Mariana Castro: That coat
must be the most impractical piece of archaeology gear that I've seen. But, you know, it looks good. My name is Mariana Castro, I'm an archeologist at
New York University, and today we're going to be looking at archaeology adventure scenes
to see how real they are. We all try to dress like Indiana Jones, but nobody looks that good. Booby traps don't tend to be very common archaeological finds. There is this misconception
that in the pyramids, there were a lot of booby
traps, but not really. So, yeah, the suspense is real. [laughs] We do make that face. [laughs] When we find something
really, really special. Why does he have a bag of sand? Well, archaeology is the study of things, of what people left behind. And those things only have meaning in a specific context. And if you remove the
context from an artifact, as looters do, and that's
really the problem, you basically lose a lot of the value of that artifact. Yeah, so, if Indiana Jones
was a real archaeologist, he would have stopped and
analyzed these booby traps, because, honestly,
they're much more unique and special than the idol. Indiana: Give me the whip. Mariana: OK, just gonna be very clear. Archaeologists do not carry bullwhips. Satipo: Throw me the idol. No time to argue. Throw me the idol, I throw you the whip! Mariana: Well, just the fact of throwing an ancient object like that. I mean, let's start at
the very basics, right. Oh, my. [laughs] No, don't tell any
conservator you did that. That whole part is kind
of unbelievable. [laughs] And, I mean, a system that is probably thousands of years old is not going to be working like that. There were things that
were much more efficient in keeping looters out. For example, curses. Writing down curses on the tomb chamber, or in the entrance of the tomb, actually was very effective in detracting people from entering. You know what, I wish my life was a little bit more like this. [laughs] But it's not, unfortunately. Maybe two? Ben: In this kind of
terrain, with nothing more than dogsleds and on foot, can you imagine? Mariana: Mapping devices are
heavily used in archaeology. You don't do anything
without a computer or a GPS. Riley: Assuming Ben's theory is correct and my tracking model's accurate, we should be getting very close. Mariana: Reconstructing
the location of something? You would need to be able
to program that thing to incredibly specific parameters. The wind, the currents, the ice breaks. In this case, it would be impossible. [metal detector beeping] Every time I see a metal detector, it's kind of like this alarm that goes in the head of every archaeologist. Basically, metal detectors
are not commonly used. Because you don't want to constrain the results of the excavation; you don't want to focus on just one thing. Normally, you want to lay out your trench, and you're going to treat every
piece of evidence equally. But, you know, the majority of archaeological finds are not metal. Shaw: How could a ship
wind up way out here? Riley: Well, I'm no
expert, but it could be that the hydrothermic properties of this region produce
hurricane-force ice storms that caused the ocean to freeze and then melt and then refreeze, resulting in a semisolid
migrating landmass. Mariana: Meteorologists
even have a hard time predicting the weather for the week, so I'm not sure if you could predict where the ship has been since it wrecked 300 years ago or however long it was. His methodology is
definitely not believable. We do use pickaxes, a lot. [laughs] But we're not that anxious to get to it. I hope I don't look like
that when I'm pickaxing. And we certainly do
not find the best thing of the whole excavation in the first 10 seconds. That is very unlikely. Maybe you get it in,
you know, the last week, if you're lucky. The way he gets to that bell is probably much more akin
to how looters excavate than archaeologists. So, it makes sense that
the ship is well preserved because it was found
in ice and kept in ice for hundreds of years, and ice is a stable environment for most materials. I am going to give this clip a four. That coat must be the most impractical archaeology gear that I've seen. But, you know, it looks good. They are actually speaking Russian. It's almost required for
archaeologists to know at least one language that is relevant to their area of studies. So, the part of the computer breaking was the most accurate
part of the clip so far. Because it does happen all the time. I have never seen archaeologists
using a glow stick. Headlamp, a thousand times more practical. Bet it was one of her tasks in the game to ring the bell, and then it explodes. Yeah, sounds very gamelike. Nobody wants it to be
completely realistic, that'd be really boring. I would rate this one also a two. Brock: OK, Lewis, drop down to B deck. Mariana: This is an interesting example because a lot of this initial footage was actually shot at the original site. It's 100% realistic because it's exactly what they saw. Depending on whatever
