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on 2008/5/17 6:35:20
A UC Irvine professor is among many experts who would urge Harrison Ford's character to find a different line of work
Indiana Jones stinks as an archaeologist.
Put him on the faculty at the University of California, Irvine, and Indy would be spending all his time writing grant proposals to try to get a new job, said Bill Maurer, a professor and chair of the anthropology department. The fedora and the whip don't work in the real, un-swashbuckling world of academia.
"He's terrible," Maurer said of the mythical world-saving star of three of the most popular movies in the history of cinema. "He steals things. He has no respect for the people whose objects he is stealing."
The beloved Indy may have saved humanity – several times – but that's not part of the job description.
"Where do you put 'Saved the World' on a (resume)?" Maurer said. "I guess you could list it under 'Community Service.' If I were his department head, he would drive me crazy."
The stuff Indiana Jones does on his expeditions is a virtual checklist of things a good professor or archaeologist doesn't do. He regularly breaks, knocks over, smashes, or otherwise destroys all kinds of really old stuff. He has romantic flings with his assistants.
Also, Indy shoots bad guys. Apparently, that is a big no-no.
"I frown on shooting people," Maurer said. "I'd probably make Indiana Jones take some courses in archaeological ethics."
Maurer also questioned the hero's academic work ethic.
"He only does a couple of lectures a year and gallivants around the rest of the time," Maurer said.
Maurer, himself, doesn't wear a fedora or crack a whip, but he is a huge fan of the Indiana Jones movies.
"I imagine I would look quite fetching in a fedora," Maurer said. "But swashbuckling is a word that has rarely been applied to me."
Indiana Jones managed to retrieve the trinket he was after in the opening moments of "Raiders of the Lost Ark." He pretty much wrecked everything else in the ancient South American temple where the little gold idol had rested for millennia.
Though he preaches research and good science in the classroom, the world's most famous archaeologist often is an acquisitive tomb raider in the field with a scorched-earth policy about what he leaves behind. While actual archaeologists like the guy and his movies, they wouldn't necessarily want to work alongside him on a dig.
Indy's bull-in-a-china-shop approach to archaeology will be on display again May 22 with "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," in which he's sure to rain destruction down on more historic sites and priceless artifacts.
"It wouldn't be quite as much fun if you followed protocol, I think," said Karen Allen, who is reprising her "Raiders" role as Indy's old flame Marion Ravenwood. "Crystal Skull" reunites Allen with Harrison Ford as Indy, director Steven Spielberg and executive producer George Lucas.
In a career spanning 27 years and three previous films, Indy has been both a blessing and curse for the musty world of archaeology, fanning interest in the field beyond academic circles but doing a Hollywood number on how the job actually works.
Although Maurer said the current Fox television hit "Bones" inspires more students who want to dig things up.
In 1989's "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," nerdy Professor Henry Jones Jr. tells students that 70 percent of archaeology is done in the library and advises them to "forget any ideas you've got about lost cities, exotic travel and digging up the world. We do not follow maps to buried treasure, and 'X' never, ever marks the spot."
Trading his classroom tweeds for his leather jacket and fedora hat, his alter-ego Indiana Jones then proceed to smash through crypts, kill scores of Nazis and desecrate a grave by using a human leg bone as a torch. And, in one scene, 'X' literally does mark the spot.
The reality of archaeological field work is not a lone hero dashing into hidden chambers with a bullwhip and a pistol and coming away with a priceless relic. It's large groups of academics and students painstakingly sifting through grids to retrieve artifacts as mundane as pottery fragments.
"It is rather adventurous in a way, because for the most part, you're going to some exotic country and delving into their past. But it's not an adventure with a whip and chasing bad guys and looking for treasure," said Bryant Wood, an archaeologist with Associates for Biblical Research.
"You're working at one site tediously, probably for many, many years and spending more time processing the finds and writing reports than you do actually digging at the site. But that wouldn't make for a very good story, spending 70 percent of the time in a library."
The most exciting thing that happens to many archaeologists in the field might be battling dysentery or coping with a lemon of a Land Rover.
