Although this article is based on canonical information, the actual name of this subject is pure conjecture.
Please see the reasons for this title in the "Behind the scenes" section below, and/or the relevant discussion on the talk page.
A Nazi soldier formed part of the German effort to locate the Ark of the Covenant at Tanis in 1936 under Colonel Herman Dietrich and French archaeologist René Emile Belloq. He and a young soldier scolded Sallah Mohammed Faisel el-Kahir for approaching the Tanis Map Room, unaware that American archaeologist Indiana Jones was inside.
Biography[]
In 1936, a Nazi soldier was among the German presence stationed outside Cairo, Egypt at Tanis under Colonel Herman Dietrich and French archaeologist René Emile Belloq to search for the lost Ark of the Covenant.[1]
One day during his work, the soldier was patrolling the digsite with another, younger man when they noticed one of the native Egyptian workers – Sallah Mohammed Faisel el-Kahir – near the entrance to the Map Room in which Indiana Jones was secretly trying to learn the location of the Ark. Unaware that Sallah was assisting Jones, an American hired by United States Army Intelligence to prevent the Nazis from recovering the artifact, the two soldiers approached Sallah, yelling wildly at him to come with them.[1]
They left the undiscovered Jones inside the Map Room and led away Sallah, who was carrying the rope that Jones needed to exit the structure. Once he was able to slip away, Sallah hastily completed a makeshift rope using, among other things, a Nazi flag to go back and rescue Jones.[1]
Behind the scenes[]
The Map Room patroller was portrayed by an uncredited performer in Raiders of the Lost Ark, despite having a small speaking role.
Only one soldier impedes Sallah's assistance to Jones in the novelization of the film. In the book, a jeep gets stuck near the Map Room entrance and upon noticing Sallah's presence, the soldier brings him and his rope to free the car with help from an arriving truck. This provides an explanation as to why Sallah needs to improvise a rope in the film as the movie itself does not elaborate on his simply not using the rope he already had.[2]