An Archaeological Response to Wakanda Forever
When I watched this movie for the first time I was engulfed. I loved it for what it was [an action-adventure movie that made me cry], but my mind never turned off archaeologist mode. All of the symbolism and the stories they were telling, using the naming conventions, the costuming, and the set decoration, all stood out to me and forced me to think ‘They MUST have done this on purpose, right?’ Whether or not they were fully aware that the visuals and the backstories were pulled directly from multiple mythological and historical sources during the movie-making process, it did come up a lot. It wouldn’t have much to do with the original comic book run, which made Namor seem like a villainous Aquaman. I can’t answer all my questions, I can point out the symbolic instances I noticed. This is <one archaeologist's view> of Black Panther 2: Wakanda Forever.
Black Panther 2: Wakanda Forever Poster ©Disney
Of course, this movie started with the beautiful emotional gut-punch of King T’Challa dying offscreen and his funeral procession after the real-life passing of Chadwick Boseman. We immediately have SYMBOLISM through costume design. In many countries and cultural traditions, white is considered the mourning color. Even though white is worn in multiple areas it reflects different ideas for people who follow Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islamic traditions. These meaningful connections have long been associated with death and the color could be considered to have an inauspicious energy, but it is also a color of rebirth and purification for the next life.
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They have a spear and shield, possibly representing T’Challa’s strength and protection capabilities, both as king and black panther. And pouring water into the soil, perhaps part of the rebirth of the Earth, giving back life… may be similar to pouring one out.
And the Queen’s hat, this is significant symbolically of a particularly famous queen, I’ll leave you to figure out who it is before I go over it later.
The reveal of the coffin lid under the burial shroud is awesome. They have the black panther mask above the necklace and the crossed arms of the Wakandan salute, with the right arm over the left. Right away, this reminded me of the ancient Egyptian pharaonic coffin lids, not golden of course or shaped like a person, but with the mask above the crossed arms which on the Egyptian coffins would have been holding a crook (heka) and flail or flabellum (nekhakha), the symbols of the god Osiris and symbols of kingship, authority, and leadership. Possible meanings behind these tools could be the crook could be the tool for a kinder, more gentle leadership versus the flail for a harsher leader or punishment, or the crook for leading and the flail to protect from outside aggressors. Either way, these are tools of a shepherd. The fighting and protection angle creates another connection to the spear and shield that are laid pointing to the coffin. (Elias 2014).
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The mummy of Rameses the Great (1279-1213 BCE) was found in this cedarwood sarcophagus.
[And what is super precisely done is that the right arm is over the left, the same as the pharaonic coffins as that is another identifier of royalty in this coffin and statues, others would have been left over right. So what is extra is that everyone is doing the right over left, so in a sense, they are symbolizing that everyone is equal to each other.]
During the walk of the imperial guard carrying the coffin through the streets, the public is singing and dancing, for a celebration of life rather than the mournful affair (like a New Orleans jazz parade).
[I’m surprised that they only had America and France as the hateful imperialist forces, but yeah, those are 2 of the many colonist countries that participated in the slave trade and stole resources from the many countries in Africa.]
Their putting the other vibranium in the Atlantic is interesting because Zuma, the original name of the site now called Tulum, where the flashbacks take place is in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, on the eastern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula overlooking the Caribbean Sea (Bley 2011). Not to say they couldn’t go further as the sea is connected to the ocean after all. It could have been placed there because it’s between Africa and South America, but inadvertently the creators played into the Greek “myth” created by Plato, Atlantis. Both cities were technologically advanced and sunken in the Atlantic Ocean, and neither were ever real myths, even in ancient times.
Map of where the real Zuma is located (Google Maps).
Map in Wakanda Forever where the AI lost contact, likely in a cenote that connects to the ocean (©Disney).
The Aloe plant growing with vibranium (©Disney).
The connection to Greek myths doesn’t stop there. The murderous song from the warriors of Talokan is super reminiscent of the siren’s song from The Odyssey, relayed by the Greek orator Homer. Course, in that, the sirens were half-bird, half-woman creatures with the same song to lure sailors to their death by making them crash their ships on the rocks they live on. Even though the sirens weren’t originally underwater beings, I don’t mind the deviation because legends made them merfolk hundreds of years ago (I love wicked sirens). Plus their warrior garb and other armor are so badass, using marine material in the same styles as illustrated in ancient Mayan tableaus and stelae.
Merfolk from Talokan singing by the boat (©Disney).
