Treasure found on Mont Blanc

A CLIMBER has found lost treasure on Mont Blanc – with up to quarter of a million euros worth of emeralds, sapphires and rubies discovered in a little metal box on a glacier.

The young man, from Bourg-Saint-Maurice (Savoie), had been traversing the glacier des Bossons on the Mont Blanc massif when he saw the box on the ice and, when he looked inside; found a bag marked “Made in India” with the jewels inside.

He took his find of around 100 jewels to the gendarmerie in Bourg-Saint-Maurice where investigators suggested it was from one of two air crashes on Europe’s highest mountain half a century previously.

One, the Air India plane Malabar Princess, crashed on November 3, 1950, with the loss of 58 lives, and then 16 years later on January 24, 1966, an Air India Boeing 707 crashed at the same spot on a flight from Bombay to New York killing all 117 on board.

Investigators say that the markings on the jewel bags suggest the box had belonged to one of the passengers on the Boeing 707, possibly taking jewels to New York to sell. Investigators were trying to track down the identity of the owner of the gems but, 46 years after the crash, are not too hopeful.

Gendarme Commandant Sylvain Marly at Albertville told newspaper Dauphiné Libéré that the climber was not being identified for his own safety due to the value of the find as, if no owner was identified, some of the jewels could be returned to him.

Article 716 of the Code Civil says that treasure found and unclaimed would be split 50-50 with the owner of the land and the finder.

Mont Blanc regularly gives up finds from the wrecked planes and in August last year a diplomatic bag containing newspaper cuttings was found by two Chamonix climbers. It was part of the wreckage from the Boeing 707.

In 1956 part of the landing gear of the Malabar Princess was found and, in 2008, an engine. Over the years climbers have found suitcases and clothing as well as human remains.
Photo: Jonathan M-Wikipedia