Gold: without going anywhere, it’s back and bigger than ever. As Jennifer Wilson reports in this week’s issue, a frenzy over the metal is under way, causing prices to soar. The current President famously loves the stuff, and earlier this month called in to the dedication of a giant golden statue created in his image. (Mark Burns, a Trump-supporting pastor who presided over the unveiling, argued in an interview with Isaac Chotiner that it isn’t heretical.)

The metal’s power is so potent that it can create conflict even when hidden from view. In 2012, the reporter Jake Halpern covered a legal battle in Kerala, on India’s southwestern tip, over the secret holdings of the Sri Padmanabhaswamy temple. “In centuries past maharajas had performed a ceremony in which they weighed local princes approaching adulthood,” Halpern reports, “then donated to the temple an equivalent weight in gold.” That was only a portion of the possible hoard, which was believed to have begun in 800 A.D. and expanded to contain a vast array of diamonds, emeralds, and other gems. Officially, all that wealth belonged to the supreme god Vishnu, but, for most of the temple’s history, custodianship fell to the local maharaja. In 2007, a lifelong resident of the area, a lawyer named Ananda Padmanabhan, sued, convinced that precious items were being looted or lost. A union representing temple employees soon joined the case, claiming that some valuables were indeed missing, including an ivory flute, a silver pot, and an ancient ring embellished with glittering stones.

The lawsuit struck a nerve, inflaming sensitivities over religion, tradition, and gaping economic disparities—although not always in predictable ways. A union member nearly died after an acid attack; the maharaja’s family denied involvement. Following a ruling by India’s Supreme Court, a vault beneath the temple was finally opened, and the treasures were safeguarded, “protected by metal detectors, security cameras, and more than two hundred guards.” But the case had arguably backfired. “The site lacks an important security feature that it once had,” Halpern observed. “Obscurity.”