A funerary statue of a siren in Pentelic marble, found in the Necropolis of Ceramics at Athens. The siren laments the dead, wings folded, playing on a tortoiseshell lyre. The right hand, which would have held the plectrum, is missing. The statue flanked the stele of the Athenian warrior Dexileo who fell in combat in 394/393 BC (Work of 370 BCE, National Archeological Museum, Athens).
A miniature illustration of a siren, with a fish's tail like a mermaid, enticing sailors with her song who try to resist her, from an English Bestiary, c. 1235 (British Library).
When Namor appears with traditional-looking necklaces and the green-stone (jade/jadeite, nephrite) piercings in his ears and nose perfectly match Maya artwork. The tight shorts were from the comic design, and it’s a futuristic underwater and public-friendly version of the kilts/skirt/hip cloth that an Ajaw (king) would’ve been more likely to wear in the Classic and Postclassic Periods (c. 200-1697 CE). Namor’s headdress is perfect for K’uk’ulkan, with the snake head and multicolored plumage. And the Maya people did wear sandals (seems obvious, but you don’t want to assume).
Namor ©Disney
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King of Bonampak (Davies n.d.)
When talking to Shuri after the Talokan tour Namor is draped in a white cloth with a geometric design. It is quite normal to see this design today, but it is beautifully mirroring real Mesoamerican architectural motifs present throughout the larger cultural region.
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Structure at the Zapotec site Mitla in Oaxaca, Mexico (Whitehouse 2014).
Statue and Pottery art of Hermes (images from Theoi.com).
Here again is a salute to Greek/pre-Hellenic mythology. Hermés, the Olympian is the herald (messenger) of the gods, a psychopomp, and is himself the god of boundaries, roads, travel, athletes, shepherds, commerce, speed, thieves, cunning, and wit (a wide swath). In Greek art, Hermés was sometimes depicted as having wings directly on his ankles too.
There were also ancient artistic representations of the winged sandals, also called Taloria, or pédila in Greek, which were made especially for him by Hephaestus (the god of smithing). They were said to be made of palm and myrtle branches and to be beautiful and golden. Though in some versions of his stories neither the sandals nor the ankles had wings and it was more a metaphor for his gift of speed. So it depends on the place, time, and who is telling the story.
His pointed ears are reminiscent of elves and fairy folk, and his general nature echoes the Pre-Hellenic god Pan, derived from or even could’ve been the original Mycenaean iteration of Hermes, with a greater connection to the wilderness. “Ears that pointed to the clouds”, further symbolizing his anointed comparison to K’uk’ulkan. Sky features (heavenly) and earth features in his earthly form. It’s not a direct path, but these just stand out as connections in my mind. Plus a green, flying, mischievous, trickster, fairy-like character… leads me directly to Peter Pan.
Statue of Pan | Peter Pan (©Disney) | Flying Namor (©Disney)
When Namor says that he has many names, but his people call him K’uk’ulkan I was pleased that they spelt it with the punctuation in the subtitles that the original translations had and in the pronunciation. They could’ve let it slide, but they didn’t (at least getting the closest I know, which isn’t saying much. What’s even better is that they stuck with the Yucatec Mayan name for the god and not one of the other groups of Mayan like the K’iche’ Q’uq’umatz or even the Mixtec (Aztec) version Queztalcoat’l, the name the huge pterosaur is named after, which obviously wouldn’t make sense in context. Still, so many movies just conflate all non-white stereotypes. For those who are unaware, K’uk’ulkan was a plumed (feathered) serpent god who was the subject of a “cult” and also appears in Pre-Mayan art with no particular name that we know of, so yes many names.
He can also fly because of his dualistic divinity status and is typically known as the god of the wind, and knowledge, and is one of the creator gods. Even the myths about him don’t provide a definite beginning, because everyone already knew it, so they didn’t need to write it down. But, because the flashback shows Namor as a child in the 16th century when the Spanish were busy conquering, he would’ve been named after or as a representation of the pre-existing god, not the first instance of his existence.
