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| By Sean Brodrick |
It’s the “Discovery of the Decade!”
Scientists just uncovered a treasure trove of artifacts from a tomb belonging to a lost civilization in Peru.
The dead were interred alongside a rich array of metal weapons, copper and gold artifacts and ornate jewelry.
The discovery proves once again that empires crumble, but gold endures.
The tomb belonged to the empire of the Chimú.
Their civilization was amazing. At its peak between 1400 and 1470 CE, their capital, Chan Chan, sprawled across 20 square kilometers and held 40,000 to 60,000 residents.
That made Chan Chan bigger than the largest European urban centers of the day, including Paris, Venice, Milan and Naples.
An Empire of Dust
It’s all the more incredible when you realize Chan Chan was built on a dust-dry coastal plain that received less than a quarter inch of rainfall a year!
How did they survive?
Chimú engineers dug sunken agricultural fields down to the groundwater table.
They also used an intricate hydraulic network of canals, aqueducts and reservoirs that diverted runoff from the Andes 20 miles away!
The Chimú outshone any accomplishment taking place in Europe at the time. And yet, their empire still ended up in the dustbin of history.
But what a rich dustbin: In the newly opened tomb, along with 38 crumbling corpses, archaeologists recovered copper chisels, rare metal axes, gilded headdresses and jewelry made of quartz, shells and various metals.
The Chimú were renowned goldsmiths.
They produced large ear spools (orejeras), crowns, chest plates and funerary masks with detailed depictions of gods, birds and marine life.
Pure gold was reserved for high-status Chimú. That’s probably a dead king’s bling.
You might say the Chimú were so good at working gold that it was their undoing. And therein lies an interesting tale.
Blood and Gold
South America was a land of conflict even before the conquistadores showed up.
The Chimú built their empire, called Chimor, by conquering their neighbors. But their gorgeous gold trinkets attracted the envy of a neighboring empire, the Incas.
In the 1460s, the Incas figured out how to conquer Chimor. They diverted and blocked the mountain-fed irrigation canals.
By 1470, the starving Chimú admitted bitter defeat.
More than the territory, the Incas wanted the Chimú goldsmith expertise.
They force-marched thousands of elite Chimú silversmiths, goldsmiths and artisans back to the Inca capital at Cuzco.
They then incorporated Chimú metalworking techniques directly into Inca royal production.
And if you know your history, Incan gold artistry made the eyes of the Spaniards blaze with greed and doomed the Incan empire in turn.
By the time the conquistadores arrived in the 1530s, Chimor was a backwater province of the Incan Empire, and Chan Chan was more tomb than city.
So the Spanish established the nearby city of Trujillo and systematically mined the abandoned buildings, temples, and tombs of Chan Chan for gold, silver and any other rich goods they could pry from the graves.
They missed a few tombs, though, including the one scientists just opened.
Now’s about the time an old hag totters over to the scientists and warns them of a terrible curse for disturbing the dead. Beware! Beware!
Just kidding. Today’s tomb “robbers” are preservationists.
Everything is going into museums to save the wealth of the past from greedy goons who would melt down its artistry for its raw gold value.
Speaking of gold holding its value, let’s look at a price chart of the yellow metal.
You can see gold started a sprint at the end of 2023 that didn’t end until early this year. Gold went into consolidation mode, but even that seems to be over.
Gold needs to push above its February high.
Once it does, my next target for gold is $6,000, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it hit $7,000 next year, on its way to $10,000 an ounce!
We’re already playing this massive gold supercycle in Wealth Megatrends.
If you’re doing it on your own, don’t wait too much longer, but be careful. Even experts can get crushed by this fickle market.
Make Your Own History
If you want to buy an ETF that holds physical gold, consider SPDR Gold MiniShares Trust (GLDM), which stores its gold in London vaults.
The GLDM has a Weiss Rating of “B-”, an expense ratio of 0.10% and manages about $32 billion in assets under management (AUM), providing spot bullion exposure at a fraction of GLD's 0.40% management fee.
Time marched on and left the Chimú and the Incas in the dust … but their gold remains.
Secure your legacy for generations to come and get some “insurance” against this wild market. Buy gold!
All the best,
Sean
P.S. GLDM is a solid way to play gold. But we’re targeting even greater profit potential in Wealth Megatrends. Click here to see how.
