Didja Notice?

As the movie opens, the Paramount Pictures mountain logo fades to a mountaintop in Peru that is nearly identical. In The Lost Journal of Indiana Jones, the old torn map of A. Bandelier shows the mountain in the upper-right corner with Indy's writing beneath it, calling it "Paramount peak of Mt. Shubet." While there is an actual Mt. Shubet in Peru, the one seen here in the film is actually Kalalea Mountain in Hawaii.

The porters carrying supplies for Indy, Barranca, and Satipo are said to be Quechua Indians in the novelization. The Quechua people are South American natives who speak the Quechua languages, the largest population living in Peru.

The Hovitos tribe, whose warriors are seen in the prologue of the film, are fictitious, though the ancestral Chachapoyan culture from whom they are said to descend, was real from c. 800-1470 AD in the Andes mountain range of Peru. The novelization has the Chachapoyan civilization going back 2,000 years or more.

The actor playing Barranca here, Vic Tablian, also plays the "Monkey Man" in Cairo later in the film.

As Indy pauses to look at the old map, Barranca pulls a Remington 1875 revolver on him.

Indy tells Satipo that his competitor Forrestal cashed in his chips at the Chachapoyan temple. Dr. Forrestal was an archeologist mentioned, but not seen, previously in The Viking Scroll and "Tomb of the Gods" Part 2. 

At 4:24 on the DVD, you can see in Indy's silhouette that he already has tarantulas on his back even though they're gone in the next shot and Satipo doesn't point them out until 4:46.

How is it that Indy waving his hand in the ray of sunlight in the temple tunnel is able to trigger the spike trap? I mean, what, the ancient Chachapoyans had light sensitive sensors installed?

Notice that Forrestal's desiccated corpse still has its eyes. Looks like he was an ever-lovin' blue-eyed archeologist.

When the chamber holding the fertility idol is found, notice that there appear to be four stone chairs in a circle sector behind it. A later, wider ceiling shot of the chamber shows a few more, such that there are 7 or 8 total chairs present. Were Chachapoyan priests meant to sit there in prayer to the goddess of fertility?

There are also two large, axe-wielding statues guarding the temple.

Just before entering the temple, Indy had filled a cloth sack with a relatively small amount of sand. After finding the chamber and the pedestal holding the fertility idol, he tries to estimate the weight of the idol in comparison to the sand bag and, before swapping the sack for the idol, removes a handful of the dirt. But if the idol is solid gold as implied, it would be much heavier than the small sand bag. What's worse, the counterbalancing fulcrum of the pedestal sinks lower after he makes the swap, seemingly suggesting that the sand bag was heavier than the idol, triggering the trap and collapse of the temple. (Indy's journal entry about the idol in The Lost Journal of Indiana Jones has Indy stating the idol is a lot lighter than it looks!)

The Chachapoyan fertility idol prop is loosely modeled after the Dumbarton Oaks birthing figure, an alleged Aztec figurine of a woman giving birth. "Alleged" because some scholars believe it to have been made in more modern times, while others believe it is a genuine pre-Columbian artifact.    In The Lost Journal of Indiana Jones, Indy comments that the Chachapoyan idol is very similar to the Tlazolteotl Aztec birthing figure. Tlazolteotl is an Aztec goddess of sexuality, vice, purification, and a patroness of adulterers, and the Dumbarton Oaks birthing figure is presumed by researchers to depict her.
Chachapoyan fertility idol	Dumbarton Oaks birthing figure

The idol prop was rigged to have eyes that shifted to follow Indy's movements, but the concept was dropped for the final edit of the film.

Satipo is seen to have crooked incisors when he smiles as Indy picks up the idol off the temple pedestal. But when Indy finds him impaled during the escape from the crumbling temple, his teeth are perfectly straight.

When Indy finds the traitorous Satipo impaled on the spikes and takes the idol back, he erroneously says, "Adios, Sapito."

With the aid of the Hovitos, Belloq takes the idol from Indy, saying, "Again we see there is nothing you can possess which I cannot take away." It is not known what it was that Belloq had previously taken away from Indy. Belloq previously appeared in The Viking Scroll, Curse of the Invincible Ruby, The Dinosaur Eggs, and The Hollow Earth, but Indy did not lose any artifacts to Belloq in those encounters. There must still be an unrecorded adventure in which Belloq swooped in and took what Indy was able to procure.

The revolver Indy hands over to Belloq is a Smith & Wesson M1917 with shortened barrel.

Waiting for Indy with his pontoon plane Waco UBF-2 on the nearby river is Jock. The fictitious registration number on the plane is OB-CPO, a reference to George Lucas' Star Wars characters, Obi-Wan Kenobi and C-3PO. In "Tomb of the Gods" Part 2, Jock flew another plane (a DC-3) with the registration number OB1, another reference to Obi-Wan. The river would most likely be the Marañón River, about 5 miles southwest of Mt. Shubet.

Jock is wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap and a shirt that has "Air Pirates" stitched on the back. According to the Raiders of the Lost Ark Sourcebook of the World of Indiana Jones role-playing game, the Air Pirates were a group of stunt pilots who formed the Air Pirates Circus, of which Jock was a member (or maybe even the founder).

Jock's pet snake Reggie is a boa constrictor.

The car parked in front of Marshall College at 12:51 on the DVD is a 1936 Dodge Touring Sedan.

The 2008 juvenile novelization of the film informs us that Indy is back teaching in his classroom less than a week after escaping Belloq and the Hovitos. The novel also indicates that Marshall College is considered a prestigious institution.

The Lost Journal of Indiana Jones reveals that the class Indy is teaching when Marcus comes into his classroom to discuss the lost idol and some government men who have come to see him is Archeology 101.

The blackboard in Indy's archeology classroom has "Michaelson, Chapter 4 and 5" written on it. He mentions Michaelson and these two chapters for "next time" when the class is done for the day. He also has notes about a Turkdean Neolithic barrow site, which he says is near Hazelton. Hazelton is a village in Gloucestershire, England, which does have a couple of known Neolithic sites nearby. The "golden coffin" Indy mentions as allegedly buried at the site according to local legend seems to refer to another barrow, located in Bisley, about 20 miles to the west.

As the camera pans across Indy's students in the classroom, notice that the vast majority of his students are female and many of them appear entranced watching him as he lectures.

Some of the students in the class seem to have moved to different seats in various shots of this scene!

At 13:07 on the DVD, notice that two sketches of the Chachapoyan fertility idol are pinned to a board next to the blackboard.

At 13:14 on the DVD, Marcus approaches Indy's classroom and a young woman holding school books is seen waiting outside the class. This is the only remnant left of a scene cut from the film in which the girl (Susan) is waiting to ask Indy for a conference. The scene does appear in the novelization.

As the students file out of the classroom at the end, notice that a young man leaves an apple on the desk for the teacher, but then Marcus swoops in and pockets it for himself!

As Indy begins to explain losing the idol to Belloq, Marcus assures him, "I'm sure everything you do conforms to the International Treaty for the Protection of Antiquities." This appears to be a fictitious treaty, though there have been numerous similar treaties since the beginning of the 20th Century, not always signed on to by the world's colonial powers or the United States.