Young Namor flying (©Disney)
More connective tissue with real lore appears in references to texts by Mayan authors from the 16th and 17th centuries that named K’uk’ulkan as a real person living around that time. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find many academic sources for this claim. K’uk’ulkan was also the name of the 10th-century CE cultural hero in Yucatec Maya history. A ruler or priest either travelled to or founded Chichen Itza in the Terminal Classic Period (830–950 CE) around the time of the Classic Maya Collapse. He then appeared in writings from Mayapan, a last-ditch effort city built in the Postclassic Period (c. 950-1539), a period which ended when Cortez landed. In writings from the Late Classic Maya capitol, a leader came from the legendary Toltec city of Tollan, the capital of the Tula Empire. What is thought to be the modern city of Tula is located in the state of Hidalgo to the West (aka the region of death/the afterlife) of the Yucatec Mayan region (Davis n.d.). The Nauha Mixtecs later had a similar basic story but identified him as Ce Acatl Topiltzin Quetzalcóatl, or “1 Reed, Our Prince Plumed Serpent” (starting with his birthday). He was a king in recorded history, in the Florentine Codex as one of the lords of the Toltecs, and exists in legends in multiple other areas. Some stories say that he left one area to bring cultural innovations to another and then left them in peace again. But promised to one day return from the East. Possibly because the east is the region of resurrection (rising sun) just like in ancient Egyptian mythology. <Some historians have written that various Europeans, from Saint Anthony to Hernán Cortez may have been identified as the ruler-priest, but this may have been post-colonial propaganda to either make the indigenous look stupid or that they simply submitted to the white men because they assumed he/they were gods. I wonder if those myths gave the movie writers some ideas that they could build off without going into the whole story.
There is a particular color that some people call Maya Blue since it’s a bright blue shade found in many Mayan tableaus. The warriors are resurrected people who need the oxygen in the water to survive, so when they are in pure air their bodies turn blue (deoxygenated) which explains why they look “normal” while under the water in the scene in Talokan. Whether the costume designers or the writers meant to or not, it was a sneaky way to bring in another subtle historical easter egg.
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Mayan warrior (WikiCommons) | Maya painting kingly parade (Whitehouse 2013)
I don’t know any dialect of Mayan to be able to know what the citizens of Talokan are saying, if the subtitles are right, or if what they put in the movie is the real Yucatec Mayan language which would have been used in the Talum-Tancah area (as it is now known), but at least the AI would’ve correctly identified it.
<Warriors would have used spears, darts, and arrows.> In hieroglyphic texts from Yaxichilan there are references to na bate meaning “women warriors”. This class could’ve meant a couple of different things while not being mutually exclusive. They could have been actual warriors fighting alongside men in battle, but the na bate term could mean an elite woman in society, which the archaeologist Hewitt in 1999 (258-259) says was considered a masculine attribute in itself, just having power. The women desired the title because it would identify and “imitate their power” (258). In Teotihuacan (a mysterious civilization that experienced its peak between around 1-700 CE) there are substantial grave goods and people as part of elite burials. Underneath the Temple of the Sun, there are dozens of human burials aligned with the sides. The people were dressed in and adorned with warrior garb and buried with weapons. Many of the remains have been identified as female, however, this could have been symbolic of the prestige burial in the center and not necessarily representative of what they did in life. [But badass warrior women are badass.]
Warrior buried underneath the Temple of the Sun in Teotihuacan, Mexico (Whitehouse 2014).
The woman in the village (~1:39:45) said “The K’uk’ulkan… of this realm and the realm below”. She doesn’t go into it, or even say the name, but I’m thinking that the realm below she is referring to is Metnal, the land of the dead, or Xibalba in K’iche Mayan. <And yes, Xibalba is the more commonly known name (maybe), but I’m glad they didn’t assume language and get it wrong.> Though K’uk’ulkan is a God of the Sky and Winds, his dual nature means that he can travel in and out of the Underworld at relative ease, as there are more myths about that.
Whitehouse 2014
This isn’t archaeology-related, but glowworm larvae aren’t worms and aren’t what’s glowing in the glowworm caves. It’s the bioluminescent material within the excrement of different species of fungus gnats while they are in the larval form of their life cycle. Also, cenotes are all over the lower plains in Mexico and are sinking amazing.
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Whitehouse 2013
The detail in the cave’s murals is amazing. They pulled actual images from stelae and lintel artwork and adjusted them to fit the set and the directing plans. Then added a mural in a Mayan style, but depicting the movie’s story. When Shuri walks into the room to meet Namor, he is sitting in front of a blow-up version of Lintel 15, a limestone block within Structure 21 at Yaxchilan in Chiapas, Mexico. The lintel was carved around 770 CE during the Late Classic Period which is generally 700-900 CE. Lintel 15’s artwork depicts glyphs and a scene representing Lady Wak Tuun, during a bloodletting rite. She is carrying a basket with the paraphernalia used for auto-sacrifice: a stingray spine, a rope and bloodied paper. The Vision Serpent appears before her, springing from a bowl which also contains strips of bark paper. The mural in the movie moves the text boxes to the side rather than between the characters. But it's an interesting framing of the scene because Namor is sitting in front of the kneeling Lady Wak Tuun while Shuri walks in covering the depiction of K’uk’uklan. As everything in movies is (or at least should be) done with purpose, so I think that the director is showing that Shuri is the one with more power. Or that could be a twist and that Namor was trying to make it seem that he is secondary to Shuri so she will help him in his plan. Which is his play.
