Buried treasure

According to popular conception, these people often buried their stolen fortunes in remote places, intending to return to them later (often with the use of a pirate's treasure map).

Kidd had originally been commissioned as a privateer for England, but his behavior had strayed into outright piracy, and he hoped that his treasure could serve as a bargaining chip in negotiations to avoid punishment.

[4][5] He found a common trait in all the stories: there was always a lone survivor of a piratical crew who somehow preserved a chart showing where the treasure was buried, but unable to return himself, he transfers the map or information to a friend or shipmate, usually on his deathbed.

[5] The Roman historian Dio Cassius says that, in the early 2nd century, the Dacian king Decebalus had changed the course of the river Sargetia and buried tons of gold and silver in the riverbed.

[6] There are a number of reports of supposed buried pirate treasure that surfaced much earlier than these works, indicating that the idea was around for more than a century before those stories were published.

For example, extensive excavation has taken place on Oak Island (in Nova Scotia) since 1795 in the belief that one or more pirate captains had hidden large amounts of valuables there.

During the 1666 Great Fire of London, wealthy residents of the city buried luxury goods such as gold and wine in the ground to protect them from the raging flames above.

It is related to pirates and other criminals who leave stolen artifacts behind for later retrieval, typically in remote places like islands, sometimes with maps leading back to the treasure.