Curse of Oak Island Archaeology Update: A good look at Zena Halpern’s map of Oak Island

Zena’s map has made a lot of noise on The Curse of Oak Island (COOI) so far. Its authenticity has been debated both on the show and in fan communities. It has guided part of the work done by the COOI team. Today I’d like to take a good, close, long overdue look at it.

Zena’s map

My first impression is that if there is an original somewhere, and if that original is old, this is a very recent copy of it. The script is modern. For contrast, here is an example of 18th Century French script, and anyone who has been following the show has seen other examples.

Zena’s document is mostly block letters with what I would call semi-cursive mixed in. The S and the T are fully modern. This is not an old document in its current form.

It’s also clear to me that whoever made it is not Francophone, and probably not terribly familiar with French. There are very basic errors and oddities that can’t be ascribed simply to archaic language. I will note when there are linguistic features that could be archaic, and when archaic features should be there and are missing.

The COOI Team’s translation

Starting in the top right corner of the full map, we have “cette dessan”, which is probably intended to mean “ce dessein” (this drawing). “Dessein” takes the masculine article “ce”, and not the feminine “cette.” The word “dessan” seems to be a phonetic rendering of “dessein”, if you pronounce it with a modern Parisian accent. It would be rendered differently with a Quebec accent, for example.

“Dessein” is a strange choice here. There are many better options, such as “carte” or “plan” (both for map, or “croquis” (sketch). You would normally use “dessein” if you were drawing a flower or something, but not a map.

Anything after “Rochefoucauld” is difficult to read and interpret, and looks like nonsense. It could be something like “un peu verre d’appre nous (something)”, which could stand for “a little toward (something) according to us”, except that toward should be “vers”, and not “verre” (which means glass), and “d’appre” should be “d’après.” Anyway, I won’t spend more time on this fragment. If someone has an idea. Let me know.

The compass rose is definitely odd. It puts the west at the top, which is quite rare. Old maps are much more likely to be oriented either north, like modern ones, or east, which is where the expression “to orient a map” comes from (i.e. orient = east).

The compass rose also shows “le bateau” (the boat, as opposed to “navire”, which would be a ship), and “le barque” (the barque, a common type of boat), except that “barque” takes the feminine article “la”, rather than “le.” 

Below that we have “le atterissage”, intended to mean “the landing”, but “attérissage” takes the feminine article “la”, which would be abbreviated to L and an apostrophe (“l’attérissage”), because French doesn’t tolerate consecutive vowels in an article-noun group. This is a very basic rule in French and suggests that whoever did the map did not know French very well. “Attérissage” also takes an accent on the e. 

This is followed by the date “un mille trois cent quarante-sept”, meaning “one thousand three hundred forty-seven”, except that in French, whether modern or archaic, the “one” (“un”) in “one thousand” would be dropped entirely. This should simply read “mille trois cent quarante-sept.”

To the left of that, we have “Ne vous allez ici avec le bateau”, which is likely intended to mean “Don’t go there with the boat”, and should read “N’allez pas ici avec le bateau.” The meaning is plain, but the grammar is very tortured. Interestingly, if this was really in archaic French, the “pas” would likely be replaced by “point.”

At the very bottom, we have a cryptic note that “Les sud indiens travaille tres bon”, probably intended to mean “The indians to the South (referring to indigenous people) work very well”, and in that case should read “Les indiens au sud (or du sud) travaillent très bien.” The verb ending is third person singular instead of plural, but I can let that go. The literal translation of what’s written here would be something like “the south indians work very good.”

This is followed by “le lionceau de Talmont”, or “the lion cub of Talmont.” Talmont is a castle in France associated with Richard Lionheart.

Now we get to the representation of the island itself, and the landmarks noted on it. 

Just above the island, we have what is pretty clearly “La anse”, which in geographical context is a small bay. Again, the article’s vowel should be dropped and replaced with an apostrophe, so this should be “L’anse”, similar to L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, where there is a Viking archaeological site. 

On the translated map shown on COOI, “La anse” is read as “La ange” and translated to “The angel.” In French, however, angel takes the masculine article “le”, rather than the feminine “la”, and anyway, it would still be “L’ange.”

Then we have “le trou sous la trappe”, which is translated on the show as “the hole under the hatch.” This is defensible. “La trappe” could be more directly translated as a trap, as in for animals, but it can also be a hatchlike door.

To the left of this is “les isle des chene”, translated by the team as “Oak Island.” There are a number of problems here. First, the article “les” is plural, indicating a group of islands, rather than a single one, but the work “isle” is still singular. Like in English, it would take an “s” in the plural. 

“Isle” is the archaic form of the modern French word for Island, but again it is missing its accent on the “i”. Then we have the “chene” (oak), which is missing its accent (should be “chêne”) and should also be plural, since it is preceded by the plural “des”, rather than the singular “du”. 

In modern French, Oak Island would be either “L’Île du Chêne” or “L’ïle des Chênes.” On an old map, however, I would expect the archaic forms of both words, giving us “L’Îsle des Chêsnes.”

Moving to the left a bit, we have “la soupape”, accurately translated by the team as “the valve”, and then “le triangle”, followed by a word that could be “deca”, but I don’t know what to make of it. The COOI team seems to think it is an abbreviation for December, making the whole thing “the December triangle.” It looks doubtful to me, and “dec” as an abbreviation for December should still have an accent on the e (“déc”).

Moving down the island, we have “le marais”, uncontroversially rendered as “the marsh”, “le basin” as “the basin”, and “le barrage” as “the dam.”

“La ancres” as “the anchors” is a bit more problematic, simply because “la” indicates a singular, and “ancres” is plural, and we have the two consecutive vowels again, rather than the apostrophe. So it should either be “l’ancre” (singular), or “les ancres” (plural).

“Le triangle de Pierre” as “the stone triangle” presents a bit of a puzzle. Normally in French, the stones in a stone triangle or a stone circle would be plural, as in “le triangle de pierres” (note the “s” on pierres. On the other hand, the “P” on Pierre seems to be upper case, which could indicate the name of a person, as in Peter’s triangle, in which case it would be singular and not plural. Make of that what you will.

Going around the point of the island, we find “le chene entrer ici”, translated by the COOI team as “the oak enter here.” I mean, generally yes, but it is bad and confusing French grammar. “Le chene” is the oak, minus the accent on the e (again), and in it’s modern instead of archaic form, but “entrer” is the infinitive form of the verb. 

If it was an instruction, it would normally take the imperative form (“entrez”), and if it was a description (i.e. an entrance), it would take the noun form (entrée). Still, it is an easy enough error to make, and some Francophones would make it too.

Finally, we have “la voute en bas de terre”, which is very confusing, and is translated by the team as the no less confusing “the earth vaulted bay.” I think whoever wrote this was trying to say “the underground vault”, which would then be “la voûte souterraine”, or at the very least “la voûte sous terre.” 

The literal translation of the phrase is “the vault below earth”, but no one would say it that way in French. It reads like a very literally translated English phrase. And there is that missing accent again, as if the person who made the map had never heard of all the diacritics we liberally sprinkle over French words to indicate different sounds.

In summary, I would say every indication is that the map is recent, and was made by someone with no more than passing familiarity with the French language.