Akator

"I'm not that easy."
"I'm not that easy, either."

There are two conflicting canon sources for this article, from Indiana Jones und das Gold von El Dorado and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. A cohesive timeline has not yet been devised by Lucasfilm Ltd. Editor discretion is advised.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE
Akator
Culture	Ugha
Established	Pre-1500
Location	Near Ilha Aramaca, Brazil
Structure	Temple of Akator
Artifacts	Crystal Skull of Akator

Akator, also known as El Dorado, the Lost City of Gold or the Hidden City, was a legendary city of knowledge built by Ugha natives with the help of Interdimensional beings, in the western part of the Amazon rain forest, in modern-day Brazil, near the Peruvian border.

The city was built in a crater next to a tributary of the Amazon River with waterfalls. The only entrance to the city was through a series of tunnels that led out to a rock outcropping near the base of the lowest waterfall. This outcropping was sculpted to resemble a crying skull. Inside the crater, the tunnels led out to a large stone staircase that descended down into the crater.

In the center of the crater was the Temple of Akator, the largest structure of the city.

History

Origins

The early history of Akator is largely unknown, the Peruvians called it "El Paititi". The land was originally inhabited by the Ugha tribe or the Incas when a flying disk arrived. The disk contained thirteen interdimensional beings who were humanoid, yet were physically much taller than humans and possessed elongated heads. The beings had come to Earth as part of a research mission and traveled around the world collecting artifacts from different ancient civilizations.

An interdimensional being.

These beings taught the Ugha natives advanced technologies such as astronomy, agriculture, and engineering. It was with this knowledge that Akator was built atop of the stationary disc. Its construction influenced the development of other pre-Columbian New World civilizations including the Inca of Peru who called the Ugha city "Akator". The Ugha worshiped the beings as deities, going so far as to shape their heads to resemble those of their gods. Neighboring groups in South America also learned about the strange-headed gods, and the practice of skull molding may have spread to other cultures, including to the inhabitants of Nazca.

Akator thrived, boasting aqueducts and paved roads, and technology of a kind that would be unrivalled for millennia. The thirteen interdimensional beings were collectors who somehow acquired pieces of archaeological interest from different worldwide cultures over thousands of years which were stored outside the gods' throne room within a temple at the center of the city.

Spanish discovery

Francisco de Orellana, the looter of Akator.

In the 1500s, European explorers arrived in South America and heard the stories of this legendary "city of gold", which they named El Dorado (Spanish for "the gilded one"). Upon hearing the news of Christopher Columbus' discovery of the "New World" and the rumors from conquistadors of fabulous treasures in those distant lands such as alleged "golden kingdoms" like many Europeans, Francisco Pizarro went to Peru in search of El Dorado, though he never found it. The legend of El Dorado motivated the conquistador Francisco de Orellana to travel up the Amazon river in search of the fabled city.

In 1546, the Orellana expedition discovered Akator, but it was not the "city of gold" they had expected. Instead, it was a city of knowledge, with a collection of artifacts from all over the ancient world (a fair amount of which was gold anyway). The conquistadors looted the city and the Ugha could do little to stop them. It was a devastating defeat as Ugha bolas and spears were no match for Orellana's muskets. Ugha art would depict the encounter with a painting of figures fleeing a village, with bodies piled high, impaled on spikes or hanging from rope, while one anguished woman held a baby to the heavens as blood poured down her arms. Orellana took one of the skulls from the crystalline skeletons of the interdimensional beings. Orellana left the city and most of the artifacts intact and continued his exploration, bringing with him the head, which slowly drove him and his fellow conquistadors insane. It was believed that he planned to return the skull to Akator, but died before doing so. While many explorers and fortune seekers tried to find El Dorado again, none reached Akator or returned to civilization.

The thirteen beings existed as a hive-mind collective and their crystal skeletons remained, falling in a state of decay, and their alien minds still contained the knowledge they had learned on Earth. The hive-mind, which was still alive despite the death of the thirteen beings, refused to return to its own dimension without the mind (and knowledge) of the missing skull. The hive-mind was able to create a psychic link with the missing crystal skull. Some humans who stared into the eyes of the skull would be consumed with the desire to return the skull, going mad if this could not be achieved. Orellana's stolen skull was buried along with Orellana near Nazca and no humans stared in its eyes for hundreds of years.

Ugha civilization continued along without their gods, with very little contact with the outside developing world. Isolated, they stayed at the same technological level as the gods had taught them well into the 20th century, when the city had fallen into ruin and the Ugha were thought to have died out.

The Incas also had their "El Dorado". However this one was built as a elaborate booby trap to wipe out the Spanish conquistadors. Indiana Jones and Jessie Hale discovered this in 1936 near Estarca, Bolivia.

Final quest of Akator

In the 1950s, the crystal skull was rediscovered by Professor Harold Oxley, who used the skull to rediscover Akator. The Ugha let Oxley into the city because he carried the lost skull, and sought to return it. Unfortunately, Oxley was unable to learn how to enter the Temple of Akator, so he left the city, and returned the skull to where he found it - at Orellana's Tomb. Eventually, he went mad, and was confined to a sanatorium in Nazca.

