Akator is a fictional location from the film Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It is based on the Lost City of Gold, "El Dorado" from Spanish Colonial myth.
Description[]
Akator was a city built within a large crater near a tributary of the Amazon river in Brazilian regions of the Amazon rainforest. The city could only be accessed via caverns passing through waterfalls along these tributaries. While the city held many treasures taken from across the globe, the concept of it being physically made from gold was a misconception created by misinterpreting the people of Akator seeing advanced knowledge in astronomy, agriculture, and engineering as their treasure which the city was built on. Following around 1546, the city was left in ruins likely as a result of the Spanish Empire's colonization.
Features[]
- Flying Saucer: Beneath Akator was a massive vehicle resembling a flying-saucer which could travel through space and different dimensions. The saucer left, destroying most of Akator in 1957.
- Temple of Akator: The Temple of Akator held the thirteen inderdimensional beings who assisted in founding the city. These thirteen were worshipped as gods while functioning like inter-dimensional archaeologists and keeping their artifacts within the temple. Between c. 1546 and 1957, the thirteen were dormant due to one of their skulls having been stolen by conquistadors.
History[]
Background[]
Akator was created by the Indigenous Ugha peoples of South America who encountered a flying-saucer containing thirteen interdimensional travellers. The Ugha worshiped these 13 as their gods while being given the gift of advanced knowledge by them. The interdimensional beings used Akator as their headquarters on Earth, storing archaeological acquisitions within the Temple of Akator. The city would become known to Peruvians as, "El Paititi" and be highly sought after by conquistadors, falsely believing it to be a literal city of gold.
In 1546, the beings were in a stasis within Akator that rendered them as crystal skeletons. A conquistador named Francisco de Orellana would steal one of the skulls from the city of gold before the skull telepathically forcing him to return it to the city. Francisco was however killed by the guardians of the Chauchilla Cemetery where he and the skull were buried. The city would later be left in ruins due to unknown reasons, likely connected to the actions of the conquistadors.
In 1957, the skull was located by Professor Harold "Ox" Oxley but it drove him to insanity. Oxley was captured by the Soviet Union who were aware of the interdimensional beings due to having stolen one of their corpses from Hangar 51 in Nevada after it crashed in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. The soviets wished to use the power of the skulls to telepathically make the entire human-race communist. When Harold was sought after by his old friend Indiana Jones, he and their allies worked to return the skull to Akator. They eventually did so, bringing the interdimensional beings back to life as they left earth in their flying-saucer.
Development history[]
El Dorado is a myth created by Spanish colonists during the Spanish Colonial Period of South America. The idea came after observing one tribe using gold in a religious ceremony and not as a currency which lead to the conquistadors imagining and spreading rumour of a city made of solid-gold somewhere in the jungle. The earliest expeditions by the Spanish to map the rainforest were done in search for the imagined city of gold.
Jungle Cruise connections[]
Attractions[]
Jungle Cruise[]
The Indiana Jones Summer of Hidden Mysteries event was made to tie into the release of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. During an Indiana Jones themed refurbishment of the Jungle Cruise for this event, Trader Sam was given a stone tablet depicting the lost Crystal Skull of Akator.[1] El Dorado might be indirectly referenced in the Amazon River Base in advertisement for the Jungle Navigation Company's tours of the Amazon. The artwork depicts a lost city in the Amazon with the tag-line, "Come drift into the era of kings and golden idols" being repeated on the mural and by Albert Awol.
Film[]
Jungle Cruise (film)[]
Frank Wolff mentions lost expeditions for, "Cities of Gold" while giving a Jungle Cruise tour outside of Porto Velho. A major antagonist in this film is historic conquistador, Lope de Aguirre. In real-world history, Aguirre was well known for having gone on a 1560 search for El Dorado that was actually a failed wild goose-chase arranged by enemy conquistador Pedro de Ursúa to dispose of Aguirre. Whether any of this continuity carries over into film cannon is yet unknown though it is known Lope was cursed in 1556, four years before the historic expedition. If carried over, the expedition could have occurred earlier in the timeline or after Lope was cursed but before his imprisonment at the hands of Frank Wolff (referenced as having occurred very roughly around 1616).
Other connections[]
Lost River Delta[]
The restaurant, "Miguel's El Dorado Cantina" is themed to having been founded by an explorer named Miguel who travelled to the Lost River Delta of Cusco, Peru on a failed mission to find El Dorado. The restaurant has artwork depicting El Dorado within it.
Other appearances[]
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad[]
In a letter, Jason Chandler mentions having travelled to El Dorado with gold-obsessed colonizer Barnabas T. Bullion prior to 1880, presumably on a mission for the colonial Society of Explorers and Adventurers.
Trivia[]
- Akator contains carvings of R2-D2 and C-3PO from the Star Wars film-series along with a carving of E.T. from Steven Spielberg's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982).
- There are multiple other skulls in the Indiana Jones story of unknown (if any) relation to the interdimensional beings. One is the Crystal Skull of the Temple of the Crystal Skull in the Lost River Delta, a sentient skull of great power which Jones fought in 1931. There is also the Crystal Skull of Cozan which Jones stole from Italian Fascist Leonardo Sarducci in 1933.
- In Trader Sam's Enchanted Tiki Bar, there is a photograph of Trader Sam outside the Temple of the Crystal Skull. There is also a newspaper clipping on Indiana Jones' theft of Sarducci's crystal skull.
- There is a series of books in the library of the skipper canteen written by Jones' former assistant Paco on the Temple of the Crystal Skull.
- The evil billionaire S.E.A. member Harrison Hightower III took a photograph outside the Temple of the Crystal Skull in the 19th century.
Gallery[]
