Indiana Jones

I recently came across an article that breaks down almost every aspect of Indian Jones in the perspective of an archaeologist. I think the article was meant to be quite humorous, at least it made me chuckle.

Some people argued that Indiana Jones movies depicted what an audience would expect and want to see from a movie “about archaeology.” These people seemed to be more like film fans rather than fans of archaeology itself. Their comments seemed less than competent compared to those who appeared to be archaeologists or at least knew something about the topic.

Others seemed to know enough to state that the Indiana Jones story and movie does not depict an archaeological scene at all. They made comments that were more details about Indiana Jones’ life. For example, they pointed out what his teachings were, usually in the introduction of a movie, inaccurate. This lead me to believe they may have been archaeology students themselves since they knew what would be taught, but did not comment on the actual findings.

The third type of commenter I recognized was someone who is well trained in the field of archaeology.  Some thought the movies were a complete joke about their profession and did not take much offense, but others saw the Indiana Jones movies as a way of mocking an archaeologist’s life work. They made comments about how he dresses, how he carries a whip, and how he never even hints of following proper protocol for an excavation. They also did not like how each find was either devastating because a valuable item mysteriously disappeared, or how the only other alternative seemed to be that there was a large shiny object and all other things were ignored on the way to retrieve it.

I think the Indiana Jones movies should not be based on archaeology. They should be considered treasure hunting movies. Although some things follow archaeology-like structure, not enough does. For example, how Indiana Jones is a professor and has or is a field worker just like our  current professor and my previous archaeology professor.

Archaeology is about understanding culture and studying artifacts to find that out. I do not believe Indiana Jones’ main goal is to understand the culture of a place he is ‘excavating,’ instead, he is looking for a treasure. In addition to that, he never follows any excavation rules and skips over large parts of sites that would give him helpful evidence about a culture, if that is what he was looking for.

Overall, I agree with the article that Indiana Jones is not a proper example of an archaeologist.

7 thoughts on “Indiana Jones

  1. I haven’t really thought about this topic before it was mentioned in class. I agree with your findings, and am curious about the three types of people you noticed commenting on this article. I believe though, that despite the movie’s lesser accurateness, the goal was to provide entertainment, rather than education. While Indiana Jones is much more of an adventurer, and less of an archaeologist, that is what movies require to be successful. It is true that the movies depict archaeology incredibly inaccurately, but i think that they must in order to capture audience’s attention. The movies include far fetched ideas and wacky theories about whatever archaeological artifact they’re focused on, much of the time, those ideas are well known myths, like aliens being behind the creation of something. These mythological elements in the movies, I think, could be an aside to the fact that the movies are wacky ideas also, rather than archaeological documentaries.

  2. I also wrote about Indiana Jones. I read an article that described him as a looter. Just like yours, this article pointed out all the flaws that he had compared to serious archaeologists. My article pointed out how Indiana Jones had good intentions in the movies, and yet he was not helpful to the archaeological community.
    A point that you brought up in your article that I found really interesting and wrote about in my paper was that Indiana Jones ran past a lot of very important archaeological facts while he was looking for the treasure. In the iconic scene where Indiana jones is running past booby traps and dodging things put in place to protect the golden artifact, he was missing out on an outrageous amount of important things that he could have learned about the culture. Those booby traps would have taught him so much about how they engineered and how they used technology as a civilization, yet instead of taking his time to go through this tunnel, amazingly filled with still working booby traps, that have lasted through hundreds of years, he dodged and destroyed things.
    I understand that people go to the movies to get entertained, and while going to see an Indiana Jones movie would be entertaining because of all the action packed adventures that he went on, this makes it not very accurate for archaeology. And on the flip side, a movie on archaeology would not be considered entertaining to most, while archaeologists and people who appreciate meticulous observation like they do, the large majority of the population would find a film like that boring.
    I personally agree with the article I read and how they blatantly called Indiana Jones a looter. That is exactly what he is. He went for the obviously most valuable artifact, and destroyed things in his way. Indiana Jones is purely entertainment.

  3. I would be interesting in reading the article that you found about Indiana Jones. If you see this comment, could you include the link to the article or the article’s author and title in a comment?

    As you and fellow classmates have commented, I too agree that the Indiana Jones movies depict an inaccurate representation of an archaeologist. Not only did he focus on specific items without regard to the culture around him, but he also did not mind if, in the process of retrieving the focus object, the surrounding areas were destroyed. Material culture and important clues to the culture of the site would have been lost.

    In addition, I find it interesting that Indiana Jones often took pieces of material culture out of the context in which it was found without documenting the site. You also hinted above about never mentioning any of the scientific methods of archaeology and excavation. These objects Jones removed from their context were almost always a sort of treasure, which does not accurately reflect the types of finds that archaeologists make; while objects unearthed from a site may not be a gold statue, they do provide valuable clues to help us learn about the past.

    From an educator’s standpoint, I think that exposing students in elementary school to real, scientific archaeology going on the in the communities around them would help students to develop an accurate view of the field of archaeology. In addition to developing an accurate view of the field, students would also be exposed to the notion that science is more than what goes in a laboratory somewhere; students might even develop a passion for this particular field and choose to pursue a career in archaeology years down the road.

