Raw Treasure The Treasure Hunters

'First floor.'

I am in a top-secret location.

Right here, they are assembling an extraordinary amount of treasure.

Diamonds from across the globe.

Oh, my goodness!

Look at the size of that.

Looking at all these diamonds, you do start to wonder,

where do they all come from? How were they formed?

And just how much more treasure

is our planet hiding beneath the surface?

My word!

Ha-ha!

Our planet is full of treasure.

From precious metals like these to dazzling jewels.

But you've got to know where to look.

We'll take you to the far corners of the globe...

Oh, look at that!

..to discover the deepest...

I'm way out of my comfort zone now.

..most elusive...

..and most valuable natural treasure on earth.

Come with us on the world's biggest treasure hunt.

And with the help of the best treasure hunters on the planet...

-What about that then?

-Yes.

Scalpel.

Check.

..we'll uncover just where to search for it,

how it's created,

and why it's worth so much.

-It's massive.

-This is the largest

and most valuable precious gem opal in the world.

The dream of finding it, that's what keeps you going.

From the famous to the surprising,

we'll reveal the incredible stories behind our greatest riches.

This is treasure hunting at the limits.

# Diamonds are forever

# They are all I need to please me... #

Today, in one iconic image,

they are capturing a selection of some of the world's rarest diamonds.

Worth millions.

Dalia, the model there, is going to be wearing

hundreds of millions of dollars worth of diamonds.

In fact, it's going to be the most expensive

collection of diamonds that anyone's ever worn, ever.

Turn it this way.

Their beauty mesmerises us into valuing them

above almost any raw material on earth.

And yet, like charcoal, diamonds are just humble pieces of carbon.

It takes millions of years of crushing pressure

and intense heat for them to form, deep within the earth's crust.

Francois Graff has spent his life

creating some of the world's most valuable jewellery.

So let's just talk about treasure for a moment.

How much is all that worth?

That's worth about half a billion US dollars retail.

-Half a billion?

-Yes.

-You have half a billion dollars on your head. Did you hear that?

-Yes.

-Half a billion.

-Why do you think she's smiling?

-Half a billion.

Diamonds hypnotise us.

Our desire for them has driven demand

and their high value has given rise to a global industry.

As their value increases,

we go to ever more incredible lengths to find them.

Namibia in southern Africa has the richest

marine diamond deposits ever discovered.

Over millions of years,

diamonds have been swept down from the gem-rich interior.

Having extensively mined much of the land,

the search is now taking diamond company DeBeers under the sea

in one of the most high-tech treasure hunts on the planet.

The scale of this whole operation is unbelievable.

This entire ship is essentially just a big,

floating vacuum cleaner, sucking up tonnes and tonnes

of ancient riverbed material that's settled on the sea floor.

To get to the diamonds, everything on the sea floor

is brought up on deck through a giant hosepipe.

Then it's sorted by sieving and X-raying what's left.

Any diamonds detected are separated out

before everything else is pumped back into the sea.

This is the beast pulling the gems from the sea bed.

That is just immense.

At 280 tonnes, it's the biggest treasure-hunting machine ever built,

sucking up thousands of tonnes of seawater, mud, gravel

and diamonds every hour.

That is enormous.

That is the world's biggest vacuum cleaner head.

This is treasure hunting at the limits.

I was talking to one of the guys

and they reckon they get about 2,000 carats a day,

which is the equivalent of 2,000 or 3,000 engagement rings,

if you like, depending on how generous you are.

They try to keep this operation running 24 hours a day.

But there's no driver underwater.

It's masterminded from a control room deep in the heart of this ship.

Mike. Dallas, how do you do? Great to meet you.

This is pretty high-tech.

More high-tech than I thought it would be.

-It is, it looks like NASA's Space Centre.

-It really does.

Mike Doherty is in charge of this multi-million-pound piece of kit.

-Am I allowed to drive it?

-Yes.

-Am I? I was just...

-BEEPING

-That'll be my agent saying, "Don't let him drive it."

-Just roll it back.

-Just roll it all the way back?

-Roll it backwards.

I promise you I won't break it.

There she goes.

Oh, look, it's moving. My God, I'm actually driving the thing.

