Encyclopedia

Treasure

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What does it mean when you dream about a treasure?

Discovering treasure may indicate that the dreamer has some hidden skills or talents that can be unearthed if the dreamer can determine the hidden meaning of the symbol.

The Dream Encyclopedia, Second Edition © 2009 Visible Ink Press®. All rights reserved.

Treasure

Ali Baba
uses magic to find thieves’ storehouse of booty. [Arab. Lit.: Arabian Nights, “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves”]
Comstock Lode
richest silver vein in world. [Amer. Hist.: Flexner, 177]
Dantés, Edmond
digs up the treasure revealed to him by a dying fellow prisoner. [Fr. Lit.: Dumas The Count of Monte Cristo]
El Dorado
legendary land of gold in South America. [Span. Myth.: NCE, 846]
Fort Knox
U.S. depository of gold bullion. [Am. Hist.: NCE, 984]
forty-niners
participants in California gold rush of 1849. [Am. Hist.: LLEI, I: 270]
Golconda
fabled Indian city, meaning “source of great wealth.” [Indian Hist.: NCE, 1101]
gold bug
leads to finding of Captain Kidd’s buried treasure. [Am. Lit.: Poe “The Gold Bug”]
Golden Fleece
fleece of pure gold from a winged ram, stolen from Colchis by Jason and the Argonauts. [Gk. Myth.: Benét, 406]
Kidd, Captain
(c. 1645–1701) pirate captures prizes and buries treasure. [Am. Lit.: Hart, 444]
King Solomon’s mines
in Africa; search for legendary lost treasure of King Solomon. [Br. Lit.: King Solomon’s Mines]
Legrand, William
uncovers chest of gold by deciphering parchment. [Am. Lit.: Poe “The Gold Bug”]
Mother Lode
name applied to gold-mining region of California. [Am. Hist.: Hart, 569]
Nibelung, the
more gold and jewels than wagons could carry. [Ger. Lit.: Nibelungenlied]
Nostromo
inadvertently gains hoard of silver ingots. [Br. Lit.: Nostromo]
Ophir
Red Sea area noted for gold. [O.T.: I Kings 9:28; 10:11; 22:48]
Sutter’s Mill
site of first strike precipitating Gold Rush. [Am. Hist. Flexner, 175]
Treasure Island
search for buried treasure ignited by discovery of ancient map. [Br. Lit.: Treasure Island]
Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The
in Mexico, written by the reclusive, pseudonymous B. Traven. [Am. and Mex. Lit.: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre]
Allusions—Cultural, Literary, Biblical, and Historical: A Thematic Dictionary. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Treasure

 

(1) Objects considered valuable by the owner that are secreted, most often by being buried in the ground. Such treasures are known everywhere and usually contain important historical remains. The most ancient treasures date from the Neolithic and Aeneolithic and comprise stone implements and weapons. Treasures of battle and ceremonial weapons, axes, sickles, copper ingots, and ornaments have been preserved from the Bronze Age. Later treasures primarily contain a variety of valuables and coins. By tracing the sites of treasures on maps, the expansion of settlements and the direction of trade routes can be determined. The largest number of treasures have been buried during times of national misfortune and major historical events. Thus, most ancient Russian treasures are connected with the Mongol-Tatar invasion of the 13th century. The abundance of treasures of 17th-century Russian coins (mostly found in clay vessels) is the result of the stormy events of the century—the wars and national rebellions.

(2) In law, a treasure, or more properly treasure trove, is money or valuables buried in the ground or otherwise secreted whose owner cannot be established or by operation of law has lost his right to the money or valuables. According to the.existing legislation of the USSR, a treasure is considered to be the property of the state. Not all valuables are considered as treasure but only those that were intentionally concealed by the former owner. Thus, a treasure is distinguished from found property, which is property lost against the will of the owner. The locator of a treasure must turn it over to the finance organs. He is entitled to receive compensation amounting to 25 percent of the value of the articles turned over if the discovery was not the result of an excavation or search conducted within his work duties. The appropriation of a treasure is considered a criminal offense (Criminal Code of the RSFSR, art. 97).

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
Mentioned in
References in classic literature
"If you apply a little of it to your left eye you will behold in an instant all the treasures hidden in the bowels of the earth.
When I opened it again I saw spread out, as it were before me, treasures of every kind and without number.
That suspicion should fall on him seemed scarcely credible since the only men who knew that he had left the long-house that night lay dead upon the very spot where the treasure reposed.
He had learned the secret for which he had come, and now he could return at his leisure to his waiting followers, bring them to the treasure vault and carry away all the gold that they could stagger under.
Once again, and, he thought, for the last time, he closed the massive door of the treasure room.
I toy with it absently as I am telling of the great gold treasure we buried under the sand.
But the word spread, until one day, a young man, a reporter, tried to interview me about the treasure and the Wide Awake.
"I have house room for you and Tabby, and a safe vault for the chest of treasure. To-morrow we will try to come to an agreement about the sale of this old house.
"Why, as to that," muttered John Brown to himself, "we must apply to the next court for a guardian to take care of the solid cash; and if Peter insists upon speculating, he may do it, to his heart's content, with old PETER GOLDTHWAITE'S TREASURE."
What we did /not/ see, however, was the look of fearful malevolence that old Gagool favoured us with as she crept, crept like a snake, out of the treasure chamber and down the passage towards the door of solid rock.
"There is still the Treasure. But this can be done.
He babbled about incalculable sums, fancied himself engaged in money digging, threw the bedclothes right and left, in the idea that he was shoveling away the dirt, groped under the bed in quest of the treasure, and lugged forth, as he supposed, an inestimable pot of gold.
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