Book of Secrets (2007)
The Resolute Desk Twin, Buckingham Palace
From the film · 00:42:00
“It's the same desk. There's two of them.”
London, evening, Ben and Abigail crashing a state party while Riley stays in the car
What we know
The Buckingham Palace twin of the Resolute desk, in the Queen's private study, with a hidden compartment carved with a Mesoamerican plank
The film proposes — and let me be honest, it is film-history — that Queen Victoria had a second desk built from the Resolute timbers and kept it for her own use at Buckingham Palace. There is no historical record of a twin desk. The film accepts this. We accept this in the spirit it is offered. The Buckingham desk in the film contains a hidden compartment in its kneehole, carved with a wooden plank inlay that we extract. The plank is small, foot-long, dark, and bears Mesoamerican glyphs. It is — as Patrick will identify — Olmec, in style, in pigment, and in the carving signature. We palm the plank. We do not, technically, get caught.
The Puzzle
The plank’s three glyph panels were inlaid out of order so a drawer-thief would carry them home incorrectly. Arrange them top to bottom: noble bird, hand, sacred temple.
- 1
Open hand
Five-fingered palm, lines incised. Olmec sign for sealing or marking.
- 2
Sacred temple
Stepped pyramid silhouette, sun-disk above. The mountain that is a city.
- 3
Noble bird
Eagle in profile, wings folded, eye picked out in cinnabar pigment.