While plowing his field, a poor farmer, played by Parviz Sayyad, accidentally uncovers an ancient burial chamber loaded with gold artifacts.

In the city the farmer is dazzled by department-store glitter, and he spends his subterranean riches on kitchen appliances, velvet furniture, and lawn statuary.

The man's sudden wealth does not go unnoticed, and his treasure becomes the inevitable quarry of the jeweler's wife, the master fence, the owner of a coffeehouse near his village, and a gendarme on the trail of drug smugglers.

A young Literacy Corps teacher, acting as his lieutenant, conducts public-works projects in the village, commissions an ultramodern home for his patron and hires a painter to paint a wedding portrait of the farmer and his modern bride.

The man's dreams of wealth and happiness end when the seismic hand of progress destroys his new home and reburies the treasure.