Indy tells Marcus that he's figured out there's only one place Belloq can sell the idol, Marrakesh, and he wants the museum to fund him $2000 to go there and retrieve it. Marrakesh is a city in Morocco. Indy does eventually go to Marrakesh for this purpose in "The Golden Goddess", a two-part story in issues 9 and 10 of the comic book The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones. Indy previously visited Marrakesh, where he was almost sold as a boy slave in "The Human Spirit" in 1908, and in 1930 in The Viking Scroll.

When Indy and Marcus arrive in the lecture hall to meet the two intelligence men, Indy is no longer carrying the rolled up maps (or whatever they were) that he was carrying when they left his classroom, but he does still have his briefcase and the giant tome. Perhaps he dropped the maps off at his office first for some reason.

Note that the men from Army Intelligence describe Indy not only as a professor of archeology and obtainer of rare antiquities, but also as an expert on the occult.

The intelligence men remark on Indy being, "...how does one say it? Obtainer of rare antiquities," and Indy agrees, "That's one way of saying it." Another way that all three men are probably dancing around is "grave robber".

A Nazi communiqué intercepted by European intelligence states that they have found Tanis and were beginning to dig. Tanis is an archeological site of an ancient city ruins about 80 miles northeast of Cairo. The city was not actually lost under a sandstorm as Indy says here, nor did it have a location within it called the Well of the Souls (though there is a cave by that name under the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem where the Ark is said to have once been stored), nor has the city ever been considered a likely resting place of the lost Ark. The Ark of the Covenant is said in the Hebrew Bible to be a gold-plated wooden chest that holds the stone tablets on which is etched the Ten Commandments of God given to Moses at either Mt. Sinai or Mt. Horeb (depending on what passage of the Bible is describing it; Indy refers to Mt. Horeb here).

Indy says Moses broke the stone tablets on which the Ten Commandments were written and the pieces were stored in the Ark. This is not what the Bible says. It says that Moses dropped and broke the tablets when he came down from the mountain and discovered his people worshipping idols and then went back up the mountain and obtained a second set of tablets, which are what was then stored in the Ark (though some traditions say that the broken tablets were also placed in the ark).

Indy and Marcus explain that the Israelites took the Ark with them to Canaan, where they settled and kept the Ark in the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem and Egyptian pharaoh Shishak invaded the city of Jerusalem around 980 B.C. and may have taken the Ark at that time. This is all generally true to history. Canaan was a Semitic civilization of the Middle East in the late 2nd Millennium B.C. The Temple of Solomon was a Hebrew temple in the city of Jerusalem, circa 6th-10th Centuries B.C. Though Shishak was an actual Egyptian pharaoh, he is not generally considered a likely suspect in the theft of the Ark and his rule in lower Egypt was not until around 943–922 B.C. (In the novelization, the year of Shishak's invasion is said to be 926 B.C., much more in line with the pharaoh's rule.)

The Staff of Ra, used to determine the location of the hiding place of the Ark, is fictitious. "Ra" refers to the ancient Egyptian god of the sun.

Marcus exaggerates when he says, "The Bible speaks of the Ark leveling mountains and laying waste to entire regions. An army which carries the Ark before it is invincible." Though the Israelites did win several battles while carrying the Ark, the Bible never says any of these things that Marcus relates.

Marcus's car that pulls up in front of Indy's home at 20:26 on the DVD is a 1937 LaSalle Coupe.

When Marcus appears, he seems a bit worried about Indy tackling the quest for a relic as sacred as the Ark, and that no one knows its secrets, Indy chastises him, saying, "I don't believe in magic, a lot of superstitious hocus-pocus." It was easy enough for the script to have him say that when this was the very first Indiana Jones adventure. Since then, of course, a number of Indy stories have been told that have retroactively given him a number of past encounters with magic and the supernatural. The phrase "hocus pocus" is frequently used by magicians when performing tricks. The origin of the term is obscure and has been used at least since the 17th Century. It was probably meant to sound Latin.

Marcus remarks to Indy that 5 years ago he would go after the Ark himself. Was Marcus a bit of an adventurer in his younger days? His earliest appearance thus far is in 1913 in Tomb of Terror where he still seems mostly the academician.

Packing for his trip to find Ravenwood, Indy tosses a revolver into his suitcase. It is the same model he had in Peru, a Smith & Wesson M1917 (he handed his previous one over to Belloq then).

The Pan American airplane Indy flies on to Nepal is a Short S.45A Solent 3 flying boat. Pan American World Airways was an international airline from 1927-1991. The Short Solent line of airplanes were not built until 1946-1949, so the plane seen here is an anachronism.

At 22:22 on the DVD, notice the German agent who is watching Indy who enters the plane just before Indy does. The German agent is portrayed by Dennis Muren, a special effects supervisor who has worked with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas numerous times in that capacity.

When Indy boards the plane and is greeted by a steward, the steward says, "Nice to see you again, Dr. Jones."

The Life magazine being "read" by the German agent is the November 30, 1936 issue. The date is not noticeable in the scene itself, so it's not likely it was intended to place the date of the film's events.

    As the flight path of the Pan Am plane is displayed onscreen, the plane appears to originate from San Francisco, flies over the Golden Gate Bridge, has stopovers in the Hawaiian Islands (not a very close representation of the islands on the screen map), Wake Island, and Manila, Philippines, to arrive at Kathmandu, Nepal. The flight would seem to be meant as one of the famous Pan Am China Clipper routes, but passenger flights of the China Clipper did not start until October 21, 1936, which brings into question once again the dating of the movie's events.

   The flight map also shows the country of Thailand, but that nation was known as Siam in 1936.

The 2008 juvenile novelization reveals that the man who has challenged Marion to a drinking contest is an Australian hiker named Regan. In the comic book adaptation, Marion refers to him once as Red.

The drinking contest seems to end when Regan passes out after downing his umpteenth shot against Marion, Marion collecting the money bet against her and telling all the watching patrons the bar is now closed. But notice that there is still one full shot glass on Marion's side of the table. In a typical betting contest, she would still have to down that shot without passing out in order to equal the number of shots Regan drank. If she had passed out as well after that, the contest would have been a draw. (In the novelization, the assembled onlookers do make her drink the last shot before they leave, and the comic book adaptation also has her downing her fifteenth shot to beat Regan's/Red's fourteen shots.)

The novelization reveals that Marion's bar is called the Raven.

Marion tells Indy that her father is dead. She doesn't explain how he died, but past references to him imply he was old when Indy last saw him. And the novelization says he was lost, no body recovered, in an avalanche in the Himalayas two years ago, where he and Marion were living in Nepal. However, the two-part "The Search for Abner" storyline later suggests he may have survived the avalanche and been taken in by the hidden city of Ra-Lundi, whose god was a Caucasian man in a golden mask.

Marion tells Indy that she remembers the headpiece to the Staff of Ra her father had obtained, but she claims she does not know where it is, but that maybe she can find it. After telling him to come back tomorrow and he leaves, it is seen that she has the piece on a chain she wears around her neck. The headpiece is relatively large to serve as a pendant and probably fairly heavy as well, surely uncomfortable to wear. Did she keep it close to her person at all times because she knew it was important? Had her father told her to?

As Marion looks at the headpiece, swiveling it to see both sides in her hand, she notices the candle on the table suddenly flicker briefly, as if caught in a breeze where there was none. Did the flame react to the presence of the headpiece in some mystical way?

When he and his men enter the bar, Toht refers to Marion as fraulein. This is German for "young lady". She at one point refers to him as "Herr Mac." Herr is German for "Mister". "Mac" is a slang term for "fellow", but it may be that she is referring to the fact that Toht is wearing a trench coat, also known as a "mac".

