Possibly the most well known archaeologist is Indiana Jones. Of course, he isn’t a real person, but for people who would not normally read articles on archaeology, he might be the closest that they would ever get to one.

The reality though is that the way he acts is more akin to being a looter than a true archaeologist. Real archaeology take far more time & effort, although it might not have quite the same number of fast moving action scenes as say Raiders of the Lost Ark.

What is particularly unfortunate though is that some archaeologists (Zahi Hawass – we’re looking at you) seem to feel a need to style themselves on Harrison Ford’s character).

Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom – original movie poster

From:
Salon

Sunday, Nov 9, 2014 11:00 PM +0000
“Indiana Jones would be considered a looter”: Why we’re obsessed with glamorizing archaeologists
The lives of real archaeologists are even stranger than fiction, and a whole lot harder
Laura Miller

Several years ago, while researching a story on biblical archaeology, I had the chance to talk to a leader in the field by telephone. At one point, he kindly provided me with a lengthy explanation of pottery seriation, the means by which archaeologists track the history of a particular site. Styles of pottery change over time and vary from culture to culture, so if an archaeologist excavating a heap of broken shards encounters a layer of pieces radically different from the one below it, it’s likely a sign that a new population had moved in. “I’m sorry,” the archaeologist laughed when he finished. “It’s pretty boring.”

To the contrary. “I get paid to look at people’s trash” said one of the itinerant archaeologists interviewed by Marilyn Johnson for her new book, “Lives in Ruins: Archaeologists and the Seductive Lure of Human Rubble,” and she wasn’t wrong. The man who told me about pottery seriation has spent his life studying broken crockery, after all. But the great and undying magic of archaeology is just how much ancient rubbish can tell us. Sherlock Holmes may have used his encyclopedic knowledge of tobacco ash to catch criminals, but archaeologists can use animal teeth and plant seeds to change our understanding of the world.
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Zahi Hawass is a man who stirs up controversy wherever he goes, whether with his own goading of foreign governments to return disputed artefacts, or through the way that his blatant self publicising approach irritates others. He has done a lot to help Egypt’s archaeology in his time in the job, but at the same time has managed to annoy many people. It appears that this will no longer be the case however, as he has lost his job as the head of Egypt’s Supreme Archaeological Council.

(Yes – I know that this post is out of date – as are most others on the blog at the moment), but I wanted to keep it here so that the blog represents a relatively complete archive of events).

From:
Daily Telegraph

‘Real Indiana Jones’ sacked as keeper of Egypt’s heritage
He called himself the real Indiana Jones and keeper of Egypt’s heritage, and was an almost permanent presence on any television programme about the country’s colourful past.

But Zahi Hawass, the public face of the pyramids, has become the latest casualty of the revolution sweeping the Egyptian government after being sacked as minister of antiquities.

Dr Hawass was head of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities for 10 years, and before that in charge of the Pyramids and Sphinx on the Giza plateau outside Cairo. He staged regular press conferences unveiling new discoveries from the time of the pharaohs.
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Despite significant coverage of looting of antiquities, the same antiquities often re-surface a few years later at auctions, or appear in museums. In some cases, this is because some parties choose not to ask too many questions when buying artefacts, but in many other cases, it is merely because the scale of the international art market is so huge, that it is almost impossible to track & catalogue every item accurately & thereby trace their true provenance.

From:
Washington Post

Reputable auction houses try to get all (arti)facts before selling antiquities
By Brian Vastag
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 1, 2011; 8:10 PM

The first Indiana Jones movie, “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” offers many a scene to make archaeologists wince, but none more so than a quiet moment early on when the intrepid Professor Jones sells plundered artifacts to Marcus Brody, director of the fictional National Museum in Washington.

“The museum will buy them as usual,” Brody says with a wink. “No questions asked.”
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Indiana Jones might well be the most famous archaeologist in the world (despite being fictional). But do his swashbuckling antics have any relevance to the way in which today’s archaeologists act, or is it more like the behaviour of those from a former age, who came from the West & grabbed whatever they could to take home.

From:
Guelph Mercury (Ontario, Canada)

opinion Real archeologists don’t wear fedoras
May 27, 2008
Neil Asher Silberman
Washington Post

After 17 years, Hollywood’s most famous archeologist is back in action. Now grayer and a bit creakier, Indiana Jones is again hacking his way through thick jungles, careering wildly in car chases and scrambling through dark tunnels to snatch a precious artifact from the clutches of an evil empire (Soviet, this time).

And I’m thinking, oh no. Here we go again. Get ready for another long, twisting jump off the cliff of respectability for the image of archeology.
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