Unfound Pirate Treasure in the Seychelles

February 23, 2008 at 12:31 am (Seychelles Island Move) (Africa, Americans in Seychelles, beaches, east africa, expats, Indian Ocean, information, islands, life, living, living in Seychelles, Mahe, moving to seychelles, Paradise, Praslin, Seychelles, travel, vacation)

There’s gold in dem dere hills!

Still skimming across the net looking for more information on the Seychelles, we found gold! And not the proverbial kind. Legend has it that there was a pirate who buried his treasure somewhere in the Indian Ocean and it is believed to be located in the Seychelles. This makes the Seychelles a little more exciting, just knowing there there is unfound pirate treasure somwhere on the island…Dawgit!!

Here’s what we found on Wikipedia:

Olivier Levasseur (Calais, 1680 or 1690 – Réunion, 7 July 1730), was a pirate, nicknamed La Buse or La Bouche (The Buzzard) in his early days, called thus because of the speed with which he threw himself on his enemies.

His name first appears in 1716, when he joined the Benjamin Hornigold pirate company. Olivier was a good climber, and had a scar across one eye, limiting his view.

After a year of successful looting, the Hornigold party split, with Olivier deciding to try his luck at the West African coast. In 1719 he operated together with Howell Davis and Thomas Cocklyn for a period. In 1720, he was shipwrecked in the Red Sea and stranded at the island Mayotte, one of the Comores. His eye was completely mutilated by now, and he decided to wear an eyepatch.

From 1721 onwards he committed his raids from his base at the island Saint Mary’s, at the Madagascar coast. His biggest success was the conquering of the Portuguese vessel Nossa Senhora do Cabo (The Virgin of the Cape), which was full of gold. This was in cooperation with the English pirate John Taylor. He was eventually captured and hanged at the island Bourbon (today Réunion), on 7 July 1730) 17h00, for his crimes of piracy.

The Cryptogram of Olivier Levasseur

Alphabet of Olivier Levasseur

The legend tells that when he stood on the scaffold, he had a necklace around his neck,containing a cryptogram of 12 lines, and would have thrown this in the crowd while exclaiming: “Find my treasure, he who may understand it!”

What became of this necklace is unknown. To this day, a good number of impassioned treasure hunters have searched to find his fabulous treasure, estimated by some at a few million euros, others give it a value as much as 100 million UK pounds (2005).

In 1923 a certain Mrs. Savoy found some documents, describing Levasseur’s treasure at a southern island of the Seychelles group.
At one document there are some coordinates, and text in a mysterious alphabet.
At the Bel Ombre beach on the island Mahé, stones were found, with carvings like: dogs, snakes, tortoises, horses, a ballot box, a figure of a young woman, and the head of a man.
After some excavations they discovered two coffins containing the remainings of two people, identified as pirates by the gold ring in their left ear.
But no treasure was found at this location.
The cryptogram was much more difficult to solve than than what she had believed.
Deciphering it could be carried out only starting from the Clavicles of Solomon, two letters, a will and documents compiled in rebus or at least in initiatory writing which could be put in relation to maconnic symbolism.
These documents explicitly affirmed the existence of a treasure localised on an island in the Indian Ocean.
However the name of this island was not mentioned anywhere.

In 1947 English Reginald Cruise-Wilkins, a friend of Mrs. Savoy, studied the problem and discovered a connection with the twelve operations of Hercules. Various tasks, representing the Labours of Hercules, had to be undertaken in strict order. The treasure chamber is somewhere underground and must be approached carefully, to avoid being inundated. It is protected by the tides, which require damming to hold it back, and is to be approached from the north. Access is through a stairwell cut into the rocks, and tunnels leading under the beach. Until 1970 he sought and dug in the island of Mahé.
In a cave, in addition to old guns, some coins, and pirate sarcophagi, he did not find anything.
He died in 1977 before he broke the last piece of code.

Wow, this is some Goonies shit. This is something we will definitely be looking into. We’re not stupid…if a professional treasure hunter couldn’t find it in 23 years of searching, it probably won’t be found by the likes of us, but it’s nice to dream… I’m pretty sure we’ll have a “good time…wink, wink” late night on the beaches, drinking rum, having our pirate (role-playing) adventures.