Toht's henchmen carry MP40 submachine guns. Toht himself uses a Walther P38 pistol.

At 29:44 on the DVD, a bottle of Jack Daniel's whiskey is seen on the bar. At 32:04, a Jim Beam bottle is seen.

Toht seems to speak with a Peter Lorre inflection.

For the bar fight, Indy uses what seems to be a back-up pistol he carries, a Browning FN Hi-Power (even though he starts out using his M1917 revolver). The Internet Movie Firearms Database points out that a behind-the-scenes photo of the Raven bar shoot shows Indy wearing a shoulder holster under his jacket, which would have held the Browning.

At 31:09 on the DVD, we can see that Marion has a miniature U.S. flag stuck up at the top of the liquor shelf behind the bar.

At 32:00 on the DVD, Marion hands Indy a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label scotch with which to smash over the head of his attacker.

Marion shoots the Mongolian henchman with a Mauser C96 pistol.

When Toht grabs the scalding hot medallion, it burns his palm with the bird engraving's tail feathers at the top of his palm, next to the fingers. But when Toht shows us his burned hand later in the film at the Nazi dig site, the tail feathers are seen at the bottom of his palm.

    Indy and Marion take flight out of Nepal on an Air East Asia Douglas DC-3. Air East Asia is a fictitious airline for the time, but the name was registered for use in 2006, though does not appear to have ever started operation. The Douglas Aircraft Company was an American aerospace company from 1921-1967.

    The plane flies with stops in Karachi and Baghdad before arriving in Cairo. The flight map shows the country of Jordan in the Middle East, but it was actually known as Transjordan at the time, not becoming Jordan until 1946. It also shows the areas of Qatar and Lebanon as parts of Saudi Arabia and Syria, when they were separate British and French protectorates respectively, at the time.

For the Cairo scenes, the production took pains during the on location shooting (which was actually in Kairouan, Tunisia) to have TV antennas, signs, etc. removed that would identify the time period as late 20th Century in the neighborhoods in which they filmed. But some anachronisms appear in that regard, almost inevitably. More modern telephone pole appendages, antennas, and street lights occasionally crop up in the backgrounds.

The novelization reveals Sallah's wife to be named Fayah. (Marion does also mention the name late in the movie, when she gives Sallah a kiss for Fayah, a kiss for the kids, and a kiss for him.)

The Monkey Man's monkey is a capuchin, known for their intelligence, tool use, and affinity for humans when properly trained. The capuchin is the most frequently seen monkey type in film and television. The monkey character in this movie is never named and is revealed in the novelization to be a female. In the movie, Marion refers to the monkey as both "he" and "she" at different times. The 2008 juvenile novelization has Marion first calling it "he" and then realizing she has misidentified the gender and corrects herself. The "voice" of the monkey is provided by voice actor Frank Welker, known for doing animal voices, largely in animation.

When the Germans approach the Monkey Man, the man says, "Sieg heil," and one of the Germans responds, "Ja." These are German for "Hail victory" and "Yes."

At 37:15 on the DVD, Indy and Marion walk past the Marhala Hotel and Restaurant. This is the restaurant/bar Indy will later retreat to when he thinks Marion has been killed in the truck explosion, and where he is taken to another table to meet Belloq. It appears to be a fictitious establishment.

Marion first asks Indy why he hasn't found some nice girl to settle down with and raise eight or nine kids like his friend Sallah, and when Indy retorts, "Who says I haven't?", she then responds, "I do. Dad had you figured a long time ago." And it turns out Marion and Abner were right, as Indy does not "settle down" until 1957 (with Marion in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull), but even that does not last, as he is seen to be separated from her by the time The Dial of Destiny opens in 1969, and does not appear to have had any children with her other than the "illegitimate" son, Mutt Williams (introduced as a young man in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull), who is said to have been killed in Vietnam by the time of that movie.

During the marketplace chase at 40:22 on the DVD, Indy casually reaches for his gun in its hip holster at his waist and shoots the fancy swordsman dead. This joke is repeated with a twist in the prequel film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, released three years later, only for him to find the weapon missing, making him panic for a moment. The gag is meant to harken back to this moment in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Since this movie came out in 1981, while the prequel was released in 1984, the audience gets the joke. But it seems a bit strange for Indy to react to the swordsmen in that prequel film almost as if he's experienced it before when he has not, since the prequel film is set in 1935, while Raiders of the Lost Ark is set in 1936. 

At 40:23 on the DVD, a flag seen hanging in front of a building behind the swordsman and crowd of onlookers is the flag of the Kingdom of Egypt, a white crescent moon with three stars inside on a green background, used in the country from 1922-1953.

The Arab gunman who opens fire on Indy at 41:25 on the DVD uses an MP40 submachine gun.

A business sign for a Mohamed Tantaoui is seen on a Cairo street at 41:26 on the DVD.

It's kind of hard to tell what's happening, but when the beggars start pestering Indy for money, notice that he takes a small handful of coins out of his pocket and tosses them over the beggars' heads onto the cobblestones of the alley, and they turn to chase the loose change.

As the basket is loaded into the truck, numerous red boxes of explosives are seen in the bed. The German word explosivstoffe for "explosives" is misspelled as explsivstoffe.

After loading the decoy basket into the truck, one of the Germans shouts to the driver, "Los! Schnell! Schnell!" This is German for "Go! Quick! Quick!"

The truck that the decoy Marion basket is put into is a modified 1944 Mercedes-Benz L 701, an anachronism. When the basket is put into the bed of the truck at 41:33 on the DVD, we see the truck is loaded with crates of explosives, which explains why it goes up in such a huge explosion later when it crashes.

The motorcycle ridden by the Monkey Man is a 1946 BSA M20, an anachronism.

At the Marhala bar, Belloq wears what appears to be a Panama hat.

The guns brandished by the Arab henchmen in the Marhala Bar are a mix of MP40s and Mauser Karabiner 98k rifles.

Notice that the Arab men in the bar, despite brandishing guns against Indy at their German employers' demand, are all smiling and laughing as Sallah's children surround Indy to rescue him from the predicament. It seems they are impressed by the method of escape.

Sallah's truck which he uses to whisk Indy and the children away from Belloq and the Nazis at the Marhala Bar is a 1949 Citroën Type 23, another anachronism.

The old man to whom Sallah takes Indy to get a translation of the headpiece inscriptions is referred to as Imam, as if that is the man's name, in most Raiders of the Lost Ark sources. Imam is also the title of someone who is a prayer leader of Islam. In the novelization, Sallah tells Indy that Imam, the old man, is a priest, scholar, and astronomer.

In Imam's kitchen at 47:04 on the DVD, a box of Rinso is seen perched above the sink. This is a real world brand of laundry detergent.

Indy seems to be fond of dates, as he has purchased a bag of them to snack on in the Cairo marketplace with Marion, and he quickly grabs one up when Imam's servant boy sets a bowl of them down on the table during their meeting to read the inscriptions on the headpiece of the Staff of Ra.

The novelization says that Imam's servant boy is his apprentice and is named Abu.

Imam reads the inscriptions on the headpiece as telling the length of the Staff of Ra in kadams. Kadam is an actual unit of measurement in Egypt. Sallah's remarks on the length indicate that one kadam is about equal to one foot, i.e. twelve inches, but reference sources indicate a kadam is closer to 10 inches.

