Thousands of treasure hunters are expected to gather in Finland in coming weeks in search of an enormous stash of gold and jewels worth up to £15 billion.
The hunt for the 'Lemminkäinen Hoard’ is reaching its decade-long climax - and it is one of the largest and most valuable treasure troves in the world.
Some 50,000 gemstones, including rubies, sapphires, emeralds and diamonds, have supposedly laid hidden in an underground temple near Helsinki for hundreds of years.
Amateur archaeologists from at least five countries, including the UK, have vowed to assist “in any way possible” to find them.
Several 18-carat gold life-size statues in human form are also thought to have been entombed within the labyrinthine Sibbosberg cave system in Sipoo, a town 20 miles east of Finland's capital.
At least 1,000 antiques dating back thousands of years are also thought to be inside.
Until now, a 12-strong group of “penniless” friends have excavated the huge site alone, armed with little more than cheap buckets and spades.
Over the last 34 years, members of the so-called ‘Temple Twelve’ have each dedicated up to six hours-a-day, seven days-a-week, removing hundreds of tonnes of rock and clay.
Their efforts hit the headlines last year when it was revealed they could be just metres away from reaching the fabled temple door.
The Temple Twelve have since received thousands of enquiries from people wanting to join its ranks or to lend a hand.
According to historian Carl Borgen, the group’s biographer and sole point of ‘outside’ contact, this “small army” of unpaid volunteers could start arriving on site within a matter of weeks in readiness for when digging resumes in spring.
He said the extra helpers would “substantially” increase the Temple Twelve’s chances of reaching the jackpot, if it exists, this year.
“The existence of an undiscovered hoard of this vast scale has, quite naturally, captured the public’s attention and generated unimaginable levels of support,” he said.
“A small army of people from a variety of countries including the United States, the UK, Australia, Canada, France and Finland have been in touch asking if and how they can help with the dig and with the multitude of preliminary activities.
“If only a handful of those people turn up then the Twelve believe strongly that this season could be the big one and that the cave will finally give up her secrets, whatever they may be.”
The hoard’s alleged existence first emerged in 1984 when the local landowner Ior Bock claimed that his family, one of the oldest in Scandinavia, were direct descendants of Lemminkäinen, a prominent figure in Finnish pagan mythology.
He said the cave, which lies on his sprawling ancestral estate, was home to the fabled Lemminkäinen Temple where the collected treasures from countless generations of ancient Finnish pagans had been stored.
Tens of thousands of jewels, ancient artefacts, and life-size gold statues of Lemminkäinen himself had been stashed in several interconnected chambers over thousands of years, he claimed.
According to Bock, the temple entrance was sealed up with huge stone slabs in the 10th-Century to protect the treasures within from invading Swedish and Swiss armies.
His aged family line, the Boxström, had been keepers of the secret and guardians of the cave since then.
Bock, who never married or had children, revealed the temple’s existence to The SKS Archives in Helsinki, which documents the oral and written cultural heritage of Finland, to ensure its untold story would not die with him.
By 1987, news of the so-called ‘Bock Saga’ had spread worldwide and the possibility of finding the temple’s entrance had attracted the attention of historians, corporate sponsors, and professional archaeologists.
It also captured the imagination of amateur treasure hunters, who flocked to the site in search of gold and glory.
Among them was a group of 24 “like-minded strangers” who joined forces with Ior Bock to become the site’s first and only permanent, self-funded excavation team.
Since that time, most of the original party have left or died, including Bock himself, who was murdered by a personal assistant in 2010.
Their number gradually dropped to 12 and has since been maintained with new members from Finland, Sweden, Norway, Holland, Germany, Australia, Russia, and the United States.
The ‘Temple Twelve’, as they have become known, camp nearby and spend each summer hunting for proof that Bock’s claims of an undiscovered ancient civilisation were true.
No hard evidence of the hoard has yet been found, but the Temple Twelve believe they have the ''tenacity'' and the necessary explosives to locate and remove the giant granite slabs from the temple door, which is said to lie 50ft below the surface and more than 150ft from the cave entrance.
Using rudimentary tools including spades and buckets, the group has so far removed several four-tonne blocks from the cave’s entrance and have excavated around 400 tonnes of sediment below it.
They now believe they could be just metres away from the fabled temple door.
The remaining sediment, and the granite slabs covering the temple door, could be removed within a matter of months thanks to a recent ‘donation’ of dynamite, they say.
But the inclement Finnish weather means the digging season is confined to the summer months before the cave starts filling with freezing rainwater.
The group pumps out more than 1.5million litres of water annually at the start of every season.
When digging resumes in May, the team is confident that they will reach the temple entrance – if it exists.
Borgen, a friend of Bock and the world’s leading authority on the hoard, has been following ongoing excavations at the site for more than 30 years.
He has been in regular contact with the group since excavations began in 1987, and is one of only a handful of ‘outsiders’ they confide in.
His book, Temporarily Insane, chronicles the Bock Saga and follows the fanatics—or ‘Bockists’—who have devoted their lives to finding its supposed treasure.
He said the site, which is now owned by one of the members of the Temple Twelve, could yield its treasures by the summer, adding: “We’re entering the end game and, if we win, the treasures to be found there will be unimaginable.”