circumstances you find at the bottom of the ocean,
in Titanic, in this case, some things can preserve very well, and some things can disappear. Depends on oxygen, light,
conditions, currents. Brock: Make your turn, make
your turn, watch the wall. Man: Yeah, Brock, we're
at the piano, you copy? Mariana: It wouldn't be
the most ridiculous thing to imagine that the piano, for example, which is made of wood and
maybe ivory, I don't know, preserved, especially under, you know, it's a very short time since it sunk. Lewis: Baby, are you seeing this, boss? Brock: It's payday, boys. Mariana: A lot of the expeditions that archaeologists are involved in are funded by private individuals. And there's nothing wrong with that. The problem starts if the private individuals want to keep the things that you are researching. You need to return whatever you excavate to the country of origin. We don't get to keep anything, ever. That's a really, it's probably the most common question that I get. "Do you get to keep any gold?" No. [laughs] We don't get any monetary benefit that is proportional to
the things that we find. I would rate this clip, in particular, based on all the documentary evidence that is included in the movie, eight. Herman: Indiana? Indiana? Indiana: Shh! It's the Cross of Coronado. Cortés gave it to him in 1520. Mariana: I don't see why
a teenager would be able to identify a lost object. Indiana: That cross is
an important artifact. It belongs in a museum. Mariana: This very cinematic experience of us versus them, and one side is the archaeologist and the other side is the bad looter, makes sense in cinematic terms, but in reality, it is not
the archaeologist's job to go after the looters. Just from, for the sake of appearances, putting things in your
pocket is probably also one of those 101 archaeology lessons. Don't put things in your pocket. It's not our job to be
vindictive against looters, that's the job of the law. The idea of what you do in the field and how you sensitize
people when you're working to what you're doing. I think people understand
that that's their heritage, it's their responsibility
to also protect it. So, your role as an
archaeologist is a lot more soft diplomacy, in that sense, than it is actually going
after looters with guns. Although, I should say, it was still extremely inspiring for a lot of people. He has inspired a whole
generation of archaeologists. So, I would probably rate this clip 1.5. 'Cause it's even less likely that a child would do something like this. Dirk: Gentlemen! May I introduce to you, after a 772-year engagement on the bottom of the ocean. Mariana: An Egyptian sarcophagus? With 700 years? That sounds very strange. Sandecker: The king meets
the people at the museum in five hours. Al: Don't worry, sir, he'll be there. Hey, Dirk, get your butt up here so we can scrape some of
the crap off this thing. Mariana: I think five hours is the time that it would take to get the sarcophagus to land. [laughs] I think probably just the whole trip and unpacking the
sarcophagus from the ship would take five hours. 'Cause look at the size of that thing. It would never get to
the museum in five hours. That would never happen. As we saw when he was
coming out of the ocean, it was full of incrustations of shells, and little animals from the bottom of the ocean, algae. That takes, again, so you
don't damage the object, it takes a long time to remove them. You don't just scrape them...[laughs] away on the spot. Sandecker: This, ladies and
gentlemen, is what we do. Mariana: I don't know,
did they wax the thing? Because obviously, in five hours, it wouldn't look like this at all unless it's a fake that they replaced it. There's a whole conservation process that you need to go through before even displaying it in a museum. It would just be completely unrealistic. It takes months to desalinize things that come from the bottom of the ocean. I would probably rate this clip a three. And this is an actual
excavation, for sure. This doesn't seem like a set. This doesn't seem like a set at all. You can see that they
are digging trenches, and everything is done
in a confined square. They would dig profiles where you can have a very straight wall that shows you the stratigraphy, the
layering, of your trench. Because what you just dug out is equal to what you see on your walls. And then you draw that
out, and you can assign artifacts that you found in those layers, and you can date them. Whatever is above probably came after what's underneath. Basically stratigraphy is just a way of dating your trench and the material that comes from it. What comes later, what comes before. That is a sieve. And what they're doing is probably just dumping the earth that they're excavating in the sieve, sieving the things, and sorting out what was in that bucket. That's a lot of things for one bucket, but it is possible. They're able to say that