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Yaxchilan Series - Lintel 15: Carved limestone lintel with glyphs and a scene representing Lady Wak Tuun, during a bloodletting rite. (British Museum, produced 770 CE).
The hieroglyphic text seems so well done, but I can’t read Mayan hieroglyphs so I don’t know what they mean so together it could all be nonsense. They could have put together random glyphs or since the set decorators pulled real murals they could have easily used text blocks from real stelae and lintels too.
The 2nd mural we are shown is likely supposed to represent the Ceiba tree, the cosmic tree, and in the four cardinal directions. The movie's depiction seems messier or less constructed so it could be an original work inspired by the idea of the cosmic tree (which is a myth appearing in heaps of cultural tradition around the world). Maybe their cosmic tree is more of a cosmic reef to reflect the change in the cultural environment and later in the movie.
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“Aztec Cosmic Tree of Life” - Ceiba tree (AncientPages.com, 2017)
The top portion of the World Tree from Pakal’s coffin lid - Mayan, vegetal axis mundi (McDonald 2016).
Starting the backstory-flashback portion, the glyphs change to Zama, which may have been the original Indigenous name of the Tulum site. The connection was made because Zama means ‘City of Dawn’ and was named as such because it faces the sunrise. But if you look at the modern-day area you can see a temple on the small pyramid on the bluff over the sea, but it’s not a full pyramid on the water, as shown even when Queen Ramonda meets with Namor, the background is not the same and there are no other sites it would be. I guess they wanted to beef up the visuals and probably too many tourists at the real location.
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Tulum facing south (Lonely Planet, Getty Images)
The dating is pretty good, after the initial conquest, because that particular city was so far through dense rainforest and separated from other Maya cities that it took longer for the Spanish to find (Miller 1976).
Namor said they turned to Chaac, who is the god of rain, water, thunder, and lightning. Technically he has 5 total manifestations based on the cardinal directions and the central point. Chaac is also associated with warfare, but I could only find a reference to him as a war god in one paper, and holding K’awiil does not a war god make, though it could be one of his attributes, which would be why they chose him for the movie. But his agricultural power made much more important because he opened the mountain with maize inside (the food and/or the maize god) wielding the lightning axe K’awiil or God K (Bolon Dzacob in Yucatec, who is a god on his own, and much more complex than an anthropomorphic Stormbreaker). Because Chaac appears in some versions of the creation myth, Chaac is sometimes identified as a god of fertility and creation. According to a paper by Barríos, the author discussed Chaac in fishing scenes as well as the rebirth of the maize god, who is depicted in some images as having the body or jaws of a fish. A depiction in itself of rebirth and is part of aquatic spaces and thus falls in Chaac’s domain (2008).
Of course, Namor did not have the same origin in the comic, since he was originally based in Atlantis and his name is said to be “avenging son” while also being Roman spelt backwards, which, after Troy fell Aenis started the avenging with the founding of Rome, at least the precursor land where Rome would later be founded.
[El niño sin amour (the boy without love) → sinamour → si Namor (yes Namor)] (photo ©Disney)
Of course, Catholic priests wouldn’t see him as having any connection to Hermés/Mercury, but even for a learned Catholic Latin priest, I guess they would leap the devil before calling him a false god.
There are a lot of different depictions of Chaac in name glyphs ranging from simple to elaborate, and the glyph that Namor points to could be one. It has the back circle on the right, the unhappy face with the ear plug and the maize on the top of his head, showing his connection to the maize god. (Just saying if they did make it up they did a REALLY good job.
Movie glyph of Chac (©Disney) One version of the Chac glyph (WikiCommons)
Having the shaman jump into a cave mouth filled with water was also a smart choice, since 1) cenotés (natural pits filled with groundwater) are common features in the Yucatan Peninsula and 2) cave mouths are the entrances to the underworld and are already connected to a rain god.
Blue rock is a type of basalt rock, a super hard volcanic rock that is found inland, to the west, in the direction of the underworld. These rock types are found in Mexico because there have been many volcanoes in the Trans-Mexico Volcanic Belt in the Neogene Volcanic arc (also where the obsidian/volcanic glass came from). This blue rock or the lack of oxygen in the skin without water could be the explanation as to why the warriors are blue outside of water.
[They did use ahau/ajaw for the word king.]
The pyramid looks red, which is how the Maya painted their monuments, roads, and platforms after covering them with hard plaster lime (Kerpel 2010; Braswell 2014).
