The Last Templar - Sexy Archaeology or Epic Fail?

Warning, this might contain a few spoilers so if you're still planning on seeing The Last Templar, you might want to save this till after.

In this four-hour miniseries, based on the novel by Raymond Khoury, Oscar winner Mira Sorvino stars as Tess Chaykin, a Manhattan archaeologist, who teams up with a devote Catholic FBI agent, Sean Daley, to uncover the lost secrets of the legendary medieval Knights Templar.  The series aired on the NBC in the United States on the 25^th and 26^th of January, 2009, and can since be found lurking around the net in one digital form or another.  The series follows a growing popular trend of pitting historical truth against scripture.  Indy did it.  We saw it in the 2001 Antonio Banderas flick The Body, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, Britain's Bonekickers and now it’s come to American Primetime.  Of course archaeology and the bible have always locked horns.  But enough about that.

The Last Templar succeeds and fails in several ways.  Story wise, its crap.  It tries painfully to stay grounded in the real world while putting some remarkably unbelievable sights and situations before your eyes.  Gigantic tidle waves in the Aegean?  Check.  Mysterious lava domes covering ancient churches in such a way that you can still enter through the front door?  You bet.  Ancient paper preserved in the most extreme circumstances for eight hundred years?  Twice!  The series is also riddled with utterly predictable clichés and atrocious wooden dialogue that makes Hayden Christianson’s Anakin Skywalker performance look Oscar worthy.  As in most fiction based around the field of archaeology, there is no real archaeology done, unless archaeology is now classified as digging a hole with a shovel.  However, on several occasions, Sorvino’s character does employee the use of a trowel, one up-ing Indiana Jones and Lara Croft.  Once again, Hollywood depicts archaeologists as fact-flinging history buffs with a penchant to date artifacts on first sight, not the hypothesizing, trench toiling laborers that most archaeologists really are.  Then again, which persona is more appealing?

The Last Templar does take a legitimate swing at making archaeology appear sexy.  Exhibit A: Mira Sorvino.   While I don’t quite understand what a “Manhattan archaeologist” is, Sorvino does a wonderful job looking pretty and flexing her smarts.  If we are talking sexy, you can’t beat around physical appearance bush and I for one would rather have Mira Sorvino playing an archaeologist as opposed to say... Rosie O’Donnell.  Sorvino's character, Tess, demonstrates that knowledge is a key quality in a successful archaeologist in her renlentless attempt at unravaling the historical mystery she finds herself wrapped in.  And while I groaned when she turned to Google for answers she shows that technology is taking an ever more important place in a researcher’s quiver.  To round it all off, Sorvino’s character continues to impress when it is revealed that she is a single mom and not a moment passes when her child’s safety isn’t paramount.  Single parent archaeology isn’t a new trend, but putting in the public eye is (see Kingdom of the Crystal Skull).  Single parent families are on the rise and yes, sometimes mom or dad work as an archaeologist.  Show me an archaeologist that hasn’t fantasized rearing their child to be history buff.  I for one hope to see my future spawn setting up a two meter grid in the sandbox before playing.

So maybe The Last Templar is an epic fail, but that doesn’t mean Tess Chaykin is.  Sexy archaeology is about the person in the profession.  It’s the characteristics and qualities that make someone sexy.  Tess Chaykin is an intelligent, headstrong and devoted single mom with a broad knowledge of and respect for history, all things we’d want a sexy archaeologist to be.  In my opinion she's the perfect candidate for a Sexy Archaeologist.  So what if she threw the artifact over the cliff at the end…

Wait a minute.

Megan Fox: Tomb Raider?

Reports are trickling in that 22-year old Transformers star Megan Fox has replaced Angelina Jolie in an upcoming installment of the Tomb Raider Franchise.  Jolie first brought "sexy archaeology" to the screen in 2001's Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and again in 2003's Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life.  Fox, who is ten years younger than Jolie, has been an dropping jaws in such magazines as Maxim and FHM for the past two years and even achieved the title of FHM's Sexiest Woman in the World for 2008.

So is this a win for sexy archaeology?  While Lara's adventures may not fall into the realm of scientific archaeology, the character has certainly drawn attention to the field.  Could nabbing a younger actress and continuing the franchise entice a new generation of would be treasure hunters?

Digging up the perfect Valentine's Day gift

Yandy.com is offering a sexy archaeologist costume for women just in time for Valentine's Day!  

The costume, a feminine take on the famous Indiana Jones attire, is limited to only 400.  Don't go searching for treasure in the bedroom unless you're dressed for er, um, adventure!

Though I wouldn't recommend it for use in the field, who are we to stop you?  Just make sure you send a picture our way to prove it!

A men's version is also available.

* Whip included!

Steps forward from the past

Today sees the Inauguration of Barack Obama as 44th President of the USA. Much has been made in the press about his ethnic roots and his being the first African-American to hold that post. We have all rejoiced at how far this country has come, how great it is that this is possible. But if we look to our Roman predecessors we may learn that they, in fact, were a step ahead. Emperors of Rome were often drawn from all over the empire and from all sorts of ethnic extractions. Trajan from Spain, Claudius born in Gallia, Elagabalus from Syria and most important Septimius Severus from Lepcis Magna - he was an African-Roman Emperor. Rome was most certainly a cosmopolitan city ready to accept rulers from a whole variety of backgrounds.

Therefore, before we go ranting about how much the world has moved on with the dawn of the Obama Presidency, we should consider that we are only starting to move forward again after going a very long way back.

A Less Than Sexy Amphitheatre

Do you ever stop to think about those small areas of archaeology that get overlooked? Recently, I have done some work on an amphitheatre in Chester, UK. Far from the Colosseum it is nonetheless fascinating. Here are a few of my favourite facts to illuminate your knowledge.

1. The games may not have been on the same grand scale as they were in Rome but they were certainly of similar type. Blocks found to tie animals to suggest beast hunts.

2. The amphitheatre was assumed to be built for the legion XX Valeria Victrix which was housed at Chester – the problem is that it is too large for just them. The locals must have liked the games to.

3. Despite being on the fringes of empire the building is among the most elaborate in the northern provinces.

4. The legion that built and used it also contributed to Hadrian’s Wall.

5. A number of finds attest the type of games taking place – a sword hilt is one of the most exciting.

It may not seem all that sexy at first but I think it’s kind of cool that Gladiators lived and performed in England in a setting about as far removed from Russell Crowe as you can get. The best thing is the remains of the Amphitheatre are open to the public and free. So if you ever manage to take that trip to northern England, give it a go! If you're like me you’ll visit during a huge rain storm – not very pleasant you might think – but very realistic. The soldiers at Chester would have had to put up with these conditions day in day out so one feels like they got a good experience! The point here is that we are all so obsessed with the “sexy” gladiators of Rome we rarely think of those elsewhere in the Empire – and we should.

Comments Welcome

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You can find out more about the Chester Amphitheatre here.