Old video game screenshot from the game “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981)
Archaeology Games

New publication out: Indiana Jones in video games

on
2024-06-28

It took a while, but last week a new publication came out that includes a chapter by me. I am proud to be part of this volume and to be able to write a bit about video games. Not just about one particular Indiana Jones game, no, I write about all of them. Well, almost all of them… and how they have not changed much over the past 43 years…

The volume

So before I talk about my chapter, let’s talk about the volume. It is called “The Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and the Media in the 21st century“. The publisher is… well, Routledge. The editors are none other than Lorna Richardson, Andrew Reinhard and Nicole Smith. The volume was published on 20 June 2024. It has three parts (“Still Images, Moving Pictures, and Interactive Digital Spaces”, “Ethics and the Internet”, and “Public Archaeology”) and is 382 pages long.

Andrew Reinhard has a chapter on “Archaeogaming: The State of the Field in 2022” and Kevin McGeough writes about “Victorian Popular Culture in Twenty-First-Century Archaeological Media”, both very interesting topics related to my disseratation. I wish I had read them before submitting! Other topics include “Wikipedia and Archaeology”, “Chinese (Pseudo)Archaeology on Television”, or “Museum and Digitisation in the Aftermath of Colonialism in Southern Africa”. The topics in this volume are broad and super interesting!

The chapter

My own chapter is about Indiana Jones, or more specifically “Indiana Jones in video games – Depicting Archaeology as Colonial Practice”. I start with an overview of all the Indiana Jones video games I could find. From Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), from Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine (1999) to LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues (2009). I even mentioned Bethesda’s upcoming game, although at the time of writing it had only just been announced.

II then take a closer look at my personal favourite, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (1992), which I have written about here before. After describing the plot in more detail, I analyse the game for its tropes and the creation of a felt authenticity, which in turn has a major influence on the players and their deception of the past or the profession of archaeology. In my conclusions, I mention that these tropes are inextricably linked to the character of Indiana Jones, and that I expect the upcoming game to cater to them as well.

No open access?

Be that as it may, the publication is unfortunately not open access, nor is it cheap. The current price is £215 for the print version and £40 for the e-book. This is unfortunate and I think the editors were surprised as well. I still hope there will be a way to read the book…


Hageneuer, Sebastian. 2024. “Indiana Jones in Videogames – Depicting Archaeology as Colonial Practice.” In The Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and the Media in the 21st Century, edited by Lorna-Jane Richardson, Andrew Reinhard, and Nicole Smith, 162–75. London: Routledge. http://doi.org/10.4324/9781003216155-12.
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Sebastian Hageneuer
Germany

Hi! My name is Sebastian. I am an archaeologist, a university lecturer, freelancer, guitarist, and father. You could say I am quiet busy, so I learned to manage my time and energy to build good habits and still have space for myself and my family. Sounds difficult? Read here how I do it. (Nearly) Every Friday.

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