"I spent a lot of time walking in cornfields and soy bean fields in the Midwest, and nothing very dramatic ever happened while I was out looking for artifacts," said Rose of the Archaeological Institute, whose trustees include Indy star Ford.
"To be honest, it's a lot of drudge work. You can end up producing a 600-page Ph.D dissertation, and it's important and useful and it's good that someone has done it. But it's not going to be made into a major motion picture anytime soon."
Paul Zimansky, an archaeology professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, once had an adventure reminiscent of Indy's fear of snakes. Zimansky had to drive at breakneck speed to get a colleague to a doctor after he was bitten by a viper in Iran.
He may have a gun and a whip, but he doesn't have a notebook.
"I wish he'd take more notes and things. What's his publication record?" Zimansky said. "But I don't think anybody ever bought the ethos of Indiana Jones as a real career track."
Adds Jane MacLaren Walsh, an anthropologist for the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History: "Some people would like to think of themselves as Indiana Jones, but nobody I know really fits the bill at all."
Other than Indy's brief classroom scenes, the closest thing to authentic archaeology in the "Indiana Jones" flicks is done by the bad guys, whose elaborate, systematic digs in "Raiders" resemble actual excavations.
"Not a whole lot of what we know as archaeology goes on in these movies, except what the Nazis do. They seem to be doing some real archaeological work," said Walsh, who wrote the cover story in the May-June issue of Archaeology magazine examining the real history of crystal skulls featured in the new "Indiana Jones" movie.
Jaime Awe, director of the Institute of Archaeology in Belize, is a big fan of the "Indiana Jones" movies but shows them to students as "examples of what not to do," he said.
"I tell them 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, and I don't get any of that," Awe said.
"But I have a hell of a lot of fun just like he does, and it's just as much an adventure. Most of us do archaeology because we love the opportunity to explore, to discover, to search for clues," said Awe, who appears on the Sci-Fi Channel documentary "Mystery of the Crystal Skulls," premiering May 18. "It's like having a big sandbox. Like Indiana Jones, we keep being kids at heart."
Indiana Jones stinks as an archaeologist.
Put him on the faculty at the University of California, Irvine, and Indy would be spending all his time writing grant proposals to try to get a new job, said Bill Maurer, a professor and chair of the anthropology department. The fedora and the whip don't work in the real, un-swashbuckling world of academia.
"He's terrible," Maurer said of the mythical world-saving star of three of the most popular movies in the history of cinema. "He steals things. He has no respect for the people whose objects he is stealing."
The beloved Indy may have saved humanity – several times – but that's not part of the job description.
"Where do you put 'Saved the World' on a (resume)?" Maurer said. "I guess you could list it under 'Community Service.' If I were his department head, he would drive me crazy."
The stuff Indiana Jones does on his expeditions is a virtual checklist of things a good professor or archaeologist doesn't do. He regularly breaks, knocks over, smashes, or otherwise destroys all kinds of really old stuff. He has romantic flings with his assistants.
Also, Indy shoots bad guys. Apparently, that is a big no-no.
"I frown on shooting people," Maurer said. "I'd probably make Indiana Jones take some courses in archaeological ethics."
Maurer also questioned the hero's academic work ethic.
"He only does a couple of lectures a year and gallivants around the rest of the time," Maurer said.
Maurer, himself, doesn't wear a fedora or crack a whip, but he is a huge fan of the Indiana Jones movies.
"I imagine I would look quite fetching in a fedora," Maurer said. "But swashbuckling is a word that has rarely been applied to me."
Indiana Jones managed to retrieve the trinket he was after in the opening moments of "Raiders of the Lost Ark." He pretty much wrecked everything else in the ancient South American temple where the little gold idol had rested for millennia.
Though he preaches research and good science in the classroom, the world's most famous archaeologist often is an acquisitive tomb raider in the field with a scorched-earth policy about what he leaves behind. While actual archaeologists like the guy and his movies, they wouldn't necessarily want to work alongside him on a dig.
