new technology in a bid to find these and other treasures. Among them is Maury Kravitz, a 75-year-old semiretired attorney and commodities trader from Highland Park. Kravitz has spent 15 years and $3 million to $4 million searching north-central Mongolia for the tomb of Genghis Khan -- so far without luck.
Nobody knows where Genghis Khan is buried. While historical sources describe the great warrior dying on a campaign in northwestern China in 1227, they don't reveal his final resting place. In 1237, a Chinese ambassador claimed to have seen the great conqueror's burial spot, and in 1370 a Chinese writer named the location as ''Kirelgu." But the mystery remains.
After reading a book 55 years ago about the Mongol conqueror, Kravitz became obsessed. Fifteen years ago, he dreamed up the notion of finding the warrior's tomb. He assembled an expedition, raised $1.5 million, won the approval of the Mongolian government (anything found would go to Mongolia) and in 2001, started focusing on an area local legends had identified as Khan's burial spot. There, the team found a burial ground surrounded by a two-mile stone wall.
Over two summer expeditions at that spot, which were plagued by biting flies and snakes, Kravitz and his team dug up skeletons, carbon-dated a coffin to the Mongol period and found pottery dating from an earlier period. By 2003, further explorations were put on hold when money ran out and Kravitz started suffering health problems.
"My considered opinion is: Khan is buried there," says Kravitz, who is feeling better and hopes to raise $250,000 to be back by as early as next summer with some "sophisticated metal-detecting equipment."
One thing all historians agree on: it is unlikely that Khan was buried with any treasure. Some believe the Mongols were just beginning to adopt the practice of burial in 1227 and didn't believe the body needed material things after death.
Other treasures
Here are looks at some of the most-prized lost treasures of the world:
NEFERTITI'S TOMB
Egyptologists know that this queen of Egypt lived in the 14th century B.C., was married to the pharaoh Akhenaten and was possibly not Egyptian herself. They also have a general sense of what she looked like, thanks to a famous bust.
But because her tomb has never been found, they don't know when she died or what happened to her.
Nicholas Reeves, an Egyptologist at Eton College in the United Kingdom, believes she is buried in the Valley of the Kings, possibly close to Tutankhamun's tomb. Some archeologists have concentrated their search in the royal necropolis at Amarna. Marc Gabolde, a French archeologist, says Nefertiti was likely buried in Amarna and then moved to the Valley of Kings in Thebes.
DA VINCI'S LOST MASTERPIECE
In 1503, Leonardo da Vinci was commissioned to decorate a hall in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. He worked there for about 18 months on a mural of the Battle of Anghiari, fought by Florentine troops in 1440. He left it unfinished in 1506. Still, da Vinci's contemporaries considered it to be his greatest masterpiece.
In the mid-16th century, Cosimo I de' Medici hired Giorgio Vasari to remodel the hall, and the mural was lost. Maurizio Seracini, 60, an expert in using science to analyze art, has devoted his life to proving that Vasari hid the da Vinci mural behind one of his own. In 1975, he noticed a flag in the Vasari mural with the motto Cerca trova -- ''He who seeks, finds.'' Using advanced thermal- and radar-imaging equipment, he spotted a tiny air gap in the wall behind the Vasari mural, precisely where the flag sits. He believes that Vasari preserved the wall decorated by da Vinci and constructed a new one in front of it.
EARHART PLANE WRECKAGE
Amelia Earhart aimed to be the first person to fly around the globe close to the equator. On July 2, 1937, three-quarters of the way through the trip, she and her navigator, Fred Noonan, took off from Lae, in what is now Papua New Guinea, in a Lockheed Electra 10-E plane. They were never seen again. About 19 hours into their 2,556-mile trip, Earhart radioed ''we must be on you but cannot see you,'' and ''gas is running low'' to the Coast Guard ship waiting for them at Howland Island in the central Pacific.
Today, a slew of groups is betting that current technology will be able to find her plane.
There are more than 30 theories for what happened to Earhart. Some say she was a U.S. spy captured and killed by the Japanese, others that she reversed direction and crashed back in New Guinea. David Billings, an aircraft engineer in Australia, hopes to prove the latter theory as early as May by finding the plane with helicopters armed with magnetometers.
THE HOLY GRAIL
It isn't clear exactly what the Holy Grail is. Historians say it is first mentioned around 1190 in a narrative poem by Chretien de Troyes. The author describes the knight Perceval seeing a grail but never explicitly states what it was. Later medieval writers described it as the cup that Jesus used at the Last Supper, the chalice that was used to collect Christ's blood and a stone with mystical power. In the late 19th century, the grail became tied to mysticism and ritual. In the 20th century, it was sometimes described as the jar that Mary Magdalene used to rub ointment on Christ's feet.
kenb
Hot on the trail of Genghis Khan
$3 MIL. SEARCH | Highland Park man thinks he knows where warrior is buried
November 23, 2007
BY JENNIFER SARANOW
With as many as 1,500 active satellites orbiting the Earth and the human population approaching seven billion, you'd think that everything of value on the planet would have been discovered by now.
