This chapter reviews the most important perceptions of archaeology and archaeologists in contemporary popular culture. One of the most important insights that will emerge is that the archaeology is largely perceived in positive terms. The archaeologist is seen as a hero and role model, competent and resourceful, through new discoveries and important revelations serving the interests of society and occasionally of humanity. This is an important, though often underappreciated asset for professional archaeologists and their discipline.

Other academic fields start out from very different positions. Almost two decade ago, George Gerbner (1987), an American Professor of Communications, concluded in his research about science on television that science and scientists were generally less positively portrayed in prime-time television drama than other professions. Indeed, scientists often fail: ”about 5 percent of the scientists portrayed on television kill someone and 10 percent get killed” (Gerbner 1987: 111). That, Gerbner went on, is the highest victimization rate of any occupational group on TV, including the army, police, and private investigators. Likewise, in her comprehensive research about representations of scientists in Western Literature, the Australian Professor of English, Roslynn Haynes (1994) found that literary representations, like many surveys among people, tend to portray scientists in broadly negative terms, and sometimes they are even seen as evil and dangerous. Similarly, Diane Bjorklund (2001), an American sociologist, found that the vast majority of eighty twentieth-century novels containing portrayals of sociologists presented unfavourable images. In almost none of them is the sociologist a particularly likeable character. Archaeology, on the other hand, is one of the few disciplines with a largely positive image.

As far as movies are concerned, a recent study of 222 films concluded that the ”strongest genre among films about science is the horror movie”, whereas ”there are hardly any comedies about science” (Weingart et al 2003: 286). Archaeology has not inspired many comedies either (although there are some noteable exceptions such as the Swedish Den ofrivilliga golfaren [1991] and the British Carry On Behind [1975]). But archaeology’s image has certainly benefitted a lot from archaeologists as heroes in popular movies such as Pimpernel Smith (1941), The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), and the recent Indiana Jones (1981, 1984, 1989), Stargate (1994) and Lara Croft (2001, 2003) films – although the field has also its share of horror movies, especially such concerning nasty mummies.

The themes archaeologists are associated with in popular culture can be divided into four main categories: the archaeologist as adventurer; the archaeologist as detective; the archaeologist making profound revelations; and the archaeologist taking care of ancient sites and finds. These themes are characteristic for the contemporary Western world, although it is clear that they have roots that go back at least as far as the 19th century (Bray 1981; Zintzen 1998; Russell 2002b). In the remainder of this chapter I will discuss each of these themes in turn. I hasten to add that I am of course aware that others have proposed alternative categorisations (see e.g. Ascher 1960; Bray 1981; Stern and Tode 2002; Russell 2002b; see also Holtorf 2004). These alternatives are not necessarily incompatible with my own attempt but I found nevertheless that the present study required some modifications that finally led to a new scheme.

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