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Talokan, aka Tlālōcān, is described as a paradise by the Mexica “place of Tlāloc”. Those who died by drowning, lightning, or a disease associated with the rain were taken there. All are associated with the rain deity Tlāloc who is the same as Chaac.
The kids are playing the underwater version of the ball game, a traditional game and a kingly ceremony that was played in courts found in archaeological sites throughout Mesoamerica and up to Arizona. It’s probably easier to play underwater since you hit a solid rubber ball with just the hip through the hoops.
Underwater ballgame ©Disney
Ballcourt at Xochicalco (Whitehouse 2014)
Kids seeing Shuri ©Disney
Everyone is skin coloured and is wearing the underwater version of traditional clothing and is doing the hand (oyster) gesture/salute. The salute at first looked like a clam, but it was also a real painted gesture in Mayan art. We don’t know what the gesture means because ‘[most gestures have not been interpreted’ (Hill Boone: 2000:59). Manuel Hermann Lejarazu, a Mixtec codex scholar, talks in general terms of the open two-handed sign being a ‘ceremonial greeting’ (2008: 14). But the only detailed study of this subject that I’m aware of is by Nancy Troike, and that is to one particular Mixtec codex (the Colombino-Becker) in which it appears to be a reciprocal gesture (1982: 190).
Hand gesture/salute ©Disney
Mixtec hand gestures, Codex Zouche-Nuttall, pl. 40
The bracelet fibers are made with underwater plant fiber, though it looks like aloe it’s not (same order, different family). Aloe-like plants were commonly used for fiber. While cotton was also used, it was mainly for elites because it took a lot of time and effort to pick out the seeds. The Furcraea genus was also commonly used throughout Mesoamerica.
Shuri in dress ©Disney | Lady K'abel's portrait on Stela 34 of El Perú in northern Guatemala, reigned between 672 and 692 (Cleveland Art Museum 1967)
Namor’s mother’s bracelet is made out of plant fibres, jade, pearls, and gold. ©Disney
The profile on Queen Ramonda’s casket is extremely reminiscent of the bust of Nefertiti. An influential queen near the end of Egypt’s 18th dynasty, she acted as regent while King Tutankhaten → Tutankhamun was too young to lead. The only difference was the shape of the top of the crown, flaring out instead of being a straight cylindrical cap-crown.
Queen Ramonda ©Disney
Queen Ramonda’s coffin lid cover ©Disney
Bust of Nefertiti (Berlin Museum)
Namor paints part of a mural (~2:24:10) already depicting a Mayan man fighting a dark-coloured jaguar with golden jewellery. Reflexive of the characters in the fight we just saw. It was good camera framing and directing so they never showed that wall.
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The name for the Black Panther character came from the black panther party, and being so historically important it's so interesting. Panthera is the genus name of a melanistic version of the leopard (Africa) and the jaguar (from the Americas). Jaguars are huge deals in Central America, they were hunted for their furs and showed up in statues, thrones, and ritual ceremonies, and the word for jaguar (Bahlam) is part of many kings’ names.
Cited Work
Barríos, Ana García. (2008). Chaahk, the Rain God, in the Classic Mayan Period: Religious and Political Aspects. Thesis of
the Complutense University of Madrid. [translated from Spanish]
Bley, B. (2011). The Ancient Maya and Their City of Tulum: Uncovering the Mysteries of an Ancient Civilization and
Their City of Grandeur. iUniverse.
Braswell, G. E., & May, N. P. (2014). In the shadow of the pyramid: excavations of the great platform of Chichen Itza.
In The Ancient Maya of Mexico (pp. 243-277). Routledge.
Davies D. n.d. “Ajaw – Ruler”. Maya Archaeologist: Educational Resources on the Maya by Dr Diane Davies. Available
at: https://www.mayaarchaeologist.co.uk/school-resources/maya-spirit-animals/ajaw-ruler/
Davis, K. “Tollan and Quetzalcoatl in the Ancient City of Tula,” HistoricalMX. Accessed Oct 2023.
https://historicalmx.org/items/show/169.
Elias, J. P., Lupton, C., & Klales, A. (2014). Assessment of arm arrangements of Egyptian mummies in light of recent
CT studies. Yearbook of mummy studies, 2, 49-62.
Kerpel, D. M. (2010). The hidden aesthetic of red in the painted tombs of Oaxaca. RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics,
57(1), 55-74.
McDonald, J. A. (2016). Deciphering the symbols and symbolic meaning of the Maya World Tree. Ancient
Mesoamerica, 27(2), 333-359.
Miller, A. G. (1974). West and East in Maya thought: death and rebirth at Palenque and Tulum. Primera Mesa Redonda
de Palenque, par, 45-49.
