Jastro Expedition

National Archaeology article about the Jastro Expedition.

The Jastro Expedition was an archaeological dig in Iceland led by Dr. Jastro around November 1929.

History

Around November 1929, Barnett College sponsored an expedition in Iceland headed by Dr. Jastro, an archaeologist.

Indiana Jones took a position on the dig as a field supervisor, which he'd look back on as his first "real job". There, he was partnered up with Sophia Hapgood as his assistant. They become good friends, even sharing the same blanket for a considerable amount of time, but the relationship remained platonic. For Jones, his pairing in Iceland with Sophia was the "coldest" of his life.

Sophia Hapgood found an unusual necklace in Iceland.

National Archaeology reported on the dig, describing the excavation there as an attempt to bring the "Dark Ages to Light" for Icelandic antiquities. Many mysterious artifacts featuring a running spiral motif, including a Horned Idol dated to 1500 BC, were unearthed in and around the site by Jastro and his team. Sophia found a necklace which was but one of a cache of artifacts pilfered by Sophia for her private collection, who correctly assumed that they were from the lost city Atlantis.

Eventually the team disbanded, with the work being continued by others. Jastro himself, who had also been secretly looting the dig, ended up in the Azores where he hid some pieces in a cave near Horta. Despite her talents, Sophia Hapgood grew disillusioned with archaeology through a combination of frustration at the limited advancements available to women in the field and felt drawn to a career as a psychic. Her friendship with Indiana Jones became strained when he learned that she had been pocketing relics and was incredulous that a fellow archaeologist had taken up pseudoscience.

Items that made it to the Barnett, such as the Horned Idol dug up by Jastro, were still being stored even ten years later, with pieces tied to Atlantean mysticism placed within Caswell Hall, used by the college to hold collections considered of little value or with dubious provenance.

Behind the scenes

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis indicates that the Jastro Expedition lasted at least a year, where its comic adaptation suggests it was at least three months long. Indiana Jones: The Ultimate Guide places the dig in November 1929. A year long expedition would be difficult to reconcile with the wider Indiana Jones continuity where 1929 is also the setting of Indiana Jones and the Interior World—released in the months following the game and has Indiana Jones lose around three months while discovering a civilization on the inside of the Earth's crust—and 1930 accommodates the events of Martin Caidin's pair of novels Indiana Jones and the Sky Pirates and Indiana Jones and the White Witch as well as Indiana Jones Adventures: Volume 1.

Appearances

• Indiana Jones Adventure World (Mentioned only)
• Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis comic (First mentioned)
• Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (Mentioned only)

Sources

• Indiana Jones: The Ultimate Guide
• "No Time for Love?" - Indiana Jones: The Official Magazine 5
• The Lost Journal of Indiana Jones
• Grail Diary (prop replica)