Rogue and brazen “treasure hunters” targeted a church in a small village in south-central Greece this week, with the perpetrators even vandalizing the holy alter, according to local press reports.
The significant damage from the sacrilegious ransacking was discovered on Friday morning by local residents in the picturesque and semi-mountainous village of Gardiki, in Fthiotida prefecture.
Authorities said the perpetrators used mechanical excavation tools and possibly metal detectors.
A major investigation was ordered, with members of a forensic team arriving at the scene.
Incidents of “treasure hunters” digging into the early morning hours at abandoned houses, secluded chapels, abandoned monasteries and even cemeteries were once ubiquitous in Greece’s more remote provinces. Often seen as a “borderline illegal” activity-cum hobby, close-knit groups of “prospectors” would dig at sites they believed hid gold sovereign coins – ostensibly supplied by the British to local partisans during WWII – or tear into the walls and floors of abandoned structures to search for valuable items hidden but forgotten by the owners.
Obscure “treasure maps” of questionable veracity were often used as guides, and even sold through “word of mouth” transactions, many a times by scam artists.
