Going for Guts, Glory

By RAY ROUTHIER

When Curtis Bateman struggled with his archaeological studies in college, whether it was keeping various emperors’ names straight or listing the wars of ancient Greece in chronological order, he sometimes buoyed himself by thinking of a man holding a whip.

"I would look at the image of Indiana Jones in the films as a kind of James Bond and think, ‘Ancient history is pretty kick- (butt). He’s fighting Nazis and throwing whips,’" said Bateman, 25, who earned his degree in ancient archaeology from Bowdoin College in Brunswick in 2005.

"Indy is not a traditional archaeologist, but he gets across the idea that history needs to be preserved for everyone."

Since the first Indiana Jones film, "Raiders of the Lost Ark," came out in 1981, men of science have decried Harrison Ford’s swashbuckling archaeologist character as a fraud. Pistols? Whips? Stealing precious artifacts from Nazis? That’s not science.

"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," the fourth film in the series and the first since 1989, hits theaters nationwide today. Who knows what archaeological hijinks Indy and his friends will be up to in this one?

While Bateman admits much of the rollicking adventure stuff is off-point, he stresses that the films did inspire him, and probably others, to pursue a serious career in archaeology.

One of those others is Mainer Kurt Rademaker, 33, a geoarchaeologist with the University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute.

"I was about 10 years old when I first saw one of the films, and of course, it put it in my head. But I didn’t really think of it as a job until I was in college," said Rademaker, who has been working off and on in Peru for the last three years.

"In Peru, I got to crawl through some bat caves that were part of a recently discovered underground chamber. That’s about as close to an Indiana Jones moment as I’ll probably come."

Bateman, who grew up in Auburn, has come somewhat closer.

First, he’s dressed as Indiana Jones for Halloween every year from age 6 on, and owns his own whip and fedora.

Second, while doing graduate work at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., one of his projects included measuring crystal skulls, the mysterious artifacts that are at the center of the newest Indiana Jones flick.

In the movie, set during the Cold War in 1957, an older Indy is called into service to foil a Soviet plot to uncover the mystery behind the skulls.

In real life, crystal skulls are pretty mysterious too.

They can be found in museums around the world, but many experts believe they were most likely made in the last 150 years or less and have been passed off for years as mysterious artifacts from an ancient people.

So will Bateman, who is currently living in Washington, go see "Crystal Skull" even though he believes crystal skulls to be fake?

"This is a dream come true for me. I’ve never seen (an Indiana Jones film) in a theater before," Bateman said. "I’m going to the midnight showing."

Bateman credits the Indiana Jones films with spurring his interest in Rome, Greece, Syria and other ancient civilizations, while thrilling and entertaining him as well.

But he says his longtime fascination with Indiana Jones goes beyond his making archaeology seem adventurous and cool.

It’s also because Jones does archaeology for the right reasons, even if he doesn’t always do it the right way.

"In the third one (‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’), there’s a flashback that shows a young Indy going after a cross (that’s been stolen) and yelling, ‘It belongs in a museum,’" Bateman said.

"He understands the importance of preserving old relics and artifacts from long-forgotten people."

As well as the importance of a good strong whip.

Staff Writer Ray Routhier can be contacted at 791-6454 or at:

rrouthier@pressherald.com

Originally published by By RAY ROUTHIER Staff Writer.

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