Indiana Jones and Real Archaeology
Excerpts from an article by Neil Asher Silberman, former director of the Ename Center for Public Archaeology and Heritage Presentation in Belgium, author of “Digging for God and Country” and co-author of “The Bible Unearthed.”
Even worse, the picture of the vine-swinging, revolver-toting archaeological treasure hunter is all wrong. Gone are the days when all that mattered was museum-quality treasure, and the “natives” didn’t matter at all. Certainly in the age of the great colonial empires, archaeologists were often solitary adventurers who could count on the prestige and power of their nations to claim the ruins and relics of ancient empires for themselves. Even without a fedora and a bullwhip, Lord Elgin shipped the famous Parthenon marbles home to England, Heinrich Schliemann smuggled away Troy’s golden treasures, and Howard Carter managed to spirit away precious artifacts from King Tutankhamen’s tomb in Egypt.
…That’s why I cringe when I see how the fedora, leather jacket and bullwhip have become recognizable international promotional symbols of archaeology. Many archaeologists have enthusiastically embraced the Hollywood fantasy, borrowing a bit of Indiana Jones’s mystique for themselves. Zahi Hawass, secretary general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities and archaeological czar of the relics and tombs of ancient Egypt, recently raised funds for charity on a U.S. tour by selling autographed copies of his trademark Indiana Jones hat. The National Science Foundation has just put up an Indiana Jones-themed home page, complete with bullwhip and fedora, and the Archaeological Institute of America, a venerable academic organization of classical archaeologists and art historians, has elected Harrison Ford to its board of directors, in tribute to his “significant role in stimulating the public’s interest in archaeological exploration.” And professor Cornelius Holtorf of the University of Kalmar in Sweden has offered the opinion that “Indiana Jones is no bad thing for science,” suggesting that the film series has attracted many students and supporters to real-life archaeological work.
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