The seabed crawler is currently 123 metres below me.

-What do I do?

-Just push it forward.

-OK.

It's fitted with a navigation system that combines pictures and sound

to create a 3-D image of its surroundings.

OK, let go.

I'm a natural.

This thing is amazing to work with.

And the technology involved is incredible.

This was what I was thinking about when I got on board the ship.

We are really working at the limits of our skill, our ingenuity,

our imagination, to find treasure.

We are so in love with shiny stone.

Security here is watertight.

No-one ever handles the diamonds.

In fact, they don't even get to see them.

They are channelled entirely by machines into these unmarked cans.

It's even got a nice easy-open ring-pull.

The temptation is great, but I shall resist.

Once a week, this precious cargo is transported back to land...

..where it's valued by a team of eagle-eyed experts.

Oh, my word!

I can't even begin to imagine the value of this pile here.

You can see, some of them are very, very clear.

Some of them have got what's known as inclusions in them.

That's little bits of black carbon that's been trapped inside,

which reduce the value.

Any lower-grade diamonds could be used for industrial cutting tools.

But 95% of Namibian marine diamonds

have so few flaws, they are known as gem quality

and are used for the lucrative jewellery market.

Very occasionally, you'll get a stone like this.

Maybe once every year, once every couple of years.

This is 89 carats.

Can you imagine owning something like that?

If I wanted to walk out of this building today with this stone,

which obviously I couldn't, you'd be talking, just as-is,

as a rough stone, perhaps £3 million.

It does make your heart beat a little bit quicker

seeing all those diamonds in one place.

I suppose nothing really defines natural treasure better than that.

It's about beauty, it's about rarity,

and also that knowledge of just how difficult it is

to get your hands on the stuff.

Precious gems may be obvious treasures, but there is

one really surprising example which also fits the bill.

But you won't find it in a jewellery box.

I've come to the States,

home to the single largest natural treasure in the world.

It has a multi-million-pound price tag.

But more than that, its value comes

from the insight it's given us into the past.

Meet one of the world's unique treasures.

A T. Rex named Sue.

She may not sparkle like a diamond, but she cost a fortune.

And that's because Sue is extremely rare.

In fact, she's the biggest T. Rex ever found.

One of the great things about Sue is how complete she is,

which means we've been able to learn a huge amount about her

while she was alive.

The other thing is her size.

It turns out she was around ten tonnes -

that's bigger and heavier than an African elephant.

Way bigger than anyone imagined before she was found.

Fantastic for visitors, but sensational for scientists

in their quest for knowledge about the past.

And her value made headline news around the world.

And I begin with a bid of 500,000.

Opening at 500,000.

600,000.

700,000 now...

Until 1997, nothing like her had ever been sold before.

Two bids at 1 million now...

No wonder she caused a sensation.

5 million.

5.5.

It's in the room.

On the phone.

At 7,600,000.

7,600,000.

An astonishing price, perhaps.

But it was Sue's rarity,

coupled with the knowledge she could give us,

that helped make her such a valuable treasure.

Sue was discovered in South Dakota in the Midwest,

where she had lain since she died 67 million years ago.

Back then, these plains were lush forest,

and teeming with dinosaurs.

They left clues for palaeontologist Peter Larson to follow.

And he's still hunting.

-Stop me if I've missed anything really significant.

-OK.

Sometimes you can walk for a whole day and not see anything.

-And that's very disappointing.

-What about that there?

-Yes.

-Is that it?

-OK, you've found... Look more closely around here.

Oh, look, these are a funny shape.

Look at the patterns on this one. That's rather odd.

That's part of the fossil turtle.

-A soft-shelled turtle called trionyx.

-There you go.

-These are all pieces of bone.

-Fantastic.

-But this one is different.

-That looks like a recent bone, is that right?

No, that's a fossil bone as well.

-But this is a dinosaur bone.

-Oh!

How exciting. You can tell that just by looking at it?

Just by looking at it, by the texture of the bone.

What drives Peter to keep searching these plains is that

when his team do make a new discovery, it can be extraordinary.

It was back in 1990 when they saw a few fragments of what

turned out to be the biggest T. Rex anyone's ever found.

