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Raiders of the Lost Ark Are the Indiana Jones films
historically accurate?
by Mark Hughes
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| Fact |
| Indiana Jones finds the Golden Idol of Fertility of
the Hovitos tribe in an ancient temple deep in the Peruvian
jungle. |
There is no evidence that any people called the Hovitos exist. The
Golden Idol of Fertility is based on Omecihuatl, the Aztec Goddess of
creation. |
| The headpiece and staff of Ra are the keys to finding
the Ark of the Covenant. |
There is no headpiece and staff of Ra. Ra is an
Egyptian god. The
headpiece and staff were devices in the movie to move the plot
along. |
| The Ark of the Covenant is within an ancient
chest. |
No one knows what the Ark would look like, nor what it even does.
Legend says that the Ark holds the fragments of the ten commandments
that were given to the Jewish patriarch Moses, and that whoever
possesses the Ark would be invincible. |
| The lost city of Tanis was buried in a sandstorm
thousands of years ago. |
Tanis did exist and was the capital of Ancient Egypt from 1075
B.C. to 712 B.C. It was abandoned when the royal capital moved to
Memphis. |
| The Nazis found the lost city of Tanis in the
1930s. |
Tanis was actually found in 1939 by French Archeologist Pierre
Montet. |
| The Ark of the Covenant was hidden in Tanis. |
The Ark was never hidden in Tanis. Its location is still unknown.
Stories abound about its possible location, including Ethiopian
Christians who have claimed for centuries that the Ark is in the small
town of Aksum where it rests inside a small chapel. |
| The Nazis searched for and found the Ark. |
Nazi archeologists did try to reinterpret history to emphasize
Germanic historical connections with ancient religions in order to
build a strong national identity. For instance, the establishment of
the Olympic Torch race between Athens and Berlin in 1936 was based on
the idea of connecting Nazi German with the gods and rituals of
Ancient Greece. No evidence has been found that the Nazis ever located
any lost artifacts like the Ark of the Covenant or the Holy
Grail. |
Information Please® Database, © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
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