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Human beings are naturally inclined to be treasure hunters. There are countless stories, legends and tales about the search for lost or hidden treasure. As a child, I had a particular fondness for Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island — I perhaps fancied myself a young Jim Hawkins in search of a buried treasure on a pirate’s island — and also for J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, which follows the journey of a hobbit, some dwarves and a wizard as they seek to acquire a dragon’s golden horde. Mythology, of course, is full of such quests. Jason and the Argonauts set sail in search of the Golden Fleece, and King Arthur and his nights journeyed throughout the land on a quest for the Holy Grail.
The search for treasure is not merely the stuff of myths and storybooks, however. Much of human history has been driven by the lust for lucre. Columbus set sail from Spain in search of a passage to India and troves of spices. A few decades later, the Spanish laid waste to the New World in a brutal search for the mountains of gold believed to exist in the fabled Seven Cities of Gold. Conquistadors including Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and Francisco Vázquez de Coronado endured grueling expeditions and inflicted horrific violence on indigenous communities in an attempt to find the cities of gold, cities which it turned out never existed to begin with.
In modern times, eccentric millionaire and Vietnam veteran Forrest Fenn buried a chest filled with gold and gems — worth roughly $1 million — in the Colorado Rockies. People have spent their entire lives looking for the chest with nothing but a cryptic poem to guide them. One treasure hunter died in the quest. Fenn refuses to offer any additional clues as to the treasure’s hiding place, although he insists the poem contains all the information needed for its discovery.
Indeed, after being cooped up for eight weeks, I too am starting to see the appeal. The search is entirely outdoors, and Fenn has indicated that the treasure is not near any structure and is at an elevation greater than 5,000 feet, somewhere between New Mexico and Canada. This means any search will necessarily take you into the wilderness. Tread carefully, of course. The mountains are full of dangers, even once the snows have melted. There are rock slides, storms, bears and rattle snakes to contend with. Yet those dangers simply amplify the allure of the quest.
And honestly, could there be any better time than now to go in search of a chest of gold and gems? With cities on lockdown and the economy at a standstill, a treasure hunt could be just the tonic. If you choose to journey in search of Fenn’s fortune, though, remember that thousands of treasure hunters have perished in their journeys. Tread lightly and good luck.
Today’s Film: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
When I was a child, I wanted to grow up to be an archaeologist. Of course, I had a radical misunderstanding of what archaeologists actually do. It wasn’t until I took an incredibly dull, multi-day seminar about how to properly document and identify pre-Columbian rock and pottery remains taught by an actual archaeologist from the Colorado Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation that I was disabused of the notion that it was a life of adventure. The reality, I learned, is that most archaeologists spend their days looking at data about sediment and dusting things off with tooth brushes. And finding something that fills you with awe — a lost city or a trove of gold for instance — is basically unheard of. King Tut’s Tomb can only be discovered once, in other words.
My fantasy — not surprisingly — had its roots in Hollywood. To this day, one of my favorite movies is Raiders of the Lost Ark, which introduced Harrison Ford’s hangdog archaeologist cum grave robber Dr. Indiana Jones to the world. Directed by Steven Spielberg and with a story by George Lucas and screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan, the film is a ripping adventure from its very first frame. Indiana’s bullwhip and mad dash to escape a giant rolling boulder in a lost jungle temple was seared into my mind as a child. Even now, the blaring trumpets of the theme, composed by John Williams, naturally, get my blood pumping. (Obviously, aspects of the film haven’t aged well, and the politics around digging up cultural patrimony and locking it away in American museums have changed significantly in the 40 years since the film was made, so fair warning.)
Setting aside nostalgia, however, Raiders of the Lost Ark is actually quite good. Ford is outstanding and brings both humor and grit to the role. The story embraces camp and commits fully to its conceit, which is that Jones, a lowly archaeologist with a messy love life, is the only person on the planet who can stop the Nazis from discovering the lost Ark of the Covenant and using it to defeat the forces of good. One of the brilliant decisions that the team made early on was that Indiana is not your typical, brash hero who can simply pummel his way through enemies until he wins and gets the girl too. Instead, Harrison’s character is highly fallible. He makes mistakes — lost of them — gets seriously injured, trusts the wrong people, loses a lot of fights, and is terrible at planning ahead. In other words, setting aside his facility with a bullwhip and revolver, the viewer almost feels like they could do better. All of this means it is a lot of fun whenever he actually scores a point.
Perhaps the best example of this comes midway through the film when Indiana’s love interest, Marion (played with verve by Karen Allen) has been kidnapped by a combo of Nazis and local Egyptian thugs. Indiana, in hot pursuit, finds himself in a plaza where he is confronted by an enormous man with an even bigger sword. It looks like he’s toast. He gives a look like he wants to puke. And then he pulls out his revolver and just shoots the guy. It’s completely anti-climactic, yet also perfect. It also, in a funny way, mirrors real life. The story goes that Harrison Ford was actually supposed to have a highly choreographed fight scene against the swordsman, but they were shooting on location and he had contracted dysentery and was quite ill that day. Pulling the gun was his improv to get off of the set. See, Indiana Jones is totally relatable.
In the long run, I guess I’ll forgive Spielberg, Lucas and Kasdan for convincing my younger self that archaeology was an adventure-filled career. To this day, Raiders of the Lost Ark will make you feel like you’re on your on treasure hunt, and it never gets old.
Raiders of the Lost Ark is streaming on Netflix.
Reading List:
Wired has a great piece on why people freak out when they get lost. Require reading before you go in search of Fenn’s treasure.
And The New Yorker has an amazing feature by Ben Taub about the explorers who recently ventured 36,000 feet below the ocean.
Benjamin Reeves is an award-winning screenwriter, journalist and media consultant based in Brooklyn, New York. Follow him on Twitter @bpreeves or write to him at breeves.writer@gmail.com.