And they named it after the person who spotted it first.

Susan Hendrickson brought me two pieces of bone, and those two pieces,

although I'd never seen the inside of a T. Rex vertebrae before,

I knew what I was looking at.

And I said, "Is there more?" And she said, "There's lots more."

So we literally ran the two miles to the site and I could see

tons of bones, brown pieces of bone, sitting at the bottom of the hill,

and at that moment I knew this was the most important specimen

we would ever excavate.

-Wow, that was the moment right there.

-That was the moment.

The ultimate treasure for a palaeontologist.

It's the most fantastic feeling,

and one that will never probably be duplicated.

It was just out of this world, a dream of mine

since I was four years old to uncover a T. Rex, and there it was.

Sue is worth more than money to scientists.

She's given us vital clues to one of the great T. Rex mysteries.

How did they move?

Sue has got two legs, and just like us,

when we walk, we never fully leave the ground,

but when we want to go faster, look what happens.

When I run, both my feet leave the ground at once.

Sue needed to move fast to hunt for her food, but at nearly

ten tonnes, could she lift her huge body high enough to run?

Once they'd put Sue back together, they realised that she was

simply too heavy to run, her muscles and bones just wouldn't allow it.

'But she didn't need to.

'Measuring these enormous legs, her stride was close to ten metres.

'Meaning she could walk at up to 20mph.

'That's pretty quick, and plenty fast enough to catch her prey.'

Sue is the most expensive dinosaur fossil ever found.

So highly valued because she could help palaeontologists with

that 67 million-year-old mystery, and because she's so rare.

Sometimes the rarest treasures can be made from

the most common substances on earth.

Take calcium carbonate, or chalk to you and me.

It's given us the White Cliffs of Dover,

it's what snail shells are made of, it's all around us.

But I've come to the tropical waters around Australia for

its most luxurious incarnation.

This is a grade A South Sea pearl.

To you, £2,000,

and right here in Northwestern Australia is where you find them.

'Pearls were gathered in the Persian Gulf over 4,000 years ago,

'prized even then for their lustre and their rarity.

'But finding them involved risking your life

'by freediving for oysters.'

Ready?

HE INHALES DEEPLY

Diving without the help of modern technology

puts huge demands on the body.

So I've asked competitive freediver Lewis Jones to help me.

-HE BREATHES OUT

-Oh, God.

One minute eight, 0.8.

Oh, God, you've got to be so relaxed to do this.

'Mastering holding your breath takes practice.'

Might be here some time.

Lewis has been training for years.

HE BREATHES OUT

You all right? Yeah?

2.46.09.

That's really, really impressive. So what's your all-time best?

My best is 5.46.

5.46?

That's unreal.

All right, you can tuck that down.

Then bring your arm up.

'Diving ten metres down without air tanks is dangerous.

'Hundreds of pearl divers throughout history have died doing this.'

The risk is shallow water blackout.

Your body gets to a certain stage where the oxygen level

drops and drops and drops, and then you'll basically go to sleep.

-So even at this depth...

-Correct.

-..this could happen.

-This could happen in the swimming pool.

-Oh, blimey.

I'm looking for an oyster called the pinctada maxima.

It's the size of a dinner plate, but sandy-coloured, making it

all but invisible in these nutrient-rich waters.

And I'm struggling to hold my breath.

It's so hard, because all your instincts are to panic,

and to try and relax and be focused and get your orientation

in the water, it's really difficult, I don't know how you guys do it.

Next time I can be a little bit more relaxed

and have a bit more time to stay down and look about.

Look at that! I got it! Oh, God.

Oh, my God. That...is a pearl oyster.

-Is there a pearl?

-I don't know! Look at that, I can't believe I got it.

'Getting the oyster is hard enough, but finding a pearl is very rare.'

Oysters grow pearls naturally as a defence mechanism.

If something gets caught inside their shell and irritates them,

they protect themself by covering it.

And pearls occur in fewer than 1 in 10,000 wild oysters.

Here we go, the moment of truth. Do we have...a pearl? Ready?

Oh, look at that. Oh, my God, we do have a pearl! Kind of.

-There is, too.

-Oh, my God, look at that. Can you see that there?

