For my son's 9th birthday party we had an Indiana jones" party.  As each guest arrived they were giving a brown paper bag to hold their "treasures".  The first stop was at our kitchen table. I found these great clay pyramids online at Oriental Trading- they come with a mini chisel and brush.  I put towels down on the kitchen table and had cheap safety goggles for the kids.  Each kids had to chisel away until the found the treasure inside (most of them contained Egyptian relics etc.) once they did that they received two gold coins. (Also Oriental trading company).  The day before I had helped my sons make a mock candy store in their bedroom where the kids could buy what they wanted with the coins.  My son was the shop keeper.  After that was the piece de resistance - the treasure hunt. The day before the party I found a hieroglypic alphabet online and printed it out. I bought a cheap aluminum cake pan and some plaster of Paris.  I poured the plaster of paris into the cake pan and inscribed in reverse in "heiroglyphics"  "The treasure is in the mailbox" then I covered it with sand.  Once cured I broke the tablet off into 10 pieces (one for each kid) and buried/ hid them in our back yard. One at a time each kid had to find their piece of the "Holy Tablet" using the clues I gave them on a sheet of paper. Once all of the pieces were found they had to put the Holy Tablet together again.  It worked! and once they figured out that the treasure was in the mailbox they all went running.  Inside the mailbox I put a note saying "knock on the back door for the next clue"  This gave me time to hide the "treasure". A "golden" egg pinata ( I just made a basic pinata with a balloon and painted it gold and I filled with plastic gold coins).  I artfully placed the pinata in the laundry room on a table with flash lights (there are no windows in our laundry room) and my husband covered the hall with masking tape in a spider web fashion to slow them down as they went through.  Once they got to the back door I gave them a sheet of paper with a mini hunt in the house and then they found the pinata.  They had it raised in the air screaming at this point.  Then we hung the pinata and let them go at it. It was awesome to see all those plastic gold coins flying out- I still have that image in my head.  Kids scampered for the goods and ran to my sons room to buy their candy. Then we had cake (a basic chocolate cake with Indiana Jones figures on top)  It was the best party ever.  I don't know how I will ever top it next year!"