Fictional archaeologists

[jack]

This came up at the emergency party at the weekend (although I can't remember why now, I think we were talking about why we like Indiana Jones). Casey and Andy comic [1] had one strip where they rated how nerdy various answers to questions was, one being "Name a fictional archaeologist". It was a good concept, although I (and I think others) disagreed with the answers somewhat.

Fortunately we realised the *real* nerd response was to immediately critique the test and start listing fictional archaeologists in order of how nerdy they are to think of first.

1. Indiana Jones. This was given as the normal response, least nerdy. After all, Indiana Jones is a mainstream classic. However, most of the geeks I know agree with that.

2. Lara Croft. This was given as a geekier response, which is probably true. Although most geeks I know think Lara Croft is a bit passe :)

3. Daniel Jackson from stargate. More obscure, and he actually is geeky himself.

4. Henry Jones, Sr. Slightly more specific than Indian.

5. Henry Jones, Jr. Strictly more geeky than "Indiana", as it requires a detailed knowledge of the series.

6. Someone from a good space-opera I hadn't read.

7. The senior Dalrymple, Earl of Scarborough, from Pippa's work in progress, it being even geekier to *write* about a momentous discovery of linguistics/archaeology.

8. Some other fictionalised *actual* archaeologist.

9. Pham Nuwen, from Vernor Vinge's Fire Upon the Deep and Deepness in the Sky, a software archaeologist. I was very proud of this one, I thought it wins.

But does anyone have a 10?

[1] although this strip on a similar theme is a lot more epic.

Comments

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

On the PowerPets site there is a fictional archaeologist called Bungee.

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

Xena has an archaeology episode called The Xena Scrolls featuring Renée O'Connor (Gabrielle) as archaeologist Janice Covington. It's very funny.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Ah, cool! I should have guessed there would be at least one :)

(I need to see Xena at some point, when I ever have the time for getting hold of DVDs)

[geekette8.livejournal.com]

Rachel Weisz (et al) in The Mummy?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Ah, good one! Even more mainstream and cute than Indy! :)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Uh, not that that she's not a geeky suggestion. I mean, librarian!

[robhu.livejournal.com]

mmmmm :P

Sorry, I couldn't help myself.

[senji.livejournal.com]

There's a guy in Zelazny's Roadmarks who performs the age-old trick of carefully leaving potential finds in places he knows won't be excavated and then going into the future and excavating them. I'm not sure that counts as archaeology though.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. Zelazny rocks. Whether or not he sort of is, I don't think he is at heart though, he's not doing it for the knowledge.

[pizza.maircrosoft.com (from livejournal.com)]

the first fictional archaelogists that come to my mind are from Michael Crichton's timeline, although I think the answer would be different on a different day. oh there's a lovely children's book, the blow-and-grow year, with archaelogists in as well. both of those are presumably #8 though.

I have heard of indiana jones but had no idea what he does. i don't know who any of the others are either (i mean, I think I've seen lara croft in pictures...) - are any of them fictional fictional archaeologists (ie who pretend to be...)?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Ah, interesting one. That makes me think of a similar (but imho better, timeline seemed a bit formulaic) story by Tim Powers, though I don't think any of them were actually archaeologists.

Boy, I'm getting tired of typing that word!

You've never seen Indiana Jones films? They're pretty fun. He's a practising archaeologist (at least supposedly), a lecturer, who finds a lot of one-off famous pieces directed to the university museum. But he's more like an anti-tomb robber, he's always creeping through a tomb full of traps, grabbing some sacred thing, and escaping, fighting his way out past grave robbers, superstitious tribesmen and nazis.

I don't think any of the ones I described are pretend archaeologists, though some are not a very realistic portrayal, but some of the ones in the comments are apparently posing.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

On seeing this post, my first inclination was to wonder whether http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Fictional_archaeologists existed. Of course it does.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

ROFL. Of course. I still sometimes forget wikipedia. That's very geeky.

[http://users.livejournal.com/vitriol_/]

Mr Snow, from Planetary by Warren Ellis came to mind - it's a series about a group called Planetary dedicated to uncovering 'the secret history of the twentieth century', which gives Ellis a chance to play with different genres as they investigate from pulp to 70s monster movies to John Woo films to 50s B movies.

Sci-fi's also full of them, because when long-dead alien races are careless enough to leave cities filled with magitech littered across the galaxy, archeology suddenly becomes a very exciting profession. Joshua Calvert from Peter F. Hamilton's massive trilogy is a good example, as are quite a few of Andre Norton's characters.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes. I was thinking about a similar case elsewhere. I think archaeology of "Ancients" is almost an entry by itself (it cropped up in the Vinge too). In that if there are ancient, advanced civilisations, then all of a sudden archaeology is no longer an irrelevant science devoted to pure knowledge, but military research. And so the idea is very geeky, but each individual ancient-archaeologist probably doesn't add that much *more* geekiness :)

[hmmm-tea.livejournal.com]

Just to follow on the theme, what about the other archeologists mentioned in the Indiana Jones films:

eg Rene Belloq or Abner Ravenwood in Raiders of the Lost Ark

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

LOL. Good point, they're very good too.

Come to think of it, wasn't a minor character in HP called A. Rookwood, or similar, I remember wondering if that was a reference to Ravenwood.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Dan Silveste from Revelation Space.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Is that who Liz mentioned above? *Was* that who Naath suggested on Saturday?

[nybiara.livejournal.com]

Dr Ludger Brink from the really pretty LucasArts computer game, The Dig. Although I probably lose geek points for having to look up his first name.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Bad geek!

But yes, any lucasarts game completely wins, though I never played the dig.

[pavanne.livejournal.com]

Pandora Rae/Shaw and Thaddeus Valentine from Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Have you read that, did you enjoy it? I saw it on Unshelved/Overdue Media and it looked really interesting, but I didn't know if it'd be any good.

[ladyshrew.livejournal.com]

That guy who guest starred on B5 who was the doc's friend and brought some illegal artefacts that turned his assistant into a killing machine or somesuch. I can't remember his name. :-P OH! And Anna Sheridan!

Oh there's also the archaeologist who was in the B5 spin-off--again don't remember his name.

Oh, and true there's Daniel Jackson, but what about Sarah who became Osiris? Or um, his assistant guy who sometimes subs for him? (Arr, can't remember his name either. I suck.) Or Catherine and her dad, for that matter? And Daniel's grandfather . . . ok, you get the point. ;-)

[ladyshrew.livejournal.com]

Oh and on Earth: Final Conflict, there was an episode with a crazy archaeologist lady who found Ma'el's hidden lab and found his antidote to something that was killing people, and she was going to keep the antidote and sell it for lots because archaeologists don't get paid enough.

I think all my list proves is that I watch too much sci-fi and can't be arsed to remember the names of minor guests stars. :-P