In the mobile adventure Lara Croft: Relic Run, gamers have the chance to collect a number of South-East Asian artefacts in the game’s Jungle Temple level. One of these is the Golden Trident, a religious symbol commonly associated with the Hindu god Shiva. The Golden Trident is better known by its Sanskrit name trishula, which means “three spears” or “three blades”, and can often be seen wielded by the Hindu god Shiva and his consort Durga, who manifests herself ... [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]
It recently came to my attention that, despite having launched this blog almost two years ago, I still hadn’t written any articles on the Core Design classic Tomb Raider 3. So it’s time to set that right. Introducing new vehicles and a less linear globe-trotting adventure, Tomb Raider 3 also featured some stunning artwork from the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, such as the dancers motif seen in the screenshot below and throughout the game’s India levels. The ... [Continue Reading]
When I first played Tomb Raider 1 back in 1996, I never realized how many real-life Pre-Columbian (and other) artefacts could be spotted throughout the game’s Peru levels. Some of them, such as the Chimú bird carving, were already familiar to me as I had done some research on Peruvian art and archaeology for a GCSE Art project. But it wasn’t until I started working on this site and replaying this 1996 classic that I began to notice that the game’s graphics artists had also, ... [Continue Reading]
If you’ve been visiting the Archaeology of Tomb Raider Facebook page recently, you may have seen some photos of an Ancient Egyptian-themed Tomb Raider model. This beautiful work of art was created by Jean Michel Thery and since he doesn’t have his own blog or website, I offered to share his photos on this blog. Jean Michel was born and raised in Lille, France, and now lives in Belgium. He retired a few years ago and devotes most of his free time to DIY, archery, playing video games, ... [Continue Reading]
Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for another edition of Arte-Factual! And this time around, we’ll be making the trek back to Barkhang Monastery to look at some of the other Buddhist symbols that can be found throughout the fictional monastery. The Wheel, or “Dharmachakra”: The Buddhist wheel, or dharmachakra, is one of the oldest and most recognizable motifs in Buddhist art and was once used to represent the Buddha himself (human depictions of the Buddha only started ... [Continue Reading]
Those of you who have known me for a while will probably know that Tomb Raider 2: The Dagger of Xian is (and most likely always will be) my favourite Tomb Raider game. You might also know that I was interested in archaeology and ancient civilizations long before Ms Croft appeared on the game scene in 1996. But did you know that my interest in Tibetan culture was triggered by Tomb Raider 2? Before TR2 was released, Tibet was, in my younger, uninformed mind, a semi-mythical land of snowy ... [Continue Reading]
In the last edition of Arte-Factual, I looked at the Toltec Atlantes pillars that could be found in and around Qualopec’s tomb in the original Tomb Raider. In this edition, I will re-visit Qualopec’s tomb and examine another Pre-Columbian motif that can be seen on the walls of the fictional Atlantean king’s tomb: a Chimú bird carving. When the first Tomb Raider came out, I was studying Peruvian pottery and iconography as part of a GCSE art project, so I got some pleasure ... [Continue Reading]
