A French Alpinist climbing the Bossons glacier, stumbles across a treasure on Mont Blanc. The mountain climber found a strange old metal box, quite out of place on the glacier. To the surprise of the young man, when he opened the box and peered inside.... it contained a hoard of precious stones, emeralds, rubies and sapphires in separate bags. The jewels are worth hundreds of thousands of Euros. The initial estimated value is €246000.
The Alpinist, who has asked to remain anonymous, turned the jewels in to the French authorities.
Sylvain Merly, the local police chief told AFP: "This was an honest young man. He could have kept the haul to himself but preferred to hand it over to the police."
The bags that contained the gems were stamped "Made in India". The police have started an investigation to determine the true owner of the treasure. The obvious leads come from two aircraft crashes.
On November 3, 1950: the Malabar Princess, an Air India aircraft descending into Geneva, crashed on the Mont-Blanc. All the 48 passengers died. Sixteen years later, on January 24, 1966, a Boeing 707, also belonging to Air India, flying from Mumbai to New York, impacted in the same proximity. 177 passengers died.
The authorities in India will be contacted by their French counterparts. French Law (Civil Code, art 2276) states that the jewels could be handed back to the mountaineer, if the true owner is not identified, or no-one else makes a successful claim, within a period of 5 years.
The climber's find may be the most precious on Mont-Blanc so far. Over the years, mountaineers have come across debris from the crashes, aircraft parts, luggage and even human remains. But nothing so valuable has been found before.
The ice covering the Mont-Blanc massif changes all the time, so remains from the aircraft accidents appear regularly. The previous discovery was made in August 2012, when a diplomatic post bag was found by a British student, while climbing Mont-Blanc. The package was handed over to the Indian Embassy in Paris. A very delayed mail, that finally found its way to the recipient.
Will this latest case start a treasure hunt in the Alps? Were the two aircraft carrying more jewels? Will we see a new breed of alpine pirate, dressed in thick clothes, with crampons and ice axes instead of hooks and stumps? We have to wait and see, but no-one should forget that ascending and descending the mountains of the Mont-Blanc Massif is a difficult and dangerous task.
