This summer I spent five weeks in Southern Italy working at a real life, actual archaeological dig (I include ‘real life’ and ‘actual’ cause I still need to convince myself it wasn’t a dream). It was an absolutely incredible experience, but something has been bothering me ever since I got back, and I have decided to speak my mind about it.

Indiana Jones is a crappy archaeologist.

“But, wait!” You may cry “All Indy wants to do is preserve history! He wants to take important artifacts and give them to museums to preserve for posterity!”

Yes, that’s all fine and dandy, but this summer I learned there is more to archaeology than just finding cool stuff and sticking it in a museum. There are lots of different schools of thought in archaeology, but they all agree on some very basic rules of operation. Indiana Jones breaks pretty much all of them.

Just to set the record straight before I continue, I am not an archaeologist. I am actually a pre-med student at Davidson College, with an undeclared non-science major. You may ask yourself, why in the world would a pre-med student want to work on an archaeological dig? I have a one-word answer: Italy. Just kidding. Though Italy was a major perk of this adventure, I went because I knew this was a once in a lifetime opportunity for me to do something absolutely incredible. You see, I have this problem- I love learning about absolutely everything (I didn’t think this was a problem until I realized at some point I am going to have to decide on a major.) I’m like a five-year-old when you ask them what they want to be when they get older…When I grow up I want to be a Doctor-Archaeologist-Philosopher-Ballerina-Actress-Paleontologist-Astronomer-Medical Researcher! Seriously, though, I adore history, and I have always thought the rise and fall of Rome was incredibly fascinating. Now you are telling me I can go learn all about Rome while working at an actual archaeological dig? Yes, please.

So why do I, an amateur archaeologist, have such a problem with Indiana Jones? Well, let me enlighten you.

Problem number one, he completely ignores the context of the artifact. The context of an artifact is its surroundings, the things it was found near, the environment it was found in, every little detail down to the color of the dirt, etc. etc. This may seem excessive, but the context provides the narrative of the artifact. Without it, all you have is a really cool piece of what other archaeologists might call “garbage.” If you lose the context of an artifact, you literally lose its place in history. So I’m sorry Professor Jones, but the next time you pass through one of those deadly booby traps, I’m gonna need you to stop and fill out a context sheet so we can accurately date it, thank you very much.

Problem number two, he has no respect for any of the artifacts that aren’t the artifact he’s after. *SPOILER ALERT: SPECIFIC SCENE ANALYSIS AHEAD* Let’s look at the whole section in The Last Crusade where Indy discovers the hidden tomb in the church-converted-into-a-library. First off, when Indiana finds the hidden entrance, how does he get in? He literally takes a metal pole and smashes a giant hole in the floor. No elegance, no tact what so ever. First of all, that marble square was removable. If Indiana was carrying his trowel, like any good archaeologist should, he could have pried up the square easily. However, he was in a hurry, because, you know, he’s trying to rescue his father, so we will cut him some slack. But did he really have to destroy a quarter of the beautiful slab just to pick it up? Really, a tiny corner would have worked for his needs. Come on Indy, do better.

Next, when they are walking through the catacombs, Indiana and Elsa come across a whole bunch of skeletons. Something I learned while on my trip is the closer an individual is buried in the church, the more important they are. These skeletons must have been really, really important. The skeleton directly to Indiana’s right has some purple cloth hanging down from his tomb. So what does Indiana do? He violently rips the cloth, removes the femur of the skeleton, and makes a torch. Wait, WHAT?!?! First of all, we have already mentioned that this skeleton was obviously very important. Secondly, that was a purple cloth. Purple cloth was incredibly difficult to make, and so reserved for only the most wealthy and regal of clients (There is a reason purple is the royal color). Do you know what that means? IT MEANS THAT SKELETON WAS FILTHY RICH. INDIANA YOU IDIOT WHAT ARE YOU DOING? Do you know what could be discovered by studying those skeletons? I don’t know, but we will never find out cause he dumped it in a nasty oil lake without looking back. I don’t care if he couldn’t see! He knew he was looking for a hidden tomb, next time he should bring a flashlight.

Lastly, at the end of this scene, Indiana finds the shield in the sarcophagus of the knight entrusted with the location of the grail and takes the rubbing of the text on the shield. Great. Then, in order to escape the fire set by the minor antagonists, Indy and Elsa flip the beautiful sarcophagus into the water, skeleton, shield and all. Fine. I understand not wanting to burn to a crisp. What I don’t understand is why he didn’t take the shield with him. He’s destroyed its context already by flipping it into the nasty oil lake thing. The shield is no less precious a find than the cross he literally fought a lion for in the beginning of the movie. But noooooo, instead of grabbing it and ensuring its proper preservation he just leaves it in the lake to rot. I’m disgusted. I’m actually sickened.

Now I do understand that it would not be an interesting action movie if it was completely realistic. I don’t expect there to be a realistic action archaeology movie. From my experience, that might actually be an oxymoron. Archaeology is exciting and suspenseful, but not action packed. The most action you would see is an archaeologist demonstrating perfect knifing technique (which has nothing to do with knives, and everything to do with brushing the ground in a forceful, vertical stroke so the loose dirt is swept back and there is no indication of the brush mark left on the actual layer).

Nonetheless, I do think that it is important to understand that archaeology is more than hunting down cool artifacts to put in museums. Archaeology is about looking at what has been left behind, deconstructing structures and strata, so we can reconstruct a picture of what was happening thousands of years ago. Archaeology is about understanding, not about glory, fame, or fortune, (though if those happen too, no one would complain.) So when people ask me if I have my hat and my whip, I laugh and smile, but in my heart, I know that there is one fundamental difference.

I actually filled out my context sheets.