But some of the world's most famous shipwrecks, tombs and other historical relics, from the Holy Grail of medieval lore, to the tomb of Egyptian queen Nefertiti, to the wreckage of Amelia Earhart's plane, remain unaccounted for.
Maury Kravitz of Highland Park is seeking to raise $250,000 to return to Mongolia next year in search of Genghis Khan’s tomb.
(Jim Frost/Sun-Times)
A growing army of historians, archeologists and wealthy treasure-hunters has been raising huge sums and enlisting new technology in a bid to find these and other treasures. Among them is Maury Kravitz, a 75-year-old semiretired attorney and commodities trader from Highland Park. Kravitz has spent 15 years and $3 million to $4 million searching north-central Mongolia for the tomb of Genghis Khan -- so far without luck.
Nobody knows where Genghis Khan is buried. While historical sources describe the great warrior dying on a campaign in northwestern China in 1227, they don't reveal his final resting place. In 1237, a Chinese ambassador claimed to have seen the great conqueror's burial spot, and in 1370 a Chinese writer named the location as ''Kirelgu." But the mystery remains.
After reading a book 55 years ago about the Mongol conqueror, Kravitz became obsessed. Fifteen years ago, he dreamed up the notion of finding the warrior's tomb. He assembled an expedition, raised $1.5 million, won the approval of the Mongolian government (anything found would go to Mongolia) and in 2001, started focusing on an area local legends had identified as Khan's burial spot. There, the team found a burial ground surrounded by a two-mile stone wall.
Over two summer expeditions at that spot, which were plagued by biting flies and snakes, Kravitz and his team dug up skeletons, carbon-dated a coffin to the Mongol period and found pottery dating from an earlier period. By 2003, further explorations were put on hold when money ran out and Kravitz started suffering health problems.
"My considered opinion is: Khan is buried there," says Kravitz, who is feeling better and hopes to raise $250,000 to be back by as early as next summer with some "sophisticated metal-detecting equipment."
One thing all historians agree on: it is unlikely that Khan was buried with any treasure. Some believe the Mongols were just beginning to adopt the practice of burial in 1227 and didn't believe the body needed material things after death.
Other treasures
Here are looks at some of the most-prized lost treasures of the world:
NEFERTITI'S TOMB
Egyptologists know that this queen of Egypt lived in the 14th century B.C., was married to the pharaoh Akhenaten and was possibly not Egyptian herself. They also have a general sense of what she looked like, thanks to a famous bust.
But because her tomb has never been found, they don't know when she died or what happened to her.
Nicholas Reeves, an Egyptologist at Eton College in the United Kingdom, believes she is buried in the Valley of the Kings, possibly close to Tutankhamun's tomb. Some archeologists have concentrated their search in the royal necropolis at Amarna. Marc Gabolde, a French archeologist, says Nefertiti was likely buried in Amarna and then moved to the Valley of Kings in Thebes.
DA VINCI'S LOST MASTERPIECE
In 1503, Leonardo da Vinci was commissioned to decorate a hall in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. He worked there for about 18 months on a mural of the Battle of Anghiari, fought by Florentine troops in 1440. He left it unfinished in 1506. Still, da Vinci's contemporaries considered it to be his greatest masterpiece.
In the mid-16th century, Cosimo I de' Medici hired Giorgio Vasari to remodel the hall, and the mural was lost. Maurizio Seracini, 60, an expert in using science to analyze art, has devoted his life to proving that Vasari hid the da Vinci mural behind one of his own. In 1975, he noticed a flag in the Vasari mural with the motto Cerca trova -- ''He who seeks, finds.'' Using advanced thermal- and radar-imaging equipment, he spotted a tiny air gap in the wall behind the Vasari mural, precisely where the flag sits. He believes that Vasari preserved the wall decorated by da Vinci and constructed a new one in front of it.
EARHART PLANE WRECKAGE
Amelia Earhart aimed to be the first person to fly around the globe close to the equator. On July 2, 1937, three-quarters of the way through the trip, she and her navigator, Fred Noonan, took off from Lae, in what is now Papua New Guinea, in a Lockheed Electra 10-E plane. They were never seen again. About 19 hours into their 2,556-mile trip, Earhart radioed ''we must be on you but cannot see you,'' and ''gas is running low'' to the Coast Guard ship waiting for them at Howland Island in the central Pacific.
Today, a slew of groups is betting that current technology will be able to find her plane.
There are more than 30 theories for what happened to Earhart. Some say she was a U.S. spy captured and killed by the Japanese, others that she reversed direction and crashed back in New Guinea. David Billings, an aircraft engineer in Australia, hopes to prove the latter theory as early as May by finding the plane with helicopters armed with magnetometers.
THE HOLY GRAIL
It isn't clear exactly what the Holy Grail is. Historians say it is first mentioned around 1190 in a narrative poem by Chretien de Troyes. The author describes the knight Perceval seeing a grail but never explicitly states what it was. Later medieval writers described it as the cup that Jesus used at the Last Supper, the chalice that was used to collect Christ's blood and a stone with mystical power. In the late 19th century, the grail became tied to mysticism and ritual. In the 20th century, it was sometimes described as the jar that Mary Magdalene used to rub ointment on Christ's feet.
kenb