When Indy and Sallah realize the Nazis are digging in the wrong place for the Well of the Souls, Sallah begins singing a song. It is "I am the Monarch of the Sea" from the 1878 Gilbert and Sullivan opera H.M.S. Pinafore. The 2008 juvenile novelization says that Sallah has a particular fondness for the music and lyrics of Gilbert and Sullivan.

The incorrect staff length would give the Nazis an erroneous result for the dig site, but it would seem like having the wrong crystal in the headpiece would as well. They would have to know what kind of crystal, how many facets it had, and maybe also the translucence index.

The Tanis dig site is openly run by uniformed, armed, German troops. They would not have been allowed in Egypt at the time, as the nation was a British protectorate.

At 51:51 on the DVD, the tracked vehicle seen is a 1928 Citroën-Kégresse C6 P.19 and the other is a 1938 Mercedes-Benz 170 VK.

According to the inscriptions on the headpiece read by Imam, the staff Indy uses in the Well of the Souls is supposed to be 5 kadams tall, about 60 inches, or 5 feet. But the one we see him use in the Well of the Souls is much longer than that! (Either that or Indy is less than 5 feet tall!)

In the map room, one of the model buildings the crystal light of the headpiece passes over has been painted with the German words nicht stören, which means "do not disturb". I presume this is meant to indicate that is the building the Germans' plaster headpiece showed them to dig at. It would make sense it is that building because the staff the Germans have is one kadam too long to accurately locate the Well of Souls and that building in the map room is above the actual location found by Indy in the map layout.

Out of dozens of tents Indy could duck into at the dig site, it seems amazing that he goes into the one where Marion is being held captive. Perhaps we can see the hand of God in this!

At 56:54 on the DVD, as Belloq and Dietrich cross the dig site discussing why they have not yet found the Ark in the location they are digging, notice that the Arab who walks by them, crossing right in front of Dietrich, is Sallah!

The giant statue that greets Sallah and Indy in the Well of the Souls is Anubis, the jackal-headed god of the afterlife and mummification in ancient Egypt.

When Sallah sees the snakes in the Well of the Souls are asps, "very dangerous", and tells Indy to go first, he does so knowing of Indy's great fear of snakes, having learned of it in their first adventure together, Tomb of Terror, way back in 1913 (though the Raiders of the Lost Ark Storybook has Indy explaining his fear of snakes for the first time here). 

Belloq warns Marion that, if she intends to escape on foot, the desert is three weeks in every direction. When the truck chase back to Cairo for the Ark takes place later in the movie, it doesn't seem to be all that far, though in the real world, Tanis is 50 miles from Cairo. And the Mediterranean coast is only about 15 miles northeast of Tanis.

The cobra that rears up at Indy when he falls from the rope onto the floor of the Well of the Souls is a monocled cobra, but this species is not native to Egypt, found in the wild only in South and Southeast Asia. Later, two monocled cobras rear up on Marion.

Indy and Sallah uses torches to create a barrier against the snakes, assuming all animals are afraid of fire. But snakes (as the production itself found out), being cold-blooded, are attracted to fire as a heat source.

There are a couple of images of R2-D2 and C-3PO, the droid pair from the Star Wars movies, on the walls of the Well of the Souls, but they are not noticeable in the movie. They are seen in the "Making of Raiders of the Lost Ark" featurette on an Indiana Jones Bonus Materials DVD.

The Belloq family owned a wine-making business, as Belloq tells Marion that the wine they are drinking in his tent is his family label. He also mentioned his family being wealthy wine-makers from Marseille in The Hollow Earth.

After the Nazis throw Marion into the Well of the Souls with Indy, Belloq is outraged, telling Dietrich that she was to be his, but Dietrich reminds him, "Only our mission for the Fuhrer matters. I wonder sometimes, monsieur, if you have that clearly in mind." Monsieur is French for "sir".

As the Germans begin to slide the stone slab back over the Well of the Souls, Belloq bids them adieu. This is French for "farewell".

Notice that Toht giggles as Indy and Marion are sealed away inside the Well of the Souls by the Nazis.

For a chamber that has been sealed shut and with the torch flames going out, the Well of the Souls is astonishingly bright inside!

When Indy pushes the large stone block out of the ruin to escape from the Well of the Souls at 1:15:33 on the DVD, notice the shadow of the stone on the wall shows it bouncing a few times when it lands on the ground, indicating the block was, of course, not real stone, but probably foam or plastic.

    At 1:15:48 on the DVD, as Indy and Marion run away from the ruin they've just escaped, an Arab man is seen lying on the ground with his back leaning against the wall. The man is no longer there when the ruin is seen in the background at 1:17:38. There was a seen filmed where Indy had knocked the guy out as he and Marion climbed out, but it was removed from the final cut. It could be argued now that the man was simply taking a siesta there and has gotten up and left by the time of the later shot.

    In this same shot at 1:15:48, it appears the stone block Indy pushed out has rolled over the wood retaining wall to come to a rest at the bottom. But the later shot shows the block above the retaining wall, near the exit hole of the ruin!

The Nazi flying wing aircraft that the Germans at first plan to load the Ark onto is a fictitious made-for-the-movie prop, but based on designs for proposed and existing such aircraft. The fuel vehicle parked nearby is a movie-made replica 1938 Morris-Commercial CD Zwicky Flight Refueller.

The Germans have stencil painted a Nazi logo and words onto the crate holding the Ark. The words EIGENTUM VON DEUTSCHEN WEHRMACHT are German for "PROPERTY OF GERMAN DEFENSE FORCE".

The flying wing pilot is armed with a Walther P-38 pistol which he keeps trying to aim at Indy during Indy's fight with the large German. The pilot is played by the film's producer, Frank Marshall.

The truck carrying German soldiers to the flying wing is a 1937 Morris-Commercial CV.

The machine gun Marion uses in the rear turret of the flying wing to mow down the Nazi soldiers is an MG 81Z.

At 1:19:54 on the DVD, the sign at the fuel dump reads in both German and Arabic, SMOKING FIRE AND OPEN LIGHT PROHIBITED.

The truck the Ark is loaded onto after the flying wing is destroyed is a made-for-movie Mercedes-Benz LG3000 based on a GMC CCKW 353 chassis (see the Internet Movie Cars Database).

At 1:21:28 on the DVD, a Dnepr MT-10 motorcycle with sidecar is seen parked in the distance. It will soon join the chase for the Ark.

At 1:21:39 on the DVD, the Arab laborers suddenly seem to oppose the Germans taking the crated Ark onto the transport truck and soldiers have to start shooting into the air to stop them from coming any closer. I'm not sure why the laborers would suddenly be concerned if they've been digging for the Germans in Tanis all this time from the start.

The car Belloq and Dietrich ride in during the Ark chase is a 1937 Mercedes-Benz 320. The production almost seems to go out of its way to use vehicles that were manufactured after the film's 1936 story date!

Major Gobler drives a made-for-movie Mercedes-Benz G5 during the chase. It has a mounted MG 34 machine gun in the back.

 As the Nazi truck takes off with the Ark, Indy tells Sallah and Marion to go to Cairo and arrange transport for them and the Ark to England by boat, plane, anything, and meet him at Omar's after he recovers the Ark. The novelization reveals that Omar is one of Sallah's friends, who owns an automobile repair shop in the city. That is where we see the truck driven into and hidden from the Nazis at the end of the chase (when the truck drives into the garage, the name OMAR'S GARAGE can just be seen above it). The novelization also has Indy explaining he wants to transport the Ark to England because there is no language barrier to deal with and no Nazis.

