10 Real-Life Archaeologists More Badass Than Indiana Jones

7. Danny Douglas Finds Treasure In Enemy Territory

Now you're getting into real Raiders Of The Lost Ark territory. It involves a treasure hunter, Nazi treasures, intrigue, and defying Cold War tensions to retrieve a priceless artefact. Also: spies and femme fatales. It all began at the end of the Second World War, when the Reliquary Of St Maurus €“ said to contain the bones of John The Baptist €“ was lost as its owners were stripped of their assets, said to be Nazi collaborators. Not quite the Ark Of The Covenant, but the Shrine was certainly grand and important enough. And for years it stayed missing, until Danny Douglas took it upon himself to track the darn thing down. A well-connected businessman, Douglas was enlisted by the Czech Beaufort-Spontin family who had previously held the Reliquary. It lay in Communist territory, buried beneath the floorboards of a forgotten church, before Douglas went in to retrieve it. Visiting the country under the auspices of business meetings, he raced to discover the location of the Shrine as the local secret police did the same, also planning to perhaps torture Douglas for information, or setting a honeytrap. In the end they found it together, but Douglas never got any credit for his work.