I'm going to take my glove off, can you hold that for me?

That's unbelievable.

Look at that. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a pearl.

-How about that?

-Amazing.

-I'm genuinely shocked. Duncan?

Sorry, this is Duncan, who works here. I'm absolutely gobsmacked.

-Ha-ha!

-We weren't meant to find a pearl!

Well, we weren't expecting to. That is...

It's not perfect or round, but what do you think?

These seedless are valued on weight, and, oh...

-it's probably about 500 Australian dollars' worth.

-Really? Oh, my God.

About 300 British pounds.

-That was worth diving to the bottom for.

-Yeah, that's a good one.

Oh, OK, do I get to keep it? How does it work?!

Is it yours, is it mine? See ya, I'm off!

Being so rare and risky to get meant that for centuries

pearls were incredibly expensive.

Until just over 100 years ago, when we realised

we could trick the oysters into creating them on demand.

And all at once, pearl hunters became pearl farmers.

Like marine biologist James Brown.

It is much the same process in the wild - something gets in there,

an irritant, the shell's natural response is to make it smooth,

so it doesn't irritate any more.

So the procedure begins by seeding the shell

with a sliver of oyster flesh.

A pearl will naturally form around the irritant,

and the technician adds a nucleus to try

and achieve the perfectly round shape we've come to prize.

It just lays down thousands of tiny crystals

in layers around that nucleus, growing a pearl.

The seeded oysters are then returned to the sea.

There we go. Man, you've got the hardest job I've ever seen.

After two years underwater,

the pearl inside will hopefully have grown big enough to harvest.

And for that, you need a specialist.

So this is my new friend Billy,

and he's going to show me how to extract a pearl from an oyster.

Which is, if I may say so, a rather eye-watering procedure.

Yeah, it took me about 10 or 15 years to learn how to do it,

and you can assure me that you...

Five minutes I've been doing this.

First of all, we're going to use those pliers.

'Oysters can grow a pearl three or four times in their life,

'so I mustn't kill it.'

Now, using the spatula there, we'll just separate the gills,

because we need to be able to see the gonad region,

where we're going to find the pearl.

So, basically, the pearl grows in the oyster's gonads?

Correct. Correct.

-Further to the left?

-No, no, no. There, over to your left.

Oh, God, it's really difficult.

'Hiding inside that bulge is a pearl.'

-It's just there, I can feel it just there.

-Yep.

I'm going to be very gentle. Scalpel?

Check.

-OK.

-Around the left-hand side, and just push in gently to the right

against the pearl, because we have to make that cut right on the pearl.

Ugh, well, I've cut something.

-Do you want to have a little look, Billy?

-I don't know.

You know, for a first go, I'd say you're doing pretty good.

I don't know that you need to cut any more.

We can use our little instrument here,

-which we call our extractor.

-OK.

My hand is shaking. Oh, there he is, look at this!

That is amazing, oh, look at that!

OK, my hand is actually shaking really badly, but...

-lo and behold, ladies and gentlemen, a pearl.

-Nice job.

-Woo!

That was stressful. Oh, God!

BILLY LAUGHS

-You didn't see that.

-Righto.

Worldwide, we now cultivate

over two and a half million pearls each year.

Being more common makes them less valuable than natural pearls,

but they are consistently high in quality.

Well, this is just for you, Dallas.

'The size, shape, colour and lustre of these farmed pearls means

'the necklace retails for around £30,000.'

-53,000 Australian dollars?

-Australian dollars.

'Paula sells these pearls,

'but she doesn't plan on letting go of one record-breaking monster.'

This is the world's largest fine-quality round pearl.

That is ridiculous!

-Yeah, it's got a lot of weight in there.

-So, if I wanted to buy this...

..as an earring or something, how much, what am I talking?

It's really difficult to say because it's such a unique pearl,

there isn't really anything to compare it to,

but we have been offered in the hundreds of thousands,

-almost a million for it.

-Oof.

We're not selling, it's in our private collection,

so it will stay a Cygnet Bay pearl.

There's mother of pearl, and then there's the mother of all pearls!

-Which is this one.

-That's right, yeah.

Fantastic, you look amazing.