    As Indy heads out after the truck, Sallah asks how he's going to stop it, and Indy responds with his now-famous quote, "I don't know, I'm making this up as I go." This was the phrase's first appearance in the Indiana Jones franchise, but it has retroactively been alluded to in earlier Indy stories such as "The Cross of Coronado" and "The Phantom Train of Doom".

   The novelization leaves the famous quote out, but a line of narrative that has Indy pondering what to do after he cuts off the truck on the road to Cairo reads, "There was much to be said for spontaneity."

When the German soldier falls out of the back of the truck at 1:23:57 on the DVD, the Wilhelm scream is heard.

I had not noticed before, but Dietrich can be seen to have a scar on his left cheek at 1:24:00 on the DVD.

At 1:27:17 on the DVD, a couple of metal storage boxes mounted on the back wall of the truck cab read NOTFALL UND WARTLUNG AUSRUSTUNG and ERSTE HILFE, which translate as EMERGENCY AND MAINTENANCE EQUIPMENT and FIRST AID.

When the Nazi command car is run off the road by Indy at about 1:29:08 on the DVD, notice that the driver covers his head with his hands a second or two before Belloq starts to hit him over the head from the back seat with his hat!

The vehicle parked in front of Omar's Garage when Indy drives the truck in is a 1939 Morris 10hp Light Utility Truck.

At 1:29:28 on the DVD, an advertising sign for Sunlight Soap is seen in the square where Omar's Garage is located (said to be called Square of Snakes in the novelization). Sunlight Soap is a real world brand of laundry and dishwashing soap and detergent since 1884. Notice that this square (with some minor modifications) is the same square where Indy faced off with the Arab swordsman earlier in the film!

From 1:29:38 onward in the market square scene, the figure of Toht in the front passenger seat of the Nazi command car seems to be just a dummy dressed as Toht! I guess neither the actor nor a stand-in was available for the shot!

When the angry Dietrich takes the melon from the fruit vendor in the square and hurls it out of the car, notice that the sound of a yelping dog hit by the melon is heard! Also, notice that, when the car drives away, the melon pieces are seen on the ground on the opposite side of the vehicle from where they were thrown!

Captain Katanga is seen wearing the sailors cap of a Yugoslav People's Navy officer. But that navy did not exist until 1945.

The song Sallah sings after he says goodbye to Indy and Marion gives him a kiss is "A British Tar" from the aforementioned HMS Pinafore.

A bottle of Myers's Rum is seen in Katanga's quarters (used by Indy and Marion) at 1:33:09 on the DVD. This is a real world brand of rum.

Indy holds an Inglis Hi-Power pistol when the Nazis stop Katanga's tramp steamer, the Bantu Wind. This pistol was not manufactured until 1944.

The German submarine that stops the Bantu Wind is seen to be the U-26. There was a real world German sub by that registry,  launched in March 1936. The model seen here is incorrect though, being a Type VIIC, first commission being in 1940. The sub used for the production was actually built as U-96 for the 1981 film Das Boot. The Raiders of the Lost Ark Sourcebook for the World of Indiana Jones role-playing game identifies the commander of the U-26 here as Lt. Commander Klaus Ewerth, who was the commander of the actual U-boat, but only from 1939-1940. The U-26 is also named as the Wurffler ("hurler" in German) in the comic book adaptation (and an early version of the movie script), but it did not have a name beyond U-26 in real life as far as I can tell.

The U-boat pen on the island was shot at an actual Nazi U-boat pen from WWII in La Rochelle, France.

Notice that Indy has seemingly lost his fedora as he clambers onto the U-boat. This is also mentioned in the novelization (though the 2008 juvenile novelization says Indy left his hat and jacket on the Bantu Wind, carrying his whip inside his safari shirt):

And on pages 163-164 of the novelization, Indy realizes he left his whip attached to the periscope: The whip and the hat: it was a day for sad farewells to treasured possessions, for sure.

The U-26 sails to an unnamed island off the coast of Greece, where the Germans have a secret supply base.

In the movie, it's not exactly clear how Indy made it all the way to the island while stuck outside the U-boat, but the novelization and the comic book adaptation depict him lashing himself to the periscope with his whip, with the U-boat never completing submerging during its trip (this is also described in the movie script).

According to George Lucas, the desert canyon on the island where Indy tries to hijack the Ark back from the Nazis is the same canyon (in Tunisia) where Obi-Wan Kenobi rescued Luke Skywalker and the droids from Sandpeople in Star Wars: A New Hope.

The rocket launcher with which Indy threatens to blow up the Ark is fictitious. It is a custom made prop built on a copy of a Russian RPG-2 from 1954.

If you watch closely at about 1:42:22 on the DVD, it appears that Belloq swallows a fly that lands on his cheek and crawls over to his lower lip! 

Belloq hold some kind of ram's-head staff during the Jewish ritual he performs before opening the Ark. According to Indiana Jones: The Ultimate Guide, it is meant to be a first century replica of the Staff of the Moses, carried during the Jewish Exodus from Egypt.

The words Belloq speaks in the ritual prior to opening the Ark are said in the novelization to be an old Hebraic chant he had remembered from a parchment that had a picture of the headpiece of the Staff of Ra.

Belloq and the Nazis find only sand inside the Ark, possibly the remnants of the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments that were supposed to be housed in the Ark. (The 2008 juvenile novelization says this is the case.)

The 2008 juvenile novelization says the debriefing scene takes place in the War Office building in Washington D.C.

As Indy and Brody are debriefed about the U.S. government's "plans" for the Ark in Washington at 1:49:03 on the DVD, the portrait painting on the back wall at the far right may be that of Thomas Jefferson. On the far left may be the famed 1876 Yankee Doodle 1776 (or Spirit of '76) painting by A.M. Willard. On the back wall center, there appears to be a modified version of the seal of the president of the United States.

The U.S. Army Intel number stenciled onto the crate holding the Ark at the end of the movie is 9906753. This number later appears in the 2015 Star Wars film The Force Awakens on an unopenable cargo container in Han Solo's spaceship Eravana. 

Notes from the movie novelization by Campbell Black (The page numbers come from the mass market paperback edition, 2nd printing, July 1981)

Characters appearing or mentioned in this novel, not seen in the movie 

SS Officer Eidel

Hitler's aide

Lin-Su

Didja Notice?

Thinking of the less-than-trustworthy crew he's been forced to hire for the trek into the jungle in Peru, Indy wonders if he might have been better off with a troop of Boy Scouts. This refers to the Boy Scouts of America, whose motto is "Be prepared." Indy was a scout himself in his youth, as depicted in a number of Young Indy stories covered at PopApostle.

The novel refers to the temple where Indy finds the fertility idol as the Temple of the Chachapoyan Warriors.

The novel indicates Forrestal was at the temple "years ago" and never returned. According to Indiana Jones: The Ultimate Guide, it was only the previous year (1935) that he was there.

On page 5, Indy sees the dark coldness of Barranca's eyes and it reminds him of seeing the dead eyes of a shark. Perhaps he is recalling his encounters with sharks in The Bermuda Triangle, The Emperor's Tomb, and "Tomb of the Gods" Part 3.

