Billed as the 'hottest ticket' at this year's Cannes Film Festival, the launch today of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull coincides with National Archaeology Week, which was established to increase public awareness of Australian archaeology and enhance protection of Australia's unique cultural heritage.
This serendipity of timing raises a number of questions: What role do the Indiana Jones films play in public perceptions of archaeology? Do they enhance the discipline, or detract from it? Can archaeology match the excitement of an Indiana Jones film?
A broader question concerns the inter-relationships between film and the discipline areas upon which they are based.
Over the last three decades, Indiana Jones has become the stereotypical image of an archaeologist-rugged, physically active, adventurous. His female counterpart is Lara Croft, Tomb Raider, the archaeologist hero whose femininity is inscribed within an active, assertive discourse of survival. Neither character represents 'real' archaeology, but that is not their purpose-nor their value to archaeology.
Indiana Jones is based on a combination of two early twentieth century adventurers: Hiram Bingham and Roy Chapman Andrews. Bingham was reputed to be the discoverer of Machu Pichu (popularly known as the Lost City of the Incas), in Peru, while the ranger-hatted, revolver-carrying Andrews was a surveyor of Outer Mongolia, and finder of dinosaur eggs. Andrews' career started with scrubbing the floors of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and ended with him as Director.
Indiana Jones excites the archaeological imagination.
While archaeologists may not model their behaviour on Jones (and some would argue this point), neither do they spurn the exotic and adventuresome connotations of the job.
Embracement of the Indiana Jones mystique is apparent in this year's program for National Archaeology Week. This year the exhibitions, talks and tours are supplemented by a range of activities celebrating the release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
The Indiana Jones spirit of adventure emerges in the on-line quiz 'Meet the Archaeologists' (http://www.archaeologyweek.com), where attention is drawn to real life archaeological engagements with flesh-eating worms, nests of scorpions-and volunteer fieldworkers tired of eating devon sandwiches for a week.
The great value of Indiana Jones for the archaeological community is that he makes a pedantic and exacting science appear exciting.
It is in the field that archaeology is at its most exciting. As Jones advises a student in Crystal Skull, 'to become a good archaeologist you have to get out of the library'.
Like Indiana Jones, archaeologists work in exotic places, and sometimes in life-threatening situations. One of my colleagues was held at gunpoint while his four-wheel drive was used for a bank robbery in New Guinea. Another had his life threatened while recording graffiti in cells used to house political activists in Argentina. Others have needed armed guards while they excavated mass graves near Bosnian villages that still housed the murderers.
There are substantive differences between Jones and professional archaeologists, of course. While clearly useful in a wide variety of social contexts, Jones' tools of the trade, a pistol and a bullwhip, are not standard archaeological issue. A compass, a tape measure and a trowel are more usual.
Nevertheless, archaeology departments in Australia and overseas can expect an increase in students following the release of Crystal Skull. And while students may enrol in university courses with the aim of learning about exotic artefacts, they leave with an understanding that stone tools, rock art and historic buildings also can unlock the mysteries of ancient worlds.
The Indiana Jones films have spurred occasional direct benefits, as well. Shortly after the release of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Harrison Ford donated an iconic bullwhip to the Institute of Archaeology at University College London. This was auctioned for a substantial sum, towards the building of new laboratories.
This week the Archaeological Institute of America increased its international profile with the announcement that Harrison Ford had been elected to their Board of Directors.
Irrespective of his personal contributions, as a Board member of the AIA Ford will attract new members and sponsorship for the organization, as well as new opportunities.
Given that the Indiana Jones films clearly contribute a great deal to archaeology, why is it that so many archaeologists have a problem with Indy?
The basic concern is that Indy's cavalier approach undermines attempts to instil ethical archaeological practices and diminishes archaeology's hard won standing as a legitimate science.
Despite his growing eminence in the field (by the end of Crystal Skull he has become Associate Dean), it is an archaeologist's nightmare to have Dr Jones teach Archaeological Ethics.
In pursuit of 'fortune and glory' Jones ignores international treaties, treats human remains as weapons, and destroys archaeological sites in a bid to escape from potential entombment, and other worrisome possibilities.
Archaeologists are concerned with preserving the past, not making a profit from it, and sometimes Jones seems more finely tuned to the commercial value of an artefact, than the information it can give us about past peoples. This impression is reinforced by occasional references to him as a grave robber.
In Crystal Skull, as in the other films, Indiana Jones walks a fine line between archaeological enquiry and looting. The removal of artefacts from their original context is still looting, even if it is done in the name of a museum-just ask the Greeks for their opinion on the Parthenon Marbles (also known as the Elgin Marbles), still housed against their wishes at the British Museum.
It would be naive, however, to argue that contemporary audiences believe Indiana Jones represents 'real' archaeology. There would be few who are not capable of distinguishing fantasy action sequences from the pedantism of archaeological excavation or artefact cataloguing.
It is more difficult to challenge underlying assumptions relating to imperialism, sexism and ethnocentrism, or to understand these in terms of the social and political contexts within which the archaeological action takes place.
For example, the quest element of the Indiana Jones films rests on the imperialist assumption that the protection of cultural heritage in far-flung parts of the world depends on virtuous interventions from the west. The native people who hinder Jones in Crystal Skull are, in fact, descendents of the people who made the artefacts that Jones seeks and the contemporary cultural custodians of the site.
From an archaeological viewpoint, Indiana Jones' fatal flaw is that he shows little interest in the context within which artefacts are found, or the constellation of connections that can be understood only through in situ analysis.
The intellectual excitement of archaeology comes from connecting with the past. When you excavate an artefact that has been covered for thousands of years you feel a connection to the person who left it there. It is the pursuit of such connections, rather than fortune and glory, that motivates archaeological research.
While Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has great entertainment and promotional value, it is no blueprint for good archaeological practice!
For more interesting topics related to archaeology, visit archaeology excavations.
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