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The Jackal headpiece was an Egyptian artifact gifted to Kha the architect by his pharaoh. It originally adorned a statue of Kha placed within the architect's tomb, and was found within a secret chamber.

According to hieroglyphs on the walls of the chamber, the headpiece possessed 'eyes of fire' indicating that its eyes were precious stones.

History[]

The piece was discovered in 1908 by Demetrios, who stole it from Howard Carter's dig site and fled the country despite the best attempts of Indiana Jones and T. E. Lawrence to stop him. Initially not knowing its exact appearance, Lawrence created a sketch of the headpiece, based on the hieroglyphic description, which he showed to Jones and Seymour.[1]

Illustration of headpiece

T. E. Lawrence's sketch of the headpiece.

Demetrios later moved to Mexico, where he kept the headpiece with a collection of artifacts stored at his home. In 1916, Jones recovered the artifact from Demetrios' estate[1] and kept it with him when he traveled to Europe to join the war effort.[2]

Over the following years, the artifact was eventually returned to the Egyptian government but the state later donated it to a New York City museum as a gift "in honor of Professor Indiana Jones" where it was on display from at least 1992. However, by that time part of the jackal's right ear had come away from the rest of the piece.[1]

In the early 1990s, Jones visited the museum and told the story of the Jackal headpiece to two boys who had raced off from their school field trip. At first uninterested in the old man's tale, they urged him to continue the story from its discovery in Egypt to its reclamation in Mexico, and were amazed to find out that the relic from the story was now in the case next to their storyteller.[1]

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