As he makes his way through the temple on pages 9 and 10, Indy acknowledges a feeling of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, of being a plunderer, a looter. This has been one of the criticisms of Indiana Jones as an archeologist character...the movies present him as more of a grave robber than any kind of adherent to scientific method. On page 10, it also says, The two men passed ledges carved out of the walls. Here and there Indy would stop and examine the artifacts that were located on the ledges. He would sift through them, discarding some expertly, placing others in his pockets. Small coins, tiny medallions, pieces of pottery small enough to carry on his person. He knew what was valuable and what wasn’t.

Chapter 2 is entirely made up of a scene not appearing in the movie, set in Berlin and featuring Colonel Dietrich being assigned by SS officer Eidel the task of finding the Ark of the Covenant for Hitler and enlisting French archeologist Rene Belloq in doing so. It is implied that Dietrich has made use of Belloq before.

Dietrich meets Eidel in the man's office on the Wilhelmstrasse. Wilhelmstrasse is a major street in Berlin and was considered the German center of government at the time.

On page 32, the Reich (German for "realm") refers to the Third Reich, the claim by Nazi Germany that it was the third empire, successor to the Holy Roman Empire (800–1806) and German Empire (1871–1918).

Page 35 reveals that Indy loves teaching and he is able to convey his passion for the subject matter to his students.

Indy has a clay replica of the Chachapoyan idol in his office at the college.

On page 36, Indy reflects on his infatuation with finding or holding the relics of history and tries to recall when he first felt it. Was it 15 years ago? 16? 20? Of course, this novelization was written long before the advent of the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles TV series, which seemed to establish his love for archeology at the age of 8 in 1908 when he visited a dig in the Valley of Kings in Egypt with his parents and Howard Carter and Lawrence of Arabia in "My First Adventure". So, that would be about 28 years ago.

Also on page 36, reflecting on the history of archeology itself, he thinks "...of Champollion laboring over the Rosetta stone, the astonishment at finally deciphering ancient hieroglyphics. He thought of Schliemann finding the site of Troy. Flinders Petrie excavating the pre-dynastic cemetery at Nagada. Woolley discovering the royal cemetery at Ur in Iraq. Carter and Lord
Carnarvon stumbling over the tomb of Tutankhamon." These are all actual events of archeological discovery. Regarding the tomb of Tutankhamon, officially discovered by Carter and Carnarvon in 1922, Indy and Sallah actually stumbled into it first as young teenagers in 1913, but they had to seal it up again at the commands of the pharaoh's ka in Tomb of Terror.

On page 37, Indy recalls how Belloq had somehow gotten a hold of Indy's paper on stratigraphy in graduate school and plagiarized his own report from it and won the Archaeological Society Prize. Indy attended graduate school at the Sorbonne, so Belloq must have also. The Archaeological Society Prize appears to be fictitious.

Here in the novelization, when Indy first mentions the Ark, Colonel Musgrove thinks he's talking about Noah's Ark. This, of course, refers to the Biblical account of the flood and Noah's Ark and how Noah gathered a male and female member of every species of animal, as commanded of him by God, and loaded them onto the ark two-by-two in order to repopulate the world once the flood should recede. Indy brushed up against that ark in The Genesis Deluge in 1927.

The Battle of Jericho mentioned by Indy on page 43 is described in the Bible's Book of Joshua, as the first battle fought in the Israelites' conquest of Canaan around 1400 B.C.

As Indy says on page 45, there are legends, or prophecies, that the Ark of the Covenent will be found at the time of the second coming of the true Messiah, e.g. in the Bible's Book of Jeremiah.

Pages 46 and 47 have a small scene between Indy and the Marshall student, Susan, with whom he is apparently having an affair.

On page 47, an ad for Maxwell House is said to be playing on Indy's living room radio. Maxwell House is an American brand of coffee.

Page 47 reveals that Indy was 28 years old when he had his first affair with Marion.

On page 48, Marcus tells Indy that the two intelligence men they'd met earlier in the day talked to their people in Washington and to Marcus himself and decided they wanted Indy specifically to go after the Ark for them. "Washington" refers to Washington D.C., of course, the capital of the United States. When the intelligence men spoke to Washington, it could be imagined by us that they were told something about Indy's past recruitment by the government for certain tasks as seen in The Sky Pirates and The Philosopher’s Stone.

Page 50 reveals that Indy has one of Ravenwood's old journals, gifted to him when the two were still friends.

Chapter 4 is a scene not found in the movie, set in Berchtesgaden, Germany. In it, Dietrich and Belloq work out their agreement for Belloq to help the Germans locate the Ark. Berchtesgaden is where Hitler had the Berghof, his holiday home, which is where Dietrich and Belloq meet.

Dietrich tracked Belloq down at a cheap French cafe in Marseille. Belloq had talked about his family being wealthy wine-makers from Marseille in The Hollow Earth.

On page 52, Belloq thinks of Hitler as a miserable little German house painter. Hitler did have a job as a house painter in his youth from 1908-1913.

On page 54, Belloq remarks to Dietrich that a man like Ravenwood is not easily coerced. This may suggest that Belloq has dealt with Ravenwood before.

Here in the novelization, Indy's flight to Kathmandu takes a different route than in the movie, saying it arrives in Hong Kong after many stops, then a rickety plane to Shanghai, and then to Kathmandu.

On page 56, la mordida is Spanish for "the bite".

On page 59, Indy's friend Lin-Su in Kathmandu tells him that Ravenwood was last known to be in the region around Patan. Patan is an ancient region of Nepal in the Kathmandu Valley. The comic book adaptation also uses Patan here.

Also on page 59, Confucius (551-479 BCE) was a Chinese philosopher, now widely considered to be one of the most influential individuals in history.

To get to Patan, Lin-Su loans Indy his car, which is part Ford and part Citroen, with maybe some Morris thrown in. Ford and Citroen are automobile manufacturers even today. Morris Motors was a British automobile manufacturer and brand from 1912-1984.

Page 67 reveals that the avalanche that buried Abner was on a mountainside where he had been digging, thinking the Ark was buried there.

On page 67 (and in the comic book adaptation), Marion says when her father was lost in the avalanche, he had left her no money, so she had to work at the bar (and not as a bartender) until the owner went crazy and was dragged away and he left the bar to her. The 2008 juvenile novelization states that Abner bought the bar when the pair of them first moved there for his research into the location of the Ark. However, these two versions are, perhaps, not irreconcilable. It's possible the crazy bar owner she refers to here is Abner, driven "crazy" by his obsession with the Ark and "dragged away" from the bar (and her) by his latest belief that the Ark was buried on the mountain. From the juvenile book: But then Abner had left Marion in charge of the place while he went off searching for clues and relics that might lead him to the Ark of the Covenant.

On page 68, Indy tells Marion if he could go back 10 years and undo what he did to her, he would. This suggests their affair was in about 1926. Page 71 states that she was fifteen at the time.

When Indy remarks that Marion seems to have become a "tough broad", she retorts, "This ain't exactly Schenectady, friend." Schenectady is a small city in New York.

The novelization implies that Indy was followed on the DC-3 airplane from Shanghai by Toht himself.

    Page 71 states that Toht was sent by the Third Reich Special Antiquities Collection branch of the German government. This is a fictitious branch, though it may be that it is a part of the Ahnenerbe, a branch of the Nazi SS dealing with research on the history of the Aryan race. Indy previously encountered members of the Ahnenerbe in the "Tomb of the Gods" storyline.

    The 2008 juvenile novelization reveals that Toht works for the Gestapo.

