“This is it, this is where Forrestal cashed in.” —Indiana Jones

Every good action movie needs a scene to get the proverbial ball rolling and in Raiders of the Lost Ark this takes place in South America at the Chachapoyan Temple. This is where we are introduced to our hero as he begins his journey. After making his way through the jungle, dealing with a treasonous guide, and then the temple’s spiders and booby traps, Indy comes to find the object of his quest, a Golden Idol. The Idol sits perched innocently on a carved pedestal, covered in Incan designs and unbeknownst to Indy a weighted trap, in the center of the temple sanctuary.

Like the Headpiece to the staff of Ra, there were two distinctively different sculpts of the Fertility Idol for Raiders of the Lost Ark. The first prop, commonly called the “hero” prop, was designed by Norman Reynolds. He based it on a piece of pre-Columbian artwork showing the goddess Tlazolteotl giving birth. That piece is housed in the collection at Dumbarton Oaks Museum in Washington, DC. Reynolds scaled down the size from its original design and streamlined the prop to make it easier to be carried by the actors. Its final dimensions for filming were 15 x 15 x 20cm.

The hero prop was created with brown-colored glass eyes. The eyes were originally designed to move back and forth as Indiana Jones neared closer to it, following his actions intently. This effect was eventually scrapped in the editing room, but quick glances of the eyes moving can be seen on Indy’s approach and when he pours out sand in front of the Idol. It is not known why this part of the movie was cut and left to the editing room floor, as the reasoning has never been explained.

Here are the actual production storyboards of the deleted scenes depicting what Spielberg originally intended.

The inner mechanics of the hero Idol were created by the special effects department from Elstree Studios, headed by Kit West. These were hidden by a removable cover plate on the backside of the sculpture which was held in place by magnets. The eyes were controlled via a R/C servomotor that was connected by remote control so that their movement could be controlled, out of frame, during filming.

In one close-up scene the top right corner of the Idol shows where the forehead of the Idol connects to the rear panel based on screen shots of a shadow from where the cover overlaps.

The second version made was the “stunt” prop that was designed by Keith Short. There is a slight variation from the hero prop with the stunt Idol’s eyes painted gold, to match the rest of the body, and the mouth having a more turned down frown. There is also a slight difference in the sculpt of the child being birthed. This prop was the one used by the actors as they traversed through the temple during their escape which finally ended up in the hands of Doctor René Emile Belloq.

Eight years after the release of Raiders of the Lost Ark Disney World’s MGM Studios (now renamed Disney’s Hollywood Studios) opened a live amusement show titled “The Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular!”. This show featured the stunt highlights from Raiders of the Lost Ark beginning with the opening scene of Indy’s Idol grab and culminated with an exploding flying wing.

IndyGear’s Ride Guy first confirmed what had been speculated—that the Disney Imagineers had recreated their own Idol for the stunt show. Since Disney is a family friendly theme park, certain parts of the Idol were either removed or scaled down. Here is an example of one of the actual stunt show-used Idols. Various scrapes show damage from being dropped a few times during the show’s run. Changes made for the new sculpt are also evident.

With the October 30, 2012 acquisition of Lucasfilm Ltd. by Disney for $4.05 Billion dollars, a new era for the Star Wars franchise began with a new sequel trilogy and numerous spin off films.

One of those films, “Solo: A Star Wars Story” features a scene aboard Dryden Vos’ yacht, the First Light. While in his personal chamber there is a scene where the background displayed many of the artifacts and artwork he had collected through the years. To the eagle eyed viewers the Chachapoyan Fertility Idol can be seen on a table with another similar looking prop (though the crystal skull is not a reference to Indy, but a nod to Brian Daley’s Han Solo and the Lost Legacy). So, there’s a possibility that Dryden Vos was the one that bought it on the black market in Marrakesh, a long, long time ago.

Now that Disney owns the Indiana Jones franchise there’s no telling where the artifact will end up next!