From the mesmerising beauty of one of the most expensive

raw materials on earth...

Seven million six.

..to the world's most expensive fossil...

..and the planet's most lustrous pearls.

How about that?

I'm genuinely shocked!

You might think that treasure has to last to be valuable.

But an unlikely-looking one found right on our doorstep

proves that's far from the truth.

DOG PANTS Wooster! Come on, this way!

He's got something there.

-He's got one?

-Clever boy!

Clever boy!

Wooster, here, with his highly developed sense of smell

and training, is sniffing for black fungus.

That might not sound like much,

but what he might have found just here

is so precious it's been known as "the diamond of the kitchen".

'He's hunting for an edible fungus

'worth almost twice as much as silver.'

HE SNIFFS Where's the truffle?

Where's the truffle, Wooster?

'And it grows just under the ground.'

-And there is an absolute beauty.

-Oh, wow!

-Look at that.

-That's a big one!

Yeah, that's a massive one.

'You might think this looks like a lump of mud.

Do you want a treat?

'But truffle-hunter Zak Frost

'can get about £600 a kilo for them.'

Clever boy.

'These black truffles grow around the roots of hazel and oak trees,

'and they're ripe for harvesting in late summer

'through to midwinter.'

Did you get one there, Wooster?

How rare is it to find so many in such a small patch like this?

Er, well, as far as I'm aware, it's unheard-of.

Certainly in England, perhaps anywhere.

There's another one, see?

'So the exact location of this farm is kept a secret.'

'But what is all the fuss about?'

Few shavings of this?

Yeah, just run it firmly across there. Hold the truffle tight.

'Fresh truffles are one treasure that certainly won't last forever.

'They're good for up to ten days - then they're worthless.'

Mmm!

Oh, lovely texture.

-Mmm.

-Mmm.

I've heard these described as tasting with vanilla-y tones,

or hazelnut, chestnut, even chocolate.

And to me, I don't get any of those. They taste like truffles to me.

-You've got to dig in.

-Might have to steal a bit myself, yeah.

'The unique taste favoured by the world's best chefs

'means that the rarest and most prized become incredibly expensive.'

The most valuable are Italian white truffles,

and late last year, a couple of them sold

for an eye-watering £75,000.

That makes them three times more expensive than pure gold.

Not bad for a fungus.

Wooster!

'Very few places in the world have the right conditions

'for natural treasures to form. It's what makes them so rare.'

MUSIC: "A Land Down Under" by Men At Work

The unique environment beneath the heart of the Australian outback

has created one of the world's most beautiful gems,

and it's been luring people here for almost 100 years.

MUSIC CONTINUES

To search here requires a particular type of treasure hunter -

one who will devote their life obsessively to the quest,

and who's prepared to live

in one of the most inhospitable places on the planet.

God, look at this place. It's crazy, isn't it?

It's like being on the moon.

This place is insane.

If you're my age, you'll remember the Clangers, the kids' TV show.

This whole area reminds me a little bit of that,

because there are holes everywhere, literally everywhere.

I keep expecting the Soup Dragon to pop up.

If I chuck a rock down, you'll get a sense of how deep it is.

CLUNK

That's a good three seconds before that rock hit the ground.

They are everywhere. I mean, it's extraordinary.

'Any Aussie can hunt for treasure here -

'if you can cope with the isolation, the relentless heat,

'and the dust.

'It costs just £40 to get a permit.'

You are quite literally staking your claim.

'And this is what draws them here. Opal.'

It's incredible to think how valuable this is.

The reason this is so valuable - at the moment -

this is on sale at 46,000 -

is simply because of the colour.

And it is absolutely stunning. The colours change,

and they dance about, and it's funny to think that

the only reason why this gemstone is valuable

is because we like to look at it.

Our love of its iridescent colours

has driven our desire for this gemstone.

But believe it or not, it's made of the same stuff as sand - silica.

97% of the planet's supply of opal comes from Australia,

so I'm going to join the hunt.

-There you go. What do you think?

-OK, it's as good as any!

'I'm teaming up with a couple of miners...'

Keep coming, keep coming!

'..who've agreed to let me have a go.'

Stop!

'This claim belongs to Justin Freitag.

