I’ve been a huge fan of Funko’s uber-cute aesthetic ever since a friend of mine introduced me to their range of Pop! vinyl figures a couple of years ago. What began as a one-off acquisition (a Scarlet Witch Pop! I received from said friend) has since grown into an eclectic collection of superhero and Star Wars figures. So when Funko announced that they were releasing a Lara Croft Pop! figure to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Tomb Raider franchise, I just couldn’t ... [Continue Reading]
One of the two relics Lara discovers amongst the ruins of Midas’ Palace in Tomb Raider: Anniversary is the griffin-head protome, a bronze decorative piece that she correctly surmises was once fitted onto an Ancient Greek cauldron or drinking vessel. What Lara’s declaration doesn’t tell us, however, is where such an artefact would have been produced or what the use of a griffin motif tells us about Ancient Greece’s cultural links with its neighbours across the ... [Continue Reading]
Over the years, Lara Croft has visited dozens of archaeologically fascinating places but not all of them have been particularly glamorous. One such place that instantly springs to mind is the Cistern in Tomb Raider 1. When I first started playing Tomb Raider back in 1996, I bought myself a copy of the Prima official strategy guide to help me get through the game (Stella’s Walkthroughs wasn’t around back then) and while flicking through the pages, I noticed that one of the ... [Continue Reading]
In the last edition of Lara’s Travels, I wrote about the island of Jan Mayen in the Arctic Ocean, one of the real-life locations featured in Tomb Raider: Underworld. This time, however, we’ll be going back in time to where it all began and look at one of the places Lara visits in the original Tomb Raider (and Anniversary): St. Francis’ Folly. Of course, there is no real-life St. Francis’ Folly (try not to be too disappointed), though this hasn’t deterred fans from ... [Continue Reading]
In the last edition of Arte-Factual, I wrote about the Gayer-Anderson cat statue and its virtual counterpart seen in the original Tomb Raider. This time around, I will be looking at an artefact that depicts one of my favourite animals: the Athenian Owl Figurine. The Athenian Owl Figure is one of the collectable relics found in Tomb Raider: Anniversary and, as its name suggests, is a depiction of the owl normally associated with the Greek goddess Athena and the ancient city-state of Athens. ... [Continue Reading]
In the last edition of Arte-Factual, we looked at the Golden Mask of Tornarsuk and learnt a little about Inuit culture and mythology. In this edition, we will be turning our attention to one of the collectable relics found in Tomb Raider: Anniversary: the Killer Whale Bottle. Like many of the artefacts and relics that have appeared in the last few Tomb Raider games, the Killer Whale Bottle is modelled after a real-life artefact. In this case, a Nasca polychrome ceramic effigy vessel which is ... [Continue Reading]
Sharp-eyed gamers may have noticed that the same colossal sculptures appear repeatedly throughout the Peruvian levels of the original Tomb Raider (1996), most notably in the Tomb of Qualopec. These sculptures are, in fact, based on the real-life Atlantes, or Atlantean pillars, found at Tula, a Postclassic archaeological site in the Mexican state of Hidalgo.** The four Atlantes of Tula are basalt pillars carved in the form of Toltec warriors and are thought to have once supported the roof of ... [Continue Reading]
