Olmec writing in National Treasure 2

National Treasure: Book of Secrets may be fun, but don't look to it for a history lesson. It has the longest list of goofs I've ever seen for a movie.

Several of these goofs relate to the Olmec culture [spoiler alert]:Factual errors: Dr. Appleton says that the Indian language is Olmec. However, the Olmec people inhabited south-central Mexico, and their language nor culture never reached 2,000 miles north to present-day South Dakota. Therefore, the entire premise of the city of gold is misplaced by a continent.

Factual errors: Gold was barely known or completely unknown to the ancient Olmec culture. Of course subsequent cultures found it and used it, but that was a couple hundred years later.

Factual errors: When the group sees an altar in the city of gold, and Emily exclaims that that "this will really open up the study of the pre-Columbian language," the writing visible is Chinese seal script, completely unrelated to Olmec.

Plot holes: The Olmec civilization vanished by 400 BC. The only evidence that the Olmec existed is their artwork and monuments. If they had a written language, it disappeared with them. There is no way Emily could have identified the plank as Olmec.Incan or Aztec?

The plot goes like this: Following a trail of clues, Ben Gates (Nicolas Cage) finds a piece of wood hidden in the Queen of England's desk. The geometric scratches on it don't look like much of anything; it would be hard to conclude they're writing. But they're divided into a series of squares vaguely reminiscent of Maya glyphs.



"These markings, like Incan or Aztec," says Ben. Oops. The Inca didn't have writing, and Aztec writing didn't look anything like this. Already Ben sounds as if he doesn't know what he's talking about.

The writing nonsense continues when Ben shows the wood to his father Patrick (Jon Voight). The following dialogue ensues:PATRICK:  I can't read the whole thing. But I can tell you that these are definitely pre-colonial Native American markings.

BEN:  Easily 500 years old.

PATRICK:  Easily.

PATRICK:  I can identify one symbol. Look at this. Do you know what that is?

BEN:  Sacred calendrical? I don't know.

PATRICK:  That symbol is Cibola. That's Cibola.

BEN:  The city of gold. The city of gold.For starters, few historians would use the phrase "pre-Colonial" instead of "pre-Columbian." And few would refer to Central or South American writing as "Native American."

But the note on the Goofs page is out of date. Researchers have found some Olmec symbols that could be writing. You can read about the subject in Olmec--Writing and Olmec Writing:  The Oldest in the Western Hemisphere.



But this writing is a series of discrete symbols, not geometric scratchings. It doesn't look anything like the writing in National Treasure: Book of Secrets. It was just discovered a few years ago, so I don't think anyone's deciphered it. And it's ridiculous to claim that in a newly-discovered language, someone could recognize a symbol for a mythical city. That's one of the last things people would decipher, not the first.

Proto-Zoquean

Finally, there's one semi-authentic note. Patrick gives the wood to his ex-wife Emily (Helen Mirren), an expert on Mesoamerican languages. The following dialogue ensues:PATRICK:  We think it might be Olmec.

EMILY:  It is.

EMILY:  Yes, yes, definitely proto-Zoquean.For those not up on their Mesoamerican languages, Proto-Zoquean followed Epi-Olmec, which followed Olmec:

Olmec--WritingThere are also well-documented later hieroglyphs known as "Epi-Olmec," and while there are some who believe that Epi-Olmec may represent a transitional script between an earlier Olmec writing system and Maya writing, the matter remains unsettled.A History of WritingAs Proto-Zoquean was spoken around AD 600, Epi-Olmec texts are actually pre-Proto-Zoquean.So Proto-Zoquean isn't the same as Olmec, but one could say it's related. Since the Olmec disappeared about 1,000 years before people began speaking Proto-Zoquean, it's distantly related at best. But give National Treasure: Book of Secrets credit for being the first movie to use the term "Proto-Zoquean," and in a more-or-less correct context.

For more on the subject, see The Best Indian Movies.

P.S. I edited the entries from the Goofs page slightly to make them more readable.