Archaeologist Reviews Archaeology in Movies, from 'Indiana Jones' to 'Lara Croft: Tomb Raider'

i'm dr alexandra jones founder and chief executive officer of archaeology in the community today we're going to be reviewing some archaeology scenes and films [Music] this is indiana jones raiders of the lost ark directed by steven spielberg in this famous scene indiana jones tries to capture an ancient artifact by replacing it with a heavy bag of sand depending on the site different cultures and the people who have created what was at that time a location have created different things or different mechanisms that they've put in place in order to preserve it so if we think about china the emperor when he built his tomb he actually built thousands of soldiers and the idea was that in death these soldiers would actually protect him from anybody trying to come and desecrate or disturb his tomb so you do see things historically that have been done but nothing to the extent in which we see in this film so while this is a fun movie and it looks awesome and amazing and all of us would like to have adventures like this this film is actually not rooted in any fact this is not what would take place at an archaeological site today what's actually taking place is unethical and something that none of us would engage in this is tomb raider in this clip lara croft convinces powell to give her the key which will unlock a hidden treasure why would i try and shoot you out of anything now i need you to get the piece so i can steal it from you later one of the things that i would like to put in contact immediately is a tomb raider is a thief this is somebody who goes in and actually steals artifacts instead of preserves them this is the exact opposite of an archaeologist so one of the problems initially is the fact that people often conflate and confuse the fact that lara croft is actually an archaeologist so as we go through the scenes in this clip what you actually see are two factions of thieves fighting against each other for artifacts so in this scene what i'm actually saying is a an intricate ancient lock system in which people are using clues to try and essentially break in the same level as a bank robber break into this lock system in order to get at these valuable artifacts they actually are not preserving anything they're damaging everything in the process and on very base level this is against everything that archaeologists do we wouldn't go in and basically set off ancient lock system which would in turn destroy all the artifacts that we really want to study and preserve because it gives us a lot of insight about this culture and how they actually kept and protected the things that were important to them the film directors took a lot of liberties with how intricate they made the lock system people did make systems to protect the things that they loved and found important and that they revered in their different societies however i've never seen anything quite this intricate where you have water or liquid kind of disappearing melting into something else so this is a great movie something very entertaining and wonderful to watch however i've never seen anything like this in real life at an archaeological scene or just in general this is mommy returns directed by steven summers in this clip the o'connells are chased by waves of water from the now after evelyn disturbs the bracelet of anubis so this clip is a total ode to why you don't have your child at work you have a child who's in a very dangerous space who is allowed to roam free and then what ends up happening is that he destroys the remnants of a whole civilization and a culture in the course of being unintended two scientists are going out they're discovering an artifact written on the box that the artifact is contained within is an actual inscription warning people a protection this is the people from the past making their claim that this shouldn't be moved this is important to them it should be left it's saying death will come to this person and then what you still see is people taking and kind of running off with this and as a result everything kind of bursting the now coming in no mind you this is movie so this is a far-fetched version of what would take place in current day typically what you see at an archaeological site might be warnings you may even see objects entombed in multiple rooms behind or in hidden rooms but nothing to the extent of the now bursting through a room and flooding so in this scene it's pretty awesome to see that the protection that this particular society and community created for the artifacts that they found important however there is a lot of uh liberties taken in this film traditionally you would never see something as kind of crazy as the nile busting in and killing people like you see in this scene [Music] this is encino man directed by les mayfield in this clip david and stoney find a pre-contact bowl while digging their swimming pool in the backyard i know what this is bro what is it it's a mysterium bowl no way hey come on david be careful with that what's a mustering ball so this clip is pretty funny but there are a couple things that stand out as an archaeologist the first thing they uncover this pre-contact artifact and instantly are able to identify it right this is kind of like prehistoric tupperware bro one of the cool things i will say about today's society is because we have so many documentaries and so many shows and so many people go to museums now there is a small chance that someone would be able to identify this artifact the one thing that needs to be done is once they've identified it they immediately need to put it into a safe space stop handling it and contact the state archaeologist i always tell my students as soon as you know that you found an artifact you need to contact the proper authorities so this clip is not so far-fetched in the fact that someone is digging in their backyard and actually finding artifacts every city every town is built on a past civilization a past town a past village so we're always able to find elements of archaeology and our hidden past in our backyard but what is important is that we understand our role as a collective community and that when we do find elements of the past and the people come before us that we do the proper thing in preserving it and contacting your local archaeologists so that we may be able to obtain and figure out what this piece of history can tell us about our shared past this is indiana jones the last crusade archaeology is the search for fact not truth indiana jones starts out his lecture by telling his students that archaeology is fat not true in fact we do look for facts one of the things that you have to be careful with is when you're talking truths often times you go into people's belief systems and depending on who's in power who's at the top of politics truths can vary from group to group and class to social economic class facts however are things that everybody agrees took place and actually happened so being a dr jones viewing another dr jones in an academic setting this is one of the more realistic scenes that you will see is that we do in fact lecture we do talk about the facts we do highlight all of the important aspects of different cultures so this i would agree is one of the things that you would probably see most archaeologists doing who are academics you've got it so this scene is wonderful up until the point where the students actually leave the room this will find a place of honor in our spanish collection this is when everything goes sideways and it's kind of the dr jekyll meets mr hyde moment of archaeology we don't keep artifacts that we just looted from a site in our desk we don't give artifacts over for purchase and it's even kind of hinted at it's illegal in the fact that he's asking for an honorarium discuss my honorarium for dinner and champagne tonight an honorarium is normally something given as like a gift to a lecturer