it's not from the same period because that's a coin or a medallion. Archaeologists that are
really good at what they do, they're able to see something and see this is out of place. This doesn't belong in this period. Even the little demon caked in earth was a really nice touch because that's exactly how they
come out of the earth. Actually, dogs fighting
[laughs] is a big part of what I see when I'm on digs. If we take the part where he's having this supernatural connection with the gargoyle, I would say, because of that, I will give it a nine out of 10. That would be my face too. Daniel: Where'd you find this? Catherine: Giza Plateau, 1928. Mariana: Giza is the
place where the pyramids, the famous Giza Pyramids are located. Daniel: I've never seen
anything like this. Catherine: Of course you haven't. Mariana: Me neither. Meyers: Now, there's two
lines of hieroglyphs. The inner track has the classic figures, but the outer track is like
the cartouche in the center. It's got writing unlike
we've ever found before. Daniel: Who the hell translated this? Mariana: A common comment. [laughs] In our field. Daniel: Stargate. Mariana: We don't study aliens. We just assume that people built the things we're excavating. It's very problematic
when you start to assign wonders of humanity to an external source of power. Credit where credit is due. [laughs] Daniel: Why is the military so interested in 5,000-year-old Egyptian tablets? Jack: My report says 10,000. Mariana: It's not uncommon
for archaeologists and the military to work together. The main reason, normally, is that the archaeological
site you want to excavate is in a military site or a military-protected area. In these situations, whatever you do requires the permission of the military, so in a way they are above you. They're not the only ones.
Normally you also have the department of antiquities of whatever country you're excavating in. Daniel: This figure, 10,000, is ludicrous. I mean, Egyptian culture
didn't even exist. Shore: We know. But the sonic and radiocarbon... Mariana: What in the world? [laughs] I mean, radiocarbon is a thing and very important for
archaeologists to date things, organic materials, but I have no idea what sonic dating is. Hiring an archaeologist
when you do have an issue understanding something from the past, and maybe the secret military involvement, but I can't comment on
that 'cause it's secret, I'm gonna give it a four. Rick: Are you sure we can find
the secret compartment thing? Mariana: You wouldn't be underneath the thing you wanna open, that's just the recipe for disaster. I would not be playing golf
in an ancient Egyptian city. Evelyn: Oh, and you know how
they took out your brains? Jonathan: Evy, I don't
think we need to know this. Evelyn: They take a sharp red-hot poker, stick it up your nose. Mariana: Anytime in archaeology
there's an enclosed space, you have to wear those construction hats. Evelyn: Oh, my God, it's a... it's a sarcophagus. Rick: This looks like
some sort of a clock. Mariana: You can see here
several types of methodologies. You can use the brush,
you can use the hand, you can blow. If it's something this important, you would probably go really, really slow, because there could be
paint on it, for example. So, first of all, these
things are unbelievably heavy. So I'm not sure how they transported them. As an archaeologist, you very rarely treat or open or try to crack things on site. I'm not an Egyptologist,
but from what I've seen, wouldn't just be one layer of protection of the mummified body. Inside a stone coffin, you
would have a wooden coffin. I am going to rate this clip a two. Milo: Hey, wait a minute! Who are you? Mariana: After all the work you put in, physically and mentally, and all the crazy
research that you've done, and then you finally get to the site and you discover something
that means something to you. This is actually a really good illustration
of that feeling. That sense of wonder, because it's a real connection with the past. OK, this is my dream. [laughs] I grew up with this movie, so in a way, I always kind of imagined
that archaeology at least would feel like this big discovery, and sometimes it does. Audrey: It's beautiful. Joshua: Milo, I gotta hand it to you. Really came through. Mariana: It's not one of the most popular Disney movies, but a lot of people that
went into archaeology that I've met also reference this movie as one of their starting points. Because it's a cartoon, it's
appropriate for children, it taps into this imaginary, this wonderful thing that
is to study the past. Based on how realistic this clip is in capturing the feeling of what it means to be an archaeologist in
those light-bulb moments, I'm gonna give it a 10.
