GLITTERING baubles of gold and oversize jewels distinguish royalty from commoners. Had the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun been buried without his regalia, he would have been just another anonymous handful of dust. He was a minor pharaoh compared to his wealthier predecessors. Their richer tombs were systematically denuded by brazen grave-robbers.

Descendants of the Aztec empire might still have the fabled treasures of their ancestors, had the greedy Spanish conquistadors not invaded and ravished Latin America in 1519-20. Countless Chinese imperial treasures were destroyed by Anglo-French invaders during the Second Opium War in 1860, when they ransacked the Old Summer Palace in Beijing. Anything precious that remained of China’s cultural heritage was smuggled out to Taiwan by Gen Chiang Kai-shek in 1949-50.

The magnificent jewels looted by Nadir Shah when he drained the imperial Mughal treasury in 1739 are stored today in the Bank Melli in Tehran. They underpin Iran’s currency. Post-Revolution Russians since 1922 have stored their imperial treasures in the Kremlin. The British Crown jewels would have been wealthier had Oliver Cromwell not melted and sold some of them during the brief period of Britain’s other commonwealth (1653-58). Modern rulers........

© Dawn