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Indiana Jones and the Incredible Archaeology Inaccuracies Ever met an archaeologist? Bet he or she was about as similar to Indiana Jones as your doctor is to Patrick Dempsey. We’ve unearthed several discrepancies between Indy’s onscreen professional practices and the way archaeologists actually operate in the real world. Be sure to dig up some of your own examples, too, and add them to the grid below by clicking the EasyEdit button. Comparing Indiana Jones' way of archaeology to todays standards does bring up many inaccuracies, but todays standards were only created in the late 1970's. During the 1930's archaeology wasn't well-established meaning that resources and support were limited, methodologies had to be developed on the fly. While this may or may not have included cracking a bullwhip at the first sign of trouble, it was certainly far cry from the formal procedures that must be observed today. (information from the official Indiana Jones website) |
INDY | REAL WORLD ARCHAEOLOGIST |
| Uses whip as all-purpose tool. | Uses a Leatherman as all-purpose tool. (This Associated Press article’s title said it best: “Real Archaeologists Don’t Have Whips.”) |
| Travels to exotic locations. | Also spends weeks at the library and months in the laboratory. |
| Works solo. | Works with a team of academics. |
| Smashes through temple wall, grabs gold treasure and tramples out before he’s caught. | Few people chase real archaeologists, who work with local scholars and governments. They move really slowly, anyway. Dusting away debris with brushes and sifting dirt with gradually finer meshes in search of tiny bits of historic evidence. |
| Enriches himself with aforementioned gold treasure… and gets the girl. | “The only difference between Indiana Jones and myself is he always gets the goodies and gets the beautiful women and gets paid a lot of money,” Jaime Awe, director of the Institute of Archaeology in Belize, tells the Associated Press, “and I don't get any of that.” |
| Looks like Harrison Ford. |  Looks like Edward S. Cooke Jr., an art history professor in the archaeology department at Yale, where Indiana Jones was filmed. (You’re handsome, Dr. Cooke, just not Hollywood-caliber.) |
| Puts plundered object in bag and flies home. | Looting is a crime, and customs agents are on the lookout for imported antiquities without the proper paperwork. Also, repatriation is a serious issue dogging major institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the British Museum. |
| Gets his students excited about archaeology. | Actually, this part’s true. The Archaeological Institute of America has appointed Harrison Ford to its board of directors in acknowledgment of his work to stimulate interest in the subject. |
| Represents Americans’ adventurous sprit and thirst for knowledge. | In an essay on the hidden meanings of the Indiana Jones movies, Washington Post staff writer Hank Stuever suggests Indy’s manhandling of other ethnicities’ treasures might represent America because “he blunders, he plunders.” |
| Archaeologists are adventurers. | That’s half right, according to archaeology pioneer Alfred V. Kidder, who wrote this three decades before Indiana Jones was born: “In popular belief, and unfortunately to some extent in fact, there are two sorts of archaeologists, the hairy-chested and the hairy-chinned. [The hairy-chested variety appears] as a strong-jawed young man in a tropical helmet, pistol on hip, hacking his way through the jungle in search of lost cities and buried treasure. His boots, always highly polished, reach to his knees, presumably for protection against black mambas and other sorts of deadly serpents. The only concession he makes to the difficulties and dangers of his calling is to have his shirt enough unbuttoned to reveal the manliness of his bosom.” (Archaeolog) |
| Must evade booby traps set millennia ago. | “I doubt that ancient booby traps existed,” Yale archaeologist Heidi Cuzzone tells Dig: The Archaeology Site for Kids, “or that they would work after thousands of years.” |
| Wears a tall brown felt fedora with a wide brim and grosgrain band. | True dat, Cuzzone adds: “The character of Indiana Jones, especially his hat, has become a symbol of archaeology. It has been my experience that when the press covers an archaeological dig, it is the archaeologist wearing this hat that often makes the paper.” |
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