The Original Indiana Jones
An interesting story on the “original Indiana Jones”: As Indiana Jones returns to our screens, John Preston looks at the Nazi archaeologist who inspired Spielberg’s hero, and finds a story more bizarre than anything the director could have dreamt of.
“Like Jones, Rahn was an archaeologist, like him he fell foul of the Nazis and like him he was obsessed with finding the Holy Grail – the cup reputedly used to catch Christ’s blood when he was crucified. But whereas Jones rode the Grail-train to box-office glory, Rahn’s obsession ended up costing him his life.
However, Rahn is such a strange figure, and his story so bizarre, that simply seeing him as the unlikely progenitor of Indiana Jones is to do him a disservice. Here was a man who entered into a terrible Faustian pact: he was given every resource imaginable to realise his dream. There was just one catch: in return, he had to find something that – if it ever existed – had not been seen for almost 2,000 years.”
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