Travis Simpkins

Thursday, July 23, 2015

Dr. Melinda Hartwig, Egyptologist. by Travis Simpkins

Melinda Hartwig, 2014. by Travis Simpkins

Portrait Sketch of

Dr. Melinda Hartwig

Archaeologist / Egyptologist
Curator of Ancient Egyptian, Nubian
and Near Eastern Art

Adjunct Professor at Emory University

by Travis Simpkins

Dr. Melinda Hartwig: The Sphinx

For more info, please visit:

Melinda Hartwig:

National Geographic Channel Biography

Melinda Hartwig. by Travis Simpkins. King Tut's Tomb.

The Real Story: Indiana Jones

The Real Story: Indiana Jones

by Travis Simpkins

For the past three decades, Indiana Jones has served to personify adventure and mystique, making the thought of archaeology cool and exciting once again for younger generations. Produced in 2009 for the Smithsonian Channel, The Real Story: Indiana Jones takes a deeper look at the origins of the pop-culture archaeologist. Filmmaker friends Steven Spielberg and George Lucas first conceived the idea for Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1977, and they maintain that Indiana Jones is a fictional character, pure fantasy inspired by the adventure comics and serials of the 1930's and 1940's. However, many of those colorful adventure stories were based on actual people, and historical research finds many parallels between Indiana Jones and two real-life figures: Paleontologist Roy Chapman Andrews and Holy Grail hunter Otto Rahn. Roy Chapman Andrews was a curator at the Museum of Natural History in New York in the 1920's, and he possessed many of the personality traits associated with Indiana Jones. He was a charming and adventurous womanizer, with an overwhelming fear of snakes. Expeditions in Mongolia and far off locales proved Andrews' luck, daring and prowess with a pistol. The second figure who shares many Indiana Jones attributes, particularly in regard to the quest for objects of mystical power, was German explorer and academic, Otto Rahn. Rahn was obsessed with finding the Holy Grail, seeking it at Montsegur and beyond in the 1930's. Otto Rahn's passion for the divine object drew the interest of Henrich Himmler, who recruited Rahn for the Nazi S.S. Both men shared the sense of split personality that pervades the Indiana Jones character, that of the academic and the adventurer rolled into one enigmatic persona… a mixture that still captivates audiences.