  4. When we first began class and Professor Watrall talked about Indiana Jones, it made me not only want to re-watch the movies, but also compare the Hollywood version of archeology to what I learn in class. Your post really helped me understand more people’s perceptions of the differences between the two. I identify most with the first and least knowledgeable group of people because of my limited background of archaeology. Hollywood films obviously don’t focus on factuality but keeping people on the edge of their seats with action and suspense. The second group you mentioned is what more aware people would identify with. It’s rather obvious that they embellish on details and it also goes into the Hollywood telling of any story. I’m starting to realize how irresponsible Indiana Jones is and why the third group would be upset. It does seem a bit ridiculous that Jones is so careless with artifacts. I agree with your assessment that he should be considered a treasure hunter as opposed to an archaeologist. He is more concerned with the actual gathering of the artifacts as opposed to analyzing them and using them in an academic sense. When he retrieves an artifact, he usually hands it off to a museum. This makes his emphasis on culture less important and more on the actual adventure. Although there is nothing wrong with that, it does seem to distort the view of archaeologists. Nevertheless, I’m sure many archaeologists became interested in the field because of watching the movies. As most Hollywood movies do, they distort reality to keep people interested. While I’m sure some archaeologists get upset about this, they should remember that some of their favorite movies might not accurately represent the reality of another profession either.

  5. Growing up my favorite movies were those in the “Indiana Jones” series. As a kid I never realized how far off from the truth the movies actually are. What they do depict though, is something I believe gets the public more interested. Being an archaeologist takes a certain kind of person, and not everyone is that kind of person. By presenting archaeology the way that Indian Jones did, they created something that could captivate a large audience while bringing awareness to something that is constantly over looked. When I was younger, before I had seen the movies I had no respect for the past, to me I saw no importance and had no respect, but the movies brought along “history” and showed people, while being over exaggerated, how exciting the past can actually be. The movie did an amazing job of teaching the general public some basic things, like respecting and enjoying ancient artifacts. The movies did exactly what movies are meant to do, over glorify and bring subjects into an interesting light.

    This class has definitely opened my eyes and shown me what archaeology is actually like. It has been interesting learning about the other side of things and not just the typical glorified Hollywood edition. I enjoyed learning how archaeologists actually excavate a site and how sites are actually found. I also liked learning how hard it is to actually find the many different sites, and that not all of them are located in large well-known locations. I can’t wait to see what else I learn that contradicts the way Hollywood has portrayed this profession.

  6. It is interesting how growing up you do not even realize the connotations of movies like Indiana Jones. We see it as a whimsical, fantastical, story of a rugged, sand-worn, man who seeks to get treasure and solve the puzzle of the ancient world. I can see the argument that this skews the serious and important role that archaeology plays in learning about culture and the world. I can also see a silver lining, however. There is a saying in media and marketing that states, “any exposure is good exposure.” The reasoning for this is that the more people that know about something the more people will form an opinion. Just by human nature we take sides. Look at politics, religion, and other macroscopic followings; in many cases people will choose a side just for the sake of argument or just because it is the minority. This reasoning applies to smaller following like archaeology as well. How many of us would truly know anything about archaeology if Indiana Jones movies were not a strong artifact in our culture? Reading through the articles and the comments from the first blog post, I am seeing a lot of people (myself included) that really did not know any of the specifics of the archaeological trade before taking this class and the two-week crash course on fundamentals. Even if Indiana Jones sensationalizes and skews the true art of archaeology, it is still very important to get the word out and to attempt to grab the interest of the masses. Another important lesson we learned in class was how much work archaeologists do in the community and to get the youth interested in their craft. Indiana Jones movies can serve as a first step in the door for many to want to attend a meeting or go to a camp in order to learn about the real practice of archaeology and why it is important.

  7. I think it is kind of silly for someone to get offended about the Indiana Jones movies. Hollywood movies are notorious for exaggerating everything, so I really don’t see why a true archaeologists would be offended. Very few people are actually going to think that archaeologists all fight off bad guys and run through temples avoiding booby traps after watching one of the Indiana Jones movies. There are plenty of other Hollywood movie that show an inaccurate picture of scientific jobs and I don’t think those movies are done to insult any actual professionals.

    The Indiana Jones movies obviously couldn’t accurately portray archaeology because, as we talked about, archaeology requires a lot of slow and calculated work. Actual archaeologists spend hours and hours planning an excavation, and then it takes months of tedious work to finish excavating. That really wouldn’t have made for a very good action movie. Hollywood has to do a lot of embellishing to make their movies interesting for a large number of people. They made Indy a archaeologist because treasure hunting or tomb raiding aren’t exactly professions that are respected or that you could become a professor in.

    I always think it’s funny how easily some people get offended by things that are not meant to be taken seriously. For goodness sake (spoiler if anyone actually hasn’t seen the movie), the Nazis get their faces melted in the first movie. That obviously is not a realistic scene, so why is it such a big deal if Indiana Jones is not an accurate portrayal of an archaeologist.

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