Pages 74-75 reveal that the giant Sherpa who comes in with Toht and wrestles with Indy in the bar, and whom Toht betrays when he shouts to his other men to shoot both of them, is a local with whom Marion is familiar as a frequent patron in her bar. She knows he is the kind who can be bought by anybody for a couple glasses of booze.

Page 78 has Indy reminiscing on how he'd been fascinated with bullwhips ever since seeing a whip act in a travelling circus when he was seven years old. Of course, this does not quite jibe with the spurring of his interest in the subject as presented in "The Cross of Coronado" in the prelude of the later movie, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Of course, it could be true that Indy did become fascinated with bullwhips at 7 years old and that's one reason he grabbed up the lion tamer's whip in the circus train car when he was 13 in "The Cross of Coronado".

Page 84 has Indy reflecting it had been years since he last saw Sallah. The last known meeting between them was in the novel Secret of the Sphinx, set in 1934. So, technically years, yes, but only a couple. Page 85 has Indy commenting that Sallah had had only three children at their last meeting, now he has nine. Of course, two years is not enough time for a couple to have six more kids! It's not clear in the aforementioned book how many kids Sallah had at that time.

On page 85, Indy sees something in Marion that implies a love for children as she talks to and plays with Sallah's kids. He reflects that he himself has never had time for kids in his life and they were a kind of clutter he didn't need. When the monkey shows up and Marion falls for it, Indy then reflects that he finds animals only slightly more bothersome than children. This last goes somewhat against his love of dogs (or, at least, one particular dog) he had as a boy as revealed in the 1989 film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Sallah tells Indy that he and Fayah have decided to stop at nine children.

On page 87, Sallah tells Indy he personally broke into the map room at Tanis for the Nazi dig.

On page 90, Indy enters Marion's guest room at Sallah's home as she sleeps. When he touches her cheek, she awakes and he says, "You want to know why I'm sitting here, right?" and she guesses he's come to explain the intricacies of Mr. Roosevelt's New Deal. Her joke refers to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1933-1938 New Deal program of financial reforms, regulations, and public works projects to rescue the U.S. from the Great Depression.

On page 92, the monkey has somehow been trained to look for the headpiece among Indy and Marion's belongings in their host's cloakroom.

On page 97, Marion feels like one of the Forty Thieves as she hides inside the rattan basket from the Nazis and their Arab henchmen. She is thinking of the story "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" from the Arabic story collection One Thousand and One Nights, believed to have originated around the 8th Century AD.

On page 99, Indy, looking for the men carrying the basket holding Marion, comes across a funeral procession, with priests chanting from the Koran. The Koran, of course, is the chief holy book of Islam.

The International Archeological Society mentioned by Belloq on page 105 appears to be fictitious.

Page 114 reveals that Indy and Sallah had Omar waiting with a truck hidden in the dunes to haul the Ark away (if Belloq hadn't intercepted them).

On page 118, Indy thinks of the German officer, who is shouting after him to come back, as a dummkopf. This is German for "fool".

Here in the novelization, the German flying wing pilot carries a Luger pistol instead of a Walther. Luger is a pistol design first patented by Austrian Georg Luger in 1900.

Page 144 has Omar's garage located in the Square of Snakes in Cairo. This appears to be a fictitious square.

Page 145 has Indy stealing a white Arabian stallion from the Nazi corral and realizing he hadn't ridden in years. The last time we know of Indy riding was in The Dinosaur Eggs, set in 1933.

On page 163, Indy keeps his mind occupied with various thoughts as he rides the U-boat to its island destination. Among those thoughts is one of Rita, a young woman he'd almost married once. This would seem to be a different Rita than the middle-aged Rita Jenkins who was the secretary of London University's archaeology department chairman William Pencroft around 1927 in The Genesis Deluge. Indy also had some close calls to marriage in his teenage years and was briefly married to Deirdre Campbell in 1926 before her death in The Seven Veils.

Notes from the Raiders of the Lost Ark Storybook by Les Martin (The page numbers come from the 5th printing, 1981)

On page 28, Sallah tells Indy, "May Allah go with you," as Indy insists on going to see Sallah's associate who may be able to translate the markings on the headpiece (Imam). "Allah" is the Arabic word for "God".

In this storybook, Marion takes out the dagger-wielding Arab who chases her in Cairo by smashing a heavy clay pot over his head. In the movie, she used a large skillet.

In this storybook, Toht is riding in the vehicle that goes over the cliff instead of with Belloq and Dietrich, so he is killed long before the opening of the Ark on the island.

In this storybook, the last German soldier in the truck who almost succeeds in taking the truck and Ark away from Indy in the movie, here is shot by Dietrich in the car ahead in order to prevent the man (a sergeant) from killing Indy and quite possibly causing the truck to crash or go off a cliff and destroying the Ark. 

Notes from the comic book adaptation Raiders of the Lost Ark #1 Marvel Comics Writer: Walter Simonson Artists: John Buscema and Klaus Janson Letterer: Rick Parker Colorist: Michelle Wolfman September 1981

Page 1 states Indy and his entourage are making their way through a region of Peru known as the "Eyebrow of the Jungle." This is an actual nickname (Ceja de Selva) for the transition zone between the low jungle and the highlands of the Andes.

When Brody tells Indy there's some men from Army Intelligence who have come to see him, Indy retorts, "Well, if it's the draft board, I've already served." While Indy did serve during WWI, it was in the Belgian Army, not the U.S.'s! (See episodes of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles TV series.)

After Marion has told everyone in the bar it is time for them to leave, Indy remains seated at a table with his back to her and she shouts at him, "And I mean now! Not next Easter!" Easter, of course, is a Christian celebration and holiday of the resurrection of Jesus Christ as described in the New Testament of the Bible.

Notes from the comic book adaptation Raiders of the Lost Ark #2 Marvel Comics Writer: Walter Simonson Artists: John Buscema and Klaus Janson Letterer: Rick Parker Colorist: Michelle Wolfman October 1981

On page 4, Toht refers to his henchman as schweinhund. This is a German insult (literally translated as "pigdog"), but meaning something like "bastard" or "ass" in English.

At Sallah's home, Sallah tells Indy that the Nazi excavation broke through into the map room three days ago. In most other versions of this story, it happened that same day.

Indy explains to Sallah that, if the legends are right, the map room should tell him the correct place to dig for the Well of the Souls by using a correctly-sized Staff of Ra with the headpiece, and Sallah asks him what if they aren't? To which Indy responds he'll turn in his Bullfinch's Mythology. Bullfinch's Mythology is a collection of legends and myths from antiquity by Thomas Bullfinch published in book form for a general English readership from 1867 onward, and often considered the best of its kind.

The adaptation reveals that the floor tiles of the map room that Indy brushes the dust off of divides the solar year into a calendar, so that the Well of the Souls can be found at any time of year with a properly-lengthed Staff of Ra.

When Indy ducks into the tent that turns out to be the one holding Marion to avoid a couple of German officers, he thinks of them as discussing Mein Kampf. Mein Kampf (My Fight) is Adolf Hitler's 1925 manifesto and autobiography.

As Belloq and Indy taunt each other just before Indy and Marion are sealed in the Well of the Souls, Indy asks him if he managed to get the idol out of Peru. Belloq seems to intimate that he did not, saying, "I was lucky to get away with my life! The Indians proved quite narrow-minded about the whole matter." This was a line in the original script that did not make it into the film. The later story "The Gold Goddess" has Indy tracking the idol down to a shop where Belloq had sold it in Marrakesh.

