The Unintentional
Christopher Columbus Connections
I’m so glad you decided to join the hunt! There’s more at stake here than you know. I’ll do my best to help along the way, but your keen intellect and fortitude will be critical to our success.
Columbus extolled his family to preserve the lines and points of his signature. The pinnacle of the pyramid holds the key. S = 40. A=20. Together they point directly to the next “page” of your journey, which is also the proper time. Look to the planet at the pyramid's point; it shall name the only day the secret may be unmasked.
Clue
I should be clear, Christopher Columbus has nothing to do with this treasure. He didn’t find it. He didn’t hide it. He didn’t know anything about it. And yet, he seems to indirectly connect with Folk Secrets in peculiar ways. Every time you turn around, there he is. Let me explain.
In the Folk Secrets narrative, the Alhambra palace/fortress in Grenada, Spain is central to the treasure story. As you undoubtedly know by now, that’s where Washington Irving found the treasure and stole it away to America. But the Alhambra’s connection to the New World goes much deeper.
In the 1480’s, Christopher Columbus sought funding for an outlandish idea. He wanted to voyage around the world, going west all the way from Europe to India–so he thought. He ultimately found his funding in Spain. In 1492 at the Alhambra palace, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella granted Columbus the funding and officially commissioned his journey. The Alhambra essentially became the launchpad to the New World.
Another sort of launchpad brings a connection to Columbus. As part of NASA’s Mercury program, astronaut Gordon Cooper launched into space in 1963. He orbited Earth for 34 hours and during that time, used special instruments to scan the Caribbean for nuclear weapons. He didn’t find any. But he did discover evidence of sunken ships potentially with vast treasures. He actually made a treasure map from space and before he died, collaborated with a treasure hunter to find the sunken ships.
As it turns out, his map led right to an anchor and artifacts from Columbus’ ship, the Pinta. What a find! You can learn more about this unlikely astronaut treasure hunter on the Discovery Channel program, Cooper’s Treasure.
You’ll recall secret codes and languages conceal the treasure in different portions of the Folk Secrets story. The Thuban Sect created an entire language to keep their treasure activities clandestine. Other characters used a cipher to conceal the treasure. Strangely, Columbus’ signature is also believed to be a secret code. Scholars have various theories about its meaning, from Christian symbolism, to a crypto-Jewish secret code, to a nautical talisman. It remains a mystery.
And just to put a bow on these uncanny connections, none other than Washington Irving wrote a significant biography of Christopher Columbus, where he fully documented the strange signature and romanticized its meaning.
Cordially,
Jonathan Quill
Time Map: Jonathan Quill Pathway