or somebody that's speaking so the fact that there's no bill of sale there's nothing specifically taking place and they're doing the actual deal over dinner and champagne it's kind of a dead giveaway that something definitely illegal is taking place this is the mummy in this clip jonathan presents his sister evelyn a librarian and inspiring egyptologist with a box that contains a map that leads to haminatra so in watching this clip there are a couple things i want to point out museums did have different standards a long time ago versus what we have now there's still some things that are a little bit far-fetched torches having torches sprawled all throughout our room in a museum where you have priceless artifacts and artifacts that are irreplaceable you do need light in order to see but fire torches is kind of crazy the other thing in thinking about this situation is that you have all of these priceless artifacts and there's no climate control going on which means that if they're sitting in a room humidity can get to them if the conditions are too try that can also bother the artifacts so the idea that as archaeologists we like to preserve the past the opposite is actually being done in this particular scene another thing that's kind of glaringly jumping out is you have a person who is a supposed archaeologist who's in an actual sarcophagus with a mummy that is ridiculous it's blatantly disrespectful it's no regard for this particular culture and then on top of that he's actually playing with it and if you notice he slams the arm down in one scene that's crazy um in a normal circumstance the skeleton would have fallen apart i mean the skeleton would have simply fallen apart i have just the thing to cheer you up oh no jonathan not another worthless trinket if i have to take one more piece of junk to the creator to try and selfie so he's coming back from an excavation and he stole an artifact and not only did he steal it but he stole it to give as a gift to a loved one who on top of that happens to be a person who's in the field as well so you have two archaeologists who are understanding of the ethical concerns the fact that you're not supposed to be stealing you're not supposed to be taking from other cultures who are actively participating in this egregious act of holding on instilling antiquities and artifacts as they take this stolen artifact and they open it up what they find is a map inside and if we think about kind of going back to the indiana jones reference of fact versus truth we do not follow maps to buried treasure and x never ever marks the spot you never want to chase a map he said x uh doesn't mark the spot so thinking about this in the context of this clip and what what did we learn from that is that you now are taking this map that you have no history no added facts behind and you're chasing behind it we wouldn't do that what we would do is take the information gain compared to other information that we've seen and see what other information can be obtained or learn from this particular artifact but not necessarily use it as the calling card to run off and go hop on a plane and go to another part of the world immediately so why this is a fun franchise and the mummy movies are amazing and awesome to watch this is not how real archaeologists would act this is prometheus directed by ridley scott in this clip we see scientists that are going out studying ancient alien civilization one of the things that i will point out is out of many movies that have been produced this seems to be uh the closest to what would take place with cave archaeology meaning little things like safety the fact that she was chipping at the rock very slowly and as she was going in still checking it trying to uncover an artifact but going very slowly in your approach to it so all of those things are very accurate the other thing how the archaeologists are living oftentimes we live very close to the site that we're doing the work a farther enough distance that we won't actually impede it with our everyday living but the fact that it's further down mountain it is a campsite they are set up doing the work all of those elements and aspects were pretty realistic as archaeologists when we go into different sites most of us have been trained extensively in the culture in which we are researching i think they want us to come and find them we spend a lot of time in the library learning art patterns learning what other people have discovered about this particular culture so when you do uncover a site you are able to make some initial hypothesis about the meanings behind what's being found but normally what happens is after we've captured pictures after we've documented it thoroughly we go back and then based on additional research and understanding of that particular culture we then are able to make further assertions about what's been found what's happening the floor is about to collapse this is the pyramid directed by gregory levassor in this clip a group of archaeologists get trapped in a pyramid on a collapsing floor move toward me and try not to step on the cracks so there's so many things wrong with this scene first off common sense why was nobody else backing out the room that definitely seems like a run as fast as you can out of the room situation this whole thing is a fallacy we wouldn't do the work like this just common sense stuff first you can see from the scene it seems to be a pyramid in egypt you would have gotten clearance from the official archaeologists of the country who probably would have already assessed whether or not the room the building the structure was stable enough to handle people inside of it two you're talking about pre-research we're talking about initial surveys we're talking about safety precautions all of these things would have been put in place way before you had a team of archaeologists in the room let alone a team of archaeologists with a film crew i mean just what goes on in pre-production for a film show they would have assessed whether or not this is a safe space to actually film something like this if you were to find a team who is going out without all of these precautions put in place checking in with the government getting permission checking safety standards what you're essentially falling into is not so much an archaeologist but a treasure hunter someone who is going out for their own benefit who's essentially trying to steal whatever they're acquiring versus going about it in an academic systematic fashion in which we do today and what then ends up happening is you're prosecuted by whichever government operates or is in operation of that actual archaeological site so when watching all these movies they're fun they're adventurous it's amazing we all love the idea of traveling to these wonderful places and uncovering treasures and everything else but please keep in mind this is not reality this is not what archaeologists do we do have a standard we do have rules we do have regulations we have to abide by the law we don't get to keep anything um that we find we don't steal it and we definitely don't profit from it please check out the movies but just keep in mind that they aren't based in fact

Channel: Vanity Fair

Views: 71,326

Keywords: reviews, archaeologist review, archaeologist reviews, archaeologist, archaeology, archaeology review, archaeology movies, archaeology reviews, vanity fair reviews, expert review, experts review, expert reviews, expert reviews archaeology, archaeology expert, archaeologist reviews archaeology, archaeologist vanity fair, indiana jones review, lara croft review, lara croft tomb raider, lara croft, indiana jones, indiana jones vanity fair, vanity fair review, vanity fair

Id: J7wSTmhrZr0

Length: 16min 15sec (975 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 27 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Full-Cucumber]

I can't wait for the day VF is gonna call Jesus to review Christian movies.

[u/[deleted]]

Jesus this was dumb.