Dream prompts woman to dig for gold

Dream prompts woman to dig for gold   

Authorities keen to ‘prove’ she was mistaken dig deeper

Amadoru Amarajeewa

Source - http://print.dailymirror.lk/news/provincial-news/49404.html

The Trincomalee Government Agent, Major General Ranjith de Silva and a group of officials yesterday launched a programme to create public awareness on the erroneous belief that there were treasures buried in archaeological sites, ancient temple grounds or ancestral land.

They dug up a site where an old woman had been searching for treasure over many days and proved that she was mistaken.

A woman dreamt that a large quantity of gold was buried in a corner of a plot of land she had inherited from her grandparents.

Believing that her dream was a sign that there was buried treasure, she dug up a large area of her garden by herself. However, on information received from a curious public, the Thambalagamuwa Divisional Secretary, Lakshmendra Damayanth Kumara Tennakoon carried out an inspection of the site and later informed the GA and the Director General of Archaeology, Dr. Senerath Dissanayake. Later, on the instructions of the director general of archaeology, the Trincomalee GA, the Thambalagamuwa police, and Archaeological Officer L D Ranjith Sampson, the site was dug to a depth of 15 feet using a bulldozer. But no gold was found proving that the woman’s dream was nothing but a dream.

 The archaeological officer said many treasure hunters  had caused extensive damage to  archaeological sites and temples in their search for treasures in the belief there were buried treasures to be had in archaeological sites, temples and shrine rooms. He said that this trend was unfortunate because  rumours of buried treasures were only fabrications of story-tellers.