'He's been hunting here for three years.

'And perhaps today we'll find the opal that will change our lives.'

I'm thinking what to spend all the money on.

New house, obviously.

Boat.

I quite fancy getting my pilot's licence, buying a little Learjet -

something like that would be nice.

'I've selflessly volunteered to be the first to explore our new hole.'

What are you actually looking for?

If you got a pickaxe, and started,

are you looking for fault lines, or cracks, or...?

You're looking for a dark band of rock,

maybe a few inches wide, maybe this wide,

and you start picking in that. And you can start to see

little traces of opal, or that type of thing.

OK, wish me luck, I'll have a good look around!

Ow. Ow!

It's incredibly hot and humid.

'The exploratory shaft is ten metres deep

'and only just wider than my shoulders.

'But it gives me the chance

'to look for any signs of a seam of precious opal.

This is highly speculative, but...

you never find anything if you don't look.

'Millions of years ago,

'the conditions here were wet and acidic.'

'Perfect for opal to form.'

I'm just sort of picking for clues, to see if there are any...

maybe changes in rock, or fault lines.

There really doesn't seem to be anything, it's just this

kind of...muddy clay.

Annoying.

I tell you what, though, it's addictive.

Once you start looking, it's very difficult to stop.

We're rich!

THEY LAUGH

I knew we should have been two feet to the left!

I did say, didn't I?

'Another empty hole joins the hundreds of other failures.

'In fact, opal strikes are so rare,

'big mining companies have been scared off,

'leaving one of the hottest places on Earth

'to the thousand or so treasure hunters prepared to tough it out.'

Oh, man!

I tell you, Coober Pedy is an extreme place to live,

not just because it's so remote

and not just because it's so blistering hot,

but stand outside and you just get covered in flies.

'The heat drives half the inhabitants

'into underground homes, where it's cooler.

'But the dream of striking it big is enough to keep them out here

'for years on end.'

All of you, would you call yourselves treasure hunters?

That's where it is. You hunt them.

And every guy you find, the gold miner or the opal miner

or diamond or whatever, they're all hunting.

You get sucked in, right?

And you think you're going to find it all the time.

But the dream of finding it, that's what keeps you going.

The dream.

And when you get that big chunk, you do something with it.

You get fricking excited!

Do you make a lot of money?

Only about 10% of the miners make actually good money.

And then about 30% make ends meet.

60% will go broke.

-They'll go broke, guaranteed.

-It's a gamble.

It is. It's big gambling. We gamble every day.

Came up here...for the next 12 months, didn't find a cent.

I was on the bones of my bum, I can tell you.

I went through a marriage.

I went to Adelaide for seven months to get over it.

I come back again, and when I got back here, within a week

I found 100,000. So there you go.

All of a sudden.

'They're all rivals here.'

Oh, God, I'm such a bad poker player.

'But they're battling the elements and Lady Luck as much as each other,

'drawn together by our demand for these rare and beautiful gems.'

Easy come, easy goes.

Gentlemen, you've cleaned me out. You've cleaned me out.

'This place is so extreme, a few days was my limit.'

'But to really understand why treasure hunters stick it out,

'you have to leave Australia's outback

'and head for the bright lights of Sydney,

'where an opal discovered in Coober Pedy

'is guarded by specialist Fiona Altmann.'

-Fiona, hi!

-Hi, how are you?

-I'm good. Thank you so much

-for seeing us.

-Nice to meet you!

Pleasure for you to come in and have a look at my opal!

That is an imposing safe.

Oh, my goodness, it's absolutely massive.

This is the largest and most valuable precious gem opal in the world.

That is just vast.

It's 17,700 carats,

which is about seven pounds. Yeah, you could do some weights with this.

How much would I have to offer you for me to walk out with this now?

If you wanted to offer like 20 million, maybe we'd consider it.

20 million. But I mean, there is no way you would hold this

and say "I'm holding a gemstone" - it just feels like you're holding

-a piece of rock.

-It is a piece of rock!

It's a rock in the ground, but a very, very valuable one, at that.

'The best way to discover rare natural treasure

'is with the help of specialists who know exactly what to look for

'and have the technology to improve the odds.

'But is that always necessary?'