Notes from the comic book adaptation Raiders of the Lost Ark #3 Marvel Comics Writer: Walter Simonson Artists: John Buscema and Klaus Janson Letterer: Rick Parker Colorist: Michelle Wolfman November 1981

When Major Gobler orders the ground crew to get the flying wing fueled immediately, one man says, "Jawohl, mein herr." This is German for "Yes, sir."

On page 4, a German soldier notices Indy hiding among the fuel drums on the airstrip and says, "Vas ist..." This is German for "What is..."

In the comic, Indy hides the transport truck in Sallah's own garage, not Omar's auto repair garage.

On page 10, Belloq says, "Incroyable, we have lost him...and the Ark!" Incroyable is French for "incredible".

On page 17, Juden is German for "Jews". 

Notes from the 2008 junior novelization by Ryder Windham Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark Published by Scholastic (The page numbers come from the 1st printing, 2008)

Didja Notice?

Page 1 mentions the scar on Indy's chin. He received this when he first tried to use a lion tamer's whip aboard a circus train when he was 13 years old in "The Cross of Coronado".

Page 2 mentions that Indy picked up his two guides, Barranca and Satipo, at a remote river outpost called Machete Landing. This is a fictitious outpost as far as I can tell.

Page 3 mentions that the games of the XI Olympiad had just completed in Berlin a few weeks earlier, and the American track and field athlete Jesse Owens had won four gold medals and Peru had been bilked (from Peru's perspective) out of the football (soccer) silver medal by Austria after complaining about the Peruvian team's conduct. The XI Olympiad took place from August 1-16, 1936 in Berlin. If it was "a few weeks earlier", then that places the current events sometime in September. Jesse Owens (1913-1980) was an American black athlete who did win four gold track and field medals in Berlin, humiliating Hitler and his Nazi myth of Aryan supremacy. The later story "Gateway to Infinity" has Indy jokingly thinking about trying out for the Olympics, which would place that story before the XI Olympiad took place. As stated in the chronology section at the top of this page, PopApostle considers Raiders of the Lost Ark to take place in late June through early July of 1936, so the passage about the past XIth Olympiad is, for the PopApostle chronology's purposes, considered a prolepsis by the book's author.

On page 25, as Indy makes his escape from the Hovitos in Jock's plane and realizes he has to share his cockpit seat with a huge boa constrictor, he makes a mental note: Never fly with Jock again! But he will do so, in "Island of Peril".

Page 45 relates Indy travelling by a series of planes from Connecticut to California, then boarding an M-130 Clipper from San Francisco to Manila. The Martin M-130 was the traditional Clipper plane operated by Pan Am around this time (not the anachronistic Short Solent seen in the movie, which was used for convenience sake by the production).

Indy reflects that he was happy to let the U.S. government pay for his trip, as the round trip ticket to Manila cost $1400.

Page 49 mentions chaang and rakshi being served at the Raven bar. Chaang is a type of beer and rakshi a sake-like alcoholic drink made from rice or millet, brewed in Nepal and Tibet.

Karachi is the capital of the Sind province of Pakistan, as stated on page 72.

Page 109 states that archeologists believed Tanis to be over 4,000 years old. In actuality, researchers believe it to be around 3,000 years.

On page 110, wehrmacht is German for "defense force".

Page 110 reveals that Colonel Dietrich's dark-haired aide is named Major Gobler.

As wind, clouds, and lightning begin to form above the dig site on page 126, Indy reflects that any former Boy Scout knows it was dangerous to be out in the open during a lightning storm. Indy was depicted as a Boy Scout in his youth, most notably in "The Cross of Coronado" and "The Mountains of Superstition".

Page 138 states that the hieroglyphics on the stone chest holding the Ark in the Well of the Souls tells that the pharaoh Shishak had commissioned the Well of the Souls to contain the Ark.

On page 139, Indy's estimation that the Ark was about 4 feet long and 2.5 feet wide and high, is accurate to what the Book of Exodus in the Bible says of the Ark's size.

Page 212 states that Indy does not understand German very well, but The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles has him proficient in about 27 languages, including German.

On page 213, Belloq assumes that the scorched-away German stenciling and swastika on the crate holding the Ark was just Indy's or the pirate crew's way of erasing the evidence that the crate had been taken from the German military.

On page 222, Indy insists to himself that he is not superstitious and does not ascribe supernatural powers to the Ark. Yet, he has encountered numerous supernatural artifacts and events in his life, as seen in the various books and comics detailing his adventures up to this point in the chronology.

On page 223, Indy recalls the words of Brody about the lost city of Tanis, that it had been wiped clean by the wrath of God. This reminds him of Sodom and Gomorrah and of Lot's wife, who had been turned to a pillar of salt when she looked upon God's destruction of Sodom. This is what seems to give Indy the idea that he and Marion must not look at the Ark as the wind and electrical effects begin occurring, rather than the words of Imam read from the headpiece of the Staff of Ra, as most Raiders of the Lost Ark sources suggest. The two cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are mentioned in both the Bible and Torah as being cities of sin that were judged and consumed by fire and brimstone sent by God as punishment. Lot's wife is said in the Bible's Book of Genesis to have looked back at Sodom's destruction during her family's flight from the doomed city, despite having been told not to look by two angels who warned them to flee before God turned his wrath on the city, and was turned to a pillar of salt.

Page 226 suggests that Indy used some radio equipment at the submarine pen on the island to call for help after the horrifying Ark ceremony.

Page 228 has Indy lamenting that the government does not intend to honor its promise to let the Marshall College Museum keep the Ark. This is the only source material that indicates a Marshall College Museum that would have held the Ark. Brody is curator of the (fictitious) National Museum at this point in his career, and that is the museum that was intended to be the Ark's home after recovery according to most sources, before the government stored it away.

After the debriefing, Marion offers to buy Indy dinner. In the movie (and most other sources), she offers to buy him a drink.

Memorable Dialog

there is nothing to fear here.mp3

there is nothing you can possess which I cannot take away.mp3

if only you spoke Hovitos.mp3

that's just my pet snake Reggie.mp3

one of the great dangers of archeology.mp3

there's only one place he can sell it.mp3

obtainer of rare antiquities.mp3

you're talking about the Ten Commandments?.mp3

an army which carries the Ark before it is invincible.mp3

the museum gets the Ark when we're finished?.mp3

you know what a cautious fellow I am.mp3

I always knew someday you'd come walking back through my door.mp3

I can only say I'm sorry so many times.mp3

it is not of this earth.mp3

it took a hell of a lot for you to alienate him.mp3

try the local sewer.mp3

we have both fallen from the purer faith.mp3

a radio for speaking to God.mp3

I've got nothing better to do.mp3

next time, Indiana Jones, it will take more than children to save you.mp3

uh-oh.mp3

bad dates.mp3

why did it have to be snakes?.mp3

you go first.mp3

Dr. Jones, whatever are you doing in such a nasty place?.mp3

once again, Jones, what was briefly yours is now mine.mp3

in a thousand years even you may be worth something.mp3

wave it at anything that slithers.mp3

I'm making this up as I go.mp3

your appearance is exactly the way I imagined.mp3

it's not the years, honey, it's the mileage.mp3

you're going to give mercenaries a bad name.mp3

you want to see it open as well as I.mp3

top men.mp3