I just heard about a new movie coming out entitled The Lost Treasure of Ugarit.1 The movie website and trailer make it look like a theatrical release, but the Internet Movie Database has it listed as a TV miniseries.

One look at the trailer would suggest that this is an Indiana Jones rip-off. But if you ignore the fact that Jack Hunter dresses exactly like Indiana Jones, overlook the parallel plots of an archaeologist going after an ancient artifact of enormous power that his rival who works for an enemy government would also like to find, pay no attention to the scimitar wielding Arabs that chase him through a bazaar, and set aside the attractive and headstrong female counterpart who starts off disliking him but ultimately comes to love him, you will see that the movies are totally different.

From a scholarly standpoint, the problems with this film appear to be legion. On the website, it talks about Ugarit, “a town in Syria that existed during the Pharoah’s [sic] reign . . . before they were wiped out by the Pharoahs.” Of course, the city of Ugarit was wiped out by the Sea Peoples, not by the Egyptians. Their web page goes on the say that Jack Hunter is one of the few archaeologists in the world who can interpret Ugaritic. At first I thought this was a mistake, since obviously many of us can read Ugaritic, but I later realized that this might be a slur aimed at archaeologists (i.e., lots of philologists can read Ugaritic, but only a few archaeologists can).

Of course, none of this will necessarily prevent the movie from being a good one. You don’t have to get history right to tell a good story. The trailer looks at least somewhat promising, so I will probably make an effort to see this when it comes out.


  1. A couple of online sources are calling it Jack Hunter and the Lost Treasure of Ugarit. It is unclear which is the actual title. [back]
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