- "Eureka..."
- ―Archimedes[src]
Archimedes of Syracuse was an ancient Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer and inventor who lived on the island of Sicily, part of modern day Italy.
During his lifetime, Archimedes created several instruments, including the enigmatic yet powerful Antikythera crafted as part of a series of defensive measures to protect is home city from Roman invasion.
Biography[]
- "We've come two thousand years. But we didn't expect to meet the great Archimedes."
- ―Indiana Jones[src]
Archimedes was an inventor of Greek origin who lived in Syracuse, a city on the island of Sicily.[1] In 213 BC, Archimedes completed the Antikythera, a mechanism which could change the course of history as well as a multitude of defensive weapons. However, before he had finished the device, during the Siege of Syracuse, Archimedes witnessed a fissure in time open in the skies and a plane emerging from it. He traveled alongside an attendant on horseback to the crash site of the plane and found a dead body in possession of Archimedes' intact and operating dial. He also noticed a strange wrist-worn object which he became fascinated by.[2]
Voller's body was found by Archimedes after a plane crash.
Seeing a parachuting Indiana Jones and Helena Shaw land, Archimedes made his way there. Jones realized who he was and, overwhelmed by the history he was witnessing, spoke to Archimedes in ancient Greek. The inventor asked how far they had traveled to which Jones replied "two thousand years". Archimedes explained that the dial was created in order to bring back help from the future and Shaw concluded that the device's calculations were fixed: the Antikythera would only ever lead people back to the siege.[2]
Archimedes handed the dial back to the group but Jones, who had been struggling with personal losses in 1969, began telling the inventor that he wished to remain in the past but was interrupted by Shaw who desperately tried to explain that he couldn't stay. When Jones claimed that he had nothing to go back to and time running out, Shaw, his godchild, sucker-punched him unconscious and took him back to the present through the time fissure with the help of her newly arrived friend Teddy Kumar and one considerably confused pilot in a second aircraft.[2]
After the Antikythera was completed, Archimedes split it into two.[2] In 212 BC, Archimedes died in his native Syracuse,[1] and half of the dial was buried with him in a secret tomb within the Ear of Dionysius.[2]
Legacy[]
Eventually Roman forces captured the other piece of the Antikythera along with the Grafikos tablet which held clues the location of Archimedes' tomb. However, their ship went down in the Mediterranean during their pursuit and though the inventor's creations were celebrated long after his demise, his revelations concerning time travel were largely lost to the following centuries.[2]
In 1902, sponge divers found the Roman-held section of the Antikythera which became a piece of Nazi plunder by 1944.[2]
The Dial of Destiny in 1969.
Twenty-five years later, the Grafikos was retrieved from the sunken ship during the efforts of the American archaeologist Indiana Jones and his goddaughter Helena Shaw to prevent the Nazi-turned-NASA scientist Doctor Jürgen Voller from acquiring it to "correct" Adolf Hitler's mistakes for his own purposes. Archimedes' hidden tomb was later found by the two, protected by several obstacles including a water displacement puzzle, where they discovered the inventor's skeleton holding the other half of the dial and an out-of-place artifact: Voller's time displaced watch.[2]
Personality and traits[]
Archimedes was fascinated by water displacement and was an intelligent man, having created a mechanism capable of detecting fissures in time alongside a myriad of siege based weaponry. He was also a curious man, having noticed the displaced travellers from the future and seemed to express excitement at the prospect of Jones staying in 212 BC. He seemed to possess a love of his home of Sicily, having only ever travelled to two places in his lifetime.[2]
Behind the scenes[]
Archimedes was portrayed by the British-Iranian actor Nasser Memarzia in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.[2]
Appearances[]
- Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (First appearance)
Sources[]
- Indiana Jones Explores Ancient Greece (Non-fiction source)
- Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine adventure guide/instruction booklet
Flying Lessons from Harrison Ford: Ethann Isidore on Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny on Lucasfilm.com (backup link on Archive.org)
Caves, Castles, and Tuna Factories: Inside the Locations of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny on Lucasfilm.com (backup link on Archive.org)- The Making of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
