March
07
/ 2022
The United States government has just returned a collection of historically significant artifacts stolen by fortune hunters to the French government, to whom the artifacts rightfully belong according to international law. Included in this valuable bounty were five gold ingots inscribed with Chinese characters, which were manufactured and exchanged in China in the 18th century. These ingots were once used as a form of currency and had been in the possession of French East Indian Trading Company representatives when the ship they were traveling on sunk off the coast of France on December 3, 1746. After being lost for more than two centuries, the gold ingots were “illegally” recovered from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean by a team of