By this time several interdimensional being scouts came to Earth in flying discs, perhaps to locate the missing thirteen. In 1947, one of the discs crashed near the town of Roswell, New Mexico, and the US military recovered the body of one of the aliens. Archaeologist Indiana Jones was brought to help study the remains, which were later stored in crate 9906573 in Hangar 51. Two other bodies were recovered from similar crash sites by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics by 1957. The KGB psychic warfare research division was more successful in studying the two Soviet crash sites. Soviet Colonel Irina Spalko attempted communication psychically with the dead creatures, hoping to unlock the secrets of psychic power and alien knowledge for the benefit of the Soviet Union to no avail.

KGB agents located Oxley, and kidnapped him from the Nazca sanatorium. When he was unable to help them because he had gone insane, they also kidnapped Marion Ravenwood, who had gone to find Oxley. Knowing Ravenwood's connections to Jones, they let her briefly escape to send a message to Jones via her son, Mutt Williams. Meanwhile, they kidnapped Jones and their agent George McHale to use Jones to steal the alien body at Hangar 51. After Jones escaped from this adventure, Williams met up with Jones and convinced him to help find Oxley. Jones and Williams arrived in South America, and used Oxley's clues to find Orellana's tomb and the missing skull. The Soviets then captured the pair and took them to their camp in the rain forest. At the camp, Jones agreed to help them in order to save Ravenwood and Oxley. Jones was forced to stare at the skull, which connected with him, and compelled him to return the skull to Akator.

Eventually, Jones and his allies escaped from the Soviets and using Oxley's cryptic directions, were able to find the entrance to the city. Inside the entrance tunnels, they viewed Ugha artwork that told the history of the Ugha and the interdimensional beings. Oxley recognized that the skull belonged to one of these beings. Further in the tunnels, hidden Ugha warriors protecting the city emerged from hiding places and chased the group out of the tunnels, and down the steps into the crater. Brought down by Ugha weapons, the group was nearly captured, but then Oxley revealed the missing skull, and the Ugha allowed them passage unharmed to the Temple of Akator. McHale, actually working for Spalko, left behind tracking beacons along the route. While Jones and Oxley figured out how to enter the temple, and ventured inside, Spalko and the remaining Soviet soldiers arrived, and used machine guns to kill the Ugha warriors, and then entered the temple.

Inside the temple, Jones and his friends discovered the treasure of Akator -- the collection of artifacts, and opened an inner chamber, revealing the thirteen skeletons of the aliens, sitting on thrones in a circle. Spalko and her men arrived in time to force the skull's return to its headless skeleton.

Akator's end.

Upon the skull's return, Oxley shared the words of the aliens, and Spalko stepped forward to receive the gift of knowledge from them. With the room starting to shake and move, McHale, Jones, Oxley, Ravenwood and Williams left. The thirteen crystal skeletons formed into a single seemingly alive being before Spalko's eyes. A trans-dimensional portal was opened and the now singular being returned to its home dimension. The remaining Russians were also sucked into the portal, which later also claimed McHale, slowed down by carrying some of the treasures of the artifact storeroom.

The remaining Americans fled the Temple of Akator, which was slowly collapsing with the creation of the portal. Eventually, they rode up a water pipe to a spot on the edge of the crater, and watched as the entire city was ripped apart in a giant vortex of spinning rock and debris as the alien ship disappeared. After the portal closed, the edges of the crater collapsed, flooding the site with the waters of the river surrounding the crater becoming a new lake in the Amazon.

Behind the scenes

Akakor is the name of a supposed ancient underground city, located somewhere between Brazil, Bolivia and Peru, revealed as the product of a hoax by German journalist Karl Brugger.

In LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues, the Ugha are depicted as being led by an Ugha King, giving one possible answer as to how Akator is the kingdom of the Crystal Skull in the title of the fourth film.

Appearances

• Indiana Jones Adventure World (As 'El Dorado')
•  The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones – "Good as Gold" (First mentioned) (As 'El Dorado')
• Indiana Jones und das Geheimnis der Osterinseln (Mentioned only) (As 'El Dorado')
• Indiana Jones und das Gold von El Dorado (As 'El Dorado')
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (First identified as 'Akator')
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull novel
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull junior novel
• "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" - Indiana Jones: The Official Magazine
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull comic
• Indiana Jones: Traps and Snares
• LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues (Non-canonical appearance)
• LEGO Indiana Jones: Escape from the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull! (Non-canonical appearance)

Sources

• Indiana Jones Explores The Incas (Non-fiction source)
• The Lost Diaries of Young Indiana Jones (Cancelled)
• Indiana Jones and the Lands of Adventure
•  Research Begins in the Library on IndianaJones.com (backup link on Archive.org)
• Indiana Jones: The Ultimate Guide
• The Lost Journal of Indiana Jones
• Indiana Jones Action Figures
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Annual 2009
• Grail Diary (prop replica)
•  8 New Discoveries in the Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Trailer on Lucasfilm.com (backup link on Archive.org)

External links

• Akakor on Wikipedia