What are the chances of you actually finding a natural treasure?

So striking gold, or just chancing upon a diamond,

or opening an oyster and finding a pearl?

Well, to be honest, it's pretty rare.

But there is this. This is...

a really, really expensive perfume,

and it's expensive because of one of the ingredients that goes into this,

which is worth a stupid amount of money.

But here's how you might get your hands on it.

The secret ingredient is called ambergris.

And it begins life in the ocean.

Any ocean on Earth.

It's a mysterious kind of treasure, really,

because very few people have seen the real thing.

But what we do know is where it comes from - in here.

'Strange as it may sound, ambergris forms inside a sperm whale.'

'Undigested squid beaks or fish bones

can irritate the whale's insides,

'so it creates a waxy mass around them.'

'Which can grow so huge, it could kill it.'

But happily, more often than not,

the whale manages to get rid of them.

And then that matter begins its epic journey around the world,

floating on the ocean currents for up to ten years or more.

Exposure to the sun and the salty sea

can transform some of this biological by-product

into a lump of extremely valuable ambergris.

It might sound revolting,

but should you happen to find some you could strike it rich.

And it could be washed ashore onto almost any beach in the world.

Now most people would not even notice it and walk on by.

But not ten-year-old Charlie.

I had absolutely no idea what it was.

I thought this wasn't going to be a usual stone.

In 2012 Charlie found this strange lump of something

washed up on a beach in Dorset.

One, it's really waxy and, two, really light.

Most big stones aren't light

so I thought, "What is this stone?"

I brought it to my dad and he took a random guess it was ambergris.

If it proves to be ambergris it could be worth thousands, even tens of thousands.

The highest price paid for a large lump is reputedly £200,000.

So how could a lump of whale waste be worth so much?

Master perfumer Roja Dove has the answer.

He's said to have one of the world's most famous noses.

And the formula for his latest creation includes ambergris.

-Hello. Lovely to meet you.

-Nice to meet you.

Can I smell some of this ambergris at last? I've heard all about it.

This is after the ambergris has been placed in alcohol.

It's literally the rarest and most expensive

raw material in the perfumer's canon.

That's really pleasant. Lovely.

That's just ambergris on its own with the alcohol?

Ambergris in the alcohol which makes a tincture.

The ambergris gives a soft, slightly sweet balsamic sensuality.

-It does. Those are the words I was looking for.

-I'm sure.

I have a scent here if you want to smell.

This is a formula I had been working on

with certain floral aspects around it.

It smells Christmassy to me.

Got some lovely fragrance.

If I can give you that and if you put the two together

and now waft them under your nose.

Just see what the ambergris does to the other raw material.

Do you feel it?

Yes, they complement each other rather well.

And one of the reasons it will complement it well

is ambergris works as what we call a fixative,

so simplistically speaking it fixes all the other raw materials

to your skin, so it makes the perfume or scent last far longer

than it would without the ambergris.

It's why it's so highly prized.

If it didn't offer us something

we wouldn't be willing to spend the money on it.

Not bad for something that you could find washed up on a beach.

The value of raw treasure constantly changes, depending on how much

we desire it and how easy it is to acquire.

So not every material that starts out as treasure remains so.

This is Piccadilly Circus.

Home to Eros.

-Good morning, how are you?

-Not bad.

-Nice to see you.

I think up would be good.

As a work of art the statue is worth a fortune,

but what it's made of has changed in value.

This is great. Hi, Eros.

I've lived in London for over 20 years

and looked at the statue a gazillion times

and to be honest I'd never really considered what it was made of.

I'd always assumed the whole thing was bronze.

The fountain bit certainly is. The figure is made of aluminium.

When it was made in 1893 that would have been incredibly expensive.

Back then it cost a lot of money to extract aluminium.

But modern technology has made that process

so cheap that aluminium has become almost disposable.

There is one particular metal that since the dawn of civilisation

really has epitomised our idea of treasure.

I think you might know what it is.

Gold. It doesn't tarnish in air or water.

It's adorned pharaohs and kings for thousands of years.

It was believed to be the skin of gods, the sweat of the sun,

the stuff of power.

