Any categorization has its limits in where it draws boundaries between different types and regarding those types that do not fit in any of the categories. My own attempt at categorizing the portrayals of archaeology in popular culture has not been able to place convincingly a few depictions which I would nevertheless like to mention briefly. Alternative categorizations have similar limitations.
There is for example the archaeologist as a vulnerable romantic. Although this character is arguably linked to the A theme and often, for example, wears similar clothes, the archaeologist Tom Baxter in the movie The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) is no Indiana Jones. ‘‘I am honest, dependable, courageous, romantic, and a great kisser,’’ he says about himself. When this ‘poetic little archaeologist’ falls in love with a woman he gives up his archaeological explorations, telling her ‘‘I want to learn about the real world with you.’’
Adventurous in a different way is the young French archaeologist Lina in the B-movie Summer Lovers (1982). While working on the excavation site of Akrotiri on Santorini, exciting Lina enters into a romantic relationship with a visiting American tourist and his girlfriend, both of whom experience mutual attraction to her. In this portrayal, the archaeologist represents the intriguing ‘Other’ through whom the two Americans ultimately find each other again.
Finally, there is the archaeologist as a fairly ordinary person in an ordinary social context, with all the ordinary problems that may entail but that have nothing to do with archaeology. The German author Barbara Frischmuth, for example, showed in her novel Bindungen (1980) how the archaeologist Fanny looks back at her family past and contemplates her present life while visiting her sister who has built up a seemingly happy family idyll. Other stories about the archaeologist as a very normal person are The Archaeologist (1998) by the academic Richard
Jenkins and The Realms of Gold (1975) by the English writer Margaret Drabble. In the latter novel, the famous archaeologist Frances Wingate, divorced and mother of four, has escaped a past of marital violence. While she finds herself madly in love with the weird and married academic Karel Schmidt, she is in the process of rediscovering her family history. The most striking variation of this theme can be found in Japanese Anime and Manga which frequently feature archaeologists who are depicted as nice, forgetful, and well-meaning males, usually young. In Cardcap-tor Sakura there is, for example, the archaeologist Fujitaka Kinomoto (aka Aiden Avalon) who is a busy professor at the local University. Although he is often absent, Fujitaka is a loving father of two children including Sakura herself. Since his wife died at the age of 27, he raises them on his own. The main focus is again on the nonprofessional family life of the archaeologist.
World History
