10 Real-Life Archaeologists More Badass Than Indiana Jones

2. Frederick Mitchell-Hedges And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull

When you can actually cop to the fourth Indiana Jones film existing, you're also going along with all the stupid, nonsensical crap that put in there. Like a fridge being capable of protecting you from a nuclear blast, ancient aliens building old temples, and the Janitor from Scrubs being high up in the American intelligence services. One ludicrous part of the film not invented by Spielberg and Lucas? The titular crystal skull. The first of which was discovered by FA Mitchell-Hedges, an English adventurer, traveller, and writer who found it under a collapsed altar inside a temple with his adopted daughter in 1920s Belize. It was more of a normal skull, but very much crystal, and very much priceless (if you believe they didn't make it up, anyway). Mitchell-Hedges was perhaps unlike any other real-life Indy in that he believed in all sorts of fantastical, mythical concepts, including a desire to find Atlantis. He did have his head screw on to some degree, mind, working as a spy in Mexico, and he broadcast stories of his adventures where he discovered lost civilisations and fought jaguars on the radio. Stories which begat the pulp heroes which begat Indiana Jones.