Virtually all of the gold discovered on Earth was deposited here

in meteorites that bombarded the Earth billions of years ago.

Although it can be found on nearly every continent

it's one of the rarest metals in the Earth's crust.

Over a century ago a huge discovery was made in South Africa

that spurred a feverish gold rush.

I'm on my way to Johannesburg.

100 years ago there were no skyscrapers here, no town,

just open country.

And rumours that there was treasure waiting to be discovered.

It attracted prospectors from all over the world.

But none of them hit the big time until 1886

when a man by the name of George Harrison,

not the one in the Beatles,

started digging in what was then agricultural land just out there.

And then he started to pan,

working away all of the gravel and silt

until he found pieces of gold just like that.

'George had stumbled on nearly half of the world's supply.

'Today, the land around Johannesburg is peppered with gold mines

'but to reach the precious ore,

'they've had to create the deepest mines in the world.'

Protection...

-The tighter the better because of the weight.

-Yeah.

The arms...

-That's for the rescue pack.

-OK.

That's for emergencies, it gives you oxygen for 20 minutes.

'Our love of gold has taken us ever deeper into the Earth's crust.

'Here at Kloof mine, the workers can travel for up to two hours

'from the surface just to start work.'

I don't like this. This is small.

'It's an epic commute for an eight-hour shift.'

I'm just freaked out.

'Without the mine's cooling system,

'the temperature would rise to 50 degrees Celsius

'as we travel into the Earth.'

Here we go.

Do I get in here?

'Mining takes place up to two miles under the surface.'

You think about your journey to work on the tube or the train...

Have a think about this, this is one mother of a commute.

It's very hot down here and very noisy.

'But it's worth it.

'We're inside the biggest chunk of gold-bearing rock ever found.'

So this is what it's all about. Doesn't look like much, does it?

-There's gold in there, is there?

-Yes.

It's microscopic sitting around the pebbles there.

Oh, there's something shining. Oh, maybe that's my imagination.

-You can see the fool's gold.

-Oh, yeah!

That's what you're seeing as gold, it's the fool's gold.

But in here somewhere will be the real thing.

There's gold-bearing material,

you'd need one tonne of this to get seven grams out.

For a ring, we know you need 20g.

So you're going to have to bring quite a few boyfriends worth to come and dig all that stuff out.

'And that's why the scale of this operation is so huge.

'There's billions of pounds worth of gold right here,

'IF they can get it out.'

I could not do this job.

In 100 years, I could not do this job.

'Over £1 million worth of gold comes from here every day.

'Even with these drills, we simply can't get the gold out.

'We're boring holes more than a metre deep

'for explosives.

'Once the detonator is set and we're clear,

'the rock will be blasted.'

Wow.

All this journey underground...

deep in the earth, all this hard work

and all this sweat,

just for a bit of gold.

'The wagons aren't loaded with what we'd recognise as treasure.

'But heat it to 1,000 degrees Celsius...'

Wow.

'..and something amazing happens.

'Liquid gold.

'I'm in one of the world's biggest gold refineries.'

Pretty much all of us have got a small piece of gold

or some of us in our family have got a piece of gold

and there's a really good chance it came form this very refinery.

It could have been pulled out of that very machine.

'But don't be fooled,

'gold is exceptionally scarce.

'If you put all the gold together that's ever been mined

'in the whole of history...

'..it would only fill three and a half Olympic-sized swimming pools.'

I'm not sure what it is about this.

It's certainly the weight and the lustre.

When you get this close to it, you can really begin to imagine

why the very long journey,

getting it out of the ground and turning it into this -

worth £332,000 a piece -

is really worth it.

Wow.

He's got something there.

We've got one.

'You can hunt for treasure under the sea...

'..or deep within the earth's crust.

'Devote your entire life to searching for it

'in the blistering heat...'

Damn, I wish I'd spotted that.

'..once we've got our hands on all this raw treasure, we can

'transform it into he greatest man-made creations on the planet.'

'Next time...

'From sunken treasure and pieces of eight...'

Wow, look at that!

'..to the most famous find on Earth.

'We'll hunt out the incredible masterpieces we've created...'

This is...

decadent.

'..and come face to face with lost treasures

'on a massive scale.'