Montezuma’s treasure acts as the central tenet for the plot of ‘National Treasure: Edge of History’, a show that follows a high-stakes hunt involving several adventurous parties, all vying for the valuables.
‘Edge of History’ revolves around a young woman named Jess, one who has a penchant for cracking puzzles and figuring out patterns in places others can only notice a whole lot of nothing.
Being an undocumented immigrant, Jess hustles hard, taking up any and all jobs and putting great effort into whatever she does. Her dream job is to become an FBI Special Agent for the cryptanalysis department.
While that dream seems far away, Jess stumbles upon an abandoned storage unit that belongs to a cryptic name. Cracking that puzzle is an easy job for Jess, who eventually figures out who the real owner is and meets the old man to inform him about his possession.
The old man turns out to be Peter Sadusky, a former FBI Special Agent who had many adventures involving Pan-American treasures and the cryptographical puzzle-solving that came with it all.
Sadusky now lives with a decrepit body and dementia, remaining in his house with a caretaker who he continually suspects of being a secret agent with sinister intentions. However, in 2001, when Sadusky still had quite a spring in his walk, he taped himself talking about Montezuma’s treasure.
Montezuma’s mythological treasure
Cortez and his army had ravaged the Aztec Empire during their invasion of Mexico in 1519. In their invasion, they decimated everything but the Conquistadors sought after some really prized possessions.
It was Emperor Montezuma’s treasure, consisting of gold and libraries inside his palaces. Over time since the invasion, many people began disbelieving that there ever was such a treasure, and they had understandable reasons for little to nothing was known of any such trove of invaluable.
However, unbeknownst to all who thought of the treasure as a fairy tale and a myth, there was more to the treasure that evaded all the history books. It was the Freemasons who first got proof that an underground network of indigenous women had secreted away the treasure during the invasion.
The relics & clues within
These women operated covertly, and while the Conquistadors’ invasion burned and ravaged the indigenous folk, they stashed away the treasures in a secret location nobody except them knew about.
Then came the part about codifying the clues to the treasure’s location. To do that, the women came up with three relics, each containing parts of the clues or the map of the location of the treasure.
Each of these relics was meant for the three civilizations — the Aztecs, Maya, and Inca. Over time, these relics were lost, until the 21st century.
The hunt so far and up ahead
A band of treasure hunters at the start of the 21st century finally came close to finding the Aztec relic. However, a spy within this group led by Salazar stole the Aztec relic, and it was none other than Jess’s father Rafael.
Jess and her father before him came the closest to the Aztec relic, and whereas her father sacrificed himself to protect the treasure, Jess now races against time and other hunters to get to the treasure first.
While Jess has Liam’s help and Sadusky’s hidden library of research and proofs to turn to, wealthy and shady Billie Pearce is out to get the treasure as well, and she has already figured out that Jess will be a key to get to the secret location where the myth becomes reality.
Also Read: Who is Peter Sadusky in National Treasure: Edge of History?