Indy's bull-in-a-china-shop approach to archaeology will be on display again May 22 with "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," in which he's sure to rain destruction down on more historic sites and priceless artifacts.
"It wouldn't be quite as much fun if you followed protocol, I think," said Karen Allen, who is reprising her "Raiders" role as Indy's old flame Marion Ravenwood. "Crystal Skull" reunites Allen with Harrison Ford as Indy, director Steven Spielberg and executive producer George Lucas.
In a career spanning 27 years and three previous films, Indy has been both a blessing and curse for the musty world of archaeology, fanning interest in the field beyond academic circles but doing a Hollywood number on how the job actually works.
Although Maurer said the current Fox television hit "Bones" inspires more students who want to dig things up.
In 1989's "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," nerdy Professor Henry Jones Jr. tells students that 70 percent of archaeology is done in the library and advises them to "forget any ideas you've got about lost cities, exotic travel and digging up the world. We do not follow maps to buried treasure, and 'X' never, ever marks the spot."
Trading his classroom tweeds for his leather jacket and fedora hat, his alter-ego Indiana Jones then proceed to smash through crypts, kill scores of Nazis and desecrate a grave by using a human leg bone as a torch. And, in one scene, 'X' literally does mark the spot.
The reality of archaeological field work is not a lone hero dashing into hidden chambers with a bullwhip and a pistol and coming away with a priceless relic. It's large groups of academics and students painstakingly sifting through grids to retrieve artifacts as mundane as pottery fragments.
"It is rather adventurous in a way, because for the most part, you're going to some exotic country and delving into their past. But it's not an adventure with a whip and chasing bad guys and looking for treasure," said Bryant Wood, an archaeologist with Associates for Biblical Research.
"You're working at one site tediously, probably for many, many years and spending more time processing the finds and writing reports than you do actually digging at the site. But that wouldn't make for a very good story, spending 70 percent of the time in a library."
The most exciting thing that happens to many archaeologists in the field might be battling dysentery or coping with a lemon of a Land Rover.
"I spent a lot of time walking in cornfields and soy bean fields in the Midwest, and nothing very dramatic ever happened while I was out looking for artifacts," said Rose of the Archaeological Institute, whose trustees include Indy star Ford.
"To be honest, it's a lot of drudge work. You can end up producing a 600-page Ph.D dissertation, and it's important and useful and it's good that someone has done it. But it's not going to be made into a major motion picture anytime soon."
Paul Zimansky, an archaeology professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, once had an adventure reminiscent of Indy's fear of snakes. Zimansky had to drive at breakneck speed to get a colleague to a doctor after he was bitten by a viper in Iran.
He may have a gun and a whip, but he doesn't have a notebook.
"I wish he'd take more notes and things. What's his publication record?" Zimansky said. "But I don't think anybody ever bought the ethos of Indiana Jones as a real career track."
Adds Jane MacLaren Walsh, an anthropologist for the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History: "Some people would like to think of themselves as Indiana Jones, but nobody I know really fits the bill at all."
Other than Indy's brief classroom scenes, the closest thing to authentic archaeology in the "Indiana Jones" flicks is done by the bad guys, whose elaborate, systematic digs in "Raiders" resemble actual excavations.
"Not a whole lot of what we know as archaeology goes on in these movies, except what the Nazis do. They seem to be doing some real archaeological work," said Walsh, who wrote the cover story in the May-June issue of Archaeology magazine examining the real history of crystal skulls featured in the new "Indiana Jones" movie.
Jaime Awe, director of the Institute of Archaeology in Belize, is a big fan of the "Indiana Jones" movies but shows them to students as "examples of what not to do," he said.
"I tell them 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, and I don't get any of that," Awe said.
"But I have a hell of a lot of fun just like he does, and it's just as much an adventure. Most of us do archaeology because we love the opportunity to explore, to discover, to search for clues," said Awe, who appears on the Sci-Fi Channel documentary "Mystery of the Crystal Skulls," premiering May 18. "It's like having a big sandbox. Like Indiana Jones, we keep being kids at heart."
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