Dial of Ahaz

Indy's brother

New member
Going with the sci-fi angle, and how some fans would like another biblical artifact, how about time travel, by way of this little fella:

sundial.jpg


"And Hezekiah said unto Isaiah, What shall be the sign that the LORD will heal me, and that I shall go up into the house of the LORD the third day? And Isaiah said, This sign shalt thou have of the LORD, that the LORD will do the thing that he hath spoken: shall the shadow go forward ten degrees, or go back ten degrees? And Hezekiah answered, It is a light thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees: nay, but let the shadow return backward ten degrees. And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the LORD: and he brought the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz."
"Then came the word of the LORD to Isaiah, saying, Go, and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith the LORD, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years. And I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria: and I will defend this city. And this shall be a sign unto thee from the LORD, that the LORD will do this thing that he hath spoken; Behold, I will bring again the shadow of the degrees, which is gone down in the sun dial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward. So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down. The writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, when he had been sick, and was recovered of his sickness"
- Isaiah 38:4-9
2 Kings 20:8-11

Of course it's a bit of an embellishment to say that the power came from the sundial itself, rather than the God of the bible,......but that same argument could be made against the 3 macguffins of the OT. :p

edit (ok, the Sankara stones were not from the christian bible, but you catch my drift)

So what can this thing do? Well it's a sundial that grants the user the ability to travel back in time 10 degrees, which is 40 minutes according to this source. For creative license this amount of time could be lengthened/shortened. Indiana Jones and the Sands of Time? Hmmm. Not quite, the story also includes some kind of healing power of time-travel.

I'm sure it will be brought up because it's rather obvious, so I'll head you off at the pass: On the negative side, I'll freely admit that the time-travel angle has been used in Prince of Persia, and that the healing properties of the holy grail have also been used before. Also, the darned thing actually looks a bit like the grail:
sundialfrommadainsaleh.jpg


There is a way around these problems if you prefer:

It is unfortunate that one important word in the narrative has been rendered in both the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American) by a term which describes a recognized astronomical instrument. The word "dial" (ma'aloth) is usually translated "degrees," "steps," or "stairs," and indeed is thus rendered in the same verse. There is no evidence that the structure referred to had been designed to serve as a dial or was anything other than a staircase, "the staircase of Ahaz."
source

The Stairway of Ahaz......hmmmmm. Where on earth could I find something visually fitting for 50's sci-fi, and Indiana Jones. O wait, I know, my thread about Indy 5 locations!

2851420726_b336f8d331.jpg

Thanks for finding that one, Yure!

The Stairway angle is also problematic:

We are not able to go further into particulars. The first temple, the royal palace, and the staircase of Ahaz were all destroyed in the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, and we have no means of ascertaining the exact position of the staircase with respect to Temple or palace, or the number of the steps that it contained, or the time of the day, or the season of the year when the sign was given. It is possible that if we knew any or all of these, a yet greater significance, both spiritual and astronomical, might attach to the narrative.
source

Not that it's impossible to write around this. The staircase is now underneath Jerusalem in a buried building (think "Cities of the Underworld"), or that it was incorporated into a different building (think library in LC).

Either way, Stairs or Dial, let me know what you think, and lastly, for your consideration, this other interesting looking dial:

Herodian%20Sundial%20B1.JPG

Herodian%20Sundial%20F1.JPG


Bear in mind that Ahaz was the King of Judah, so if it was an actual sundial, it may have been a little more opulent than the unassuming pics above.
 
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Indy's brother

New member
Had a thought on this, how about the stairs and dial working together, kind of like the headpiece to the staff of ra...certain place, at a certain time of day. You put the dial in a certain spot at a certain time, and the sun shines down the stairs, and you step into the shadows and disappear into the not-so-distant past.
(y) (n) :confused:
 

Montana Smith

Active member
chicago103 said:
How far down are those stairs supposed to go?

All the way down to the bottom. :p

As IB, wrote, those stairs do have a very 1950s look to them. They remind me of some of the stylized, blocky cartoons of the period.
 

Gear

New member
A story plot having a MacGuffin such as this could settle nicely with the 1950s period. Perhaps if the United States government (or factions of) was reveled as the main antagonist and the body's interest in the central artifact was part of a rather dark operation similar to, or echoing, the Philadelphia Project.

It would emulate the early feelings of distrust and paranoia towards the American government and, hopefully, disturb the audience.

It would also be a very intimidating and epic force, not to mention quite unique (though we saw shades of it in Raiders and Crystal Skull), for Indy to fight against, but that's a common theme within Indiana Jones.

Of course, if an American citizen, especially one well known inside government offices, were to become such an enemy of the state, he'd surely tragically die of a heart attack in his home, or just never be seen again. Though, I think that element of danger could work for a story going by that whole idea.
 

Attila the Professor

Moderator
Staff member
Montana Smith said:
As IB, wrote, those stairs do have a very 1950s look to them. They remind me of some of the stylized, blocky cartoons of the period.

Or this, of course, as Yure and Indy's brother both noted in the prior thread:

vertigo-staircase1.jpg


Anyhow: <I>very</I> compelling idea. A time-traveling staircase is very different in both form and function from what we've had before. Maybe Indy gets drawn into this government conspiracy against his will, but starts pursuing it to try and prevent Marion's death or something.

(I dig your notions, Gear - always thought that would be a nice element in a post-war Indy narrative, and Crystal Skull hasn't exactly made it impossible. Hell, Infernal Machine introduced the idea.)
 

Montana Smith

Active member
Attila the Professor said:
Or this, of course, as Yure and Indy's brother both noted in the prior thread:

Another Hitchcock reference. If only they could actually get away with a Hitchcock-inspired Indy, as in North By Northwest.

Although the time-travelling staircase has interesting plot potential, I wouldn't really like to see it done for Indy.

The element of the linear progression of Indy's life is something constant and reassuring, which time travel would throw into doubt. I always feel that you can't trust a time travel movie, as the ending could be changed at any time. It works great for comedies, like Back To The Future, or for one-offs, or for Dr. Who, who used to have troubled piloting his T.A.R.D.I.S. to where and when he wanted it to go.
 

Attila the Professor

Moderator
Staff member
Montana Smith said:
Another Hitchcock reference. If only they could actually get away with a Hitchcock-inspired Indy, as in North By Northwest.

Although the time-travelling staircase has interesting plot potential, I wouldn't really like to see it done for Indy.

The element of the linear progression of Indy's life is something constant and reassuring, which time travel would throw into doubt. I always feel that you can't trust a time travel movie, as the ending could be changed at any time. It works great for comedies, like Back To The Future, or for one-offs, or for Dr. Who, who used to have troubled piloting his T.A.R.D.I.S. to where and when he wanted it to go.

I agree with this, generally speaking, which is why I like the idea of it just being able to reverse actions, or something of that nature. Not a full-on traveling to another time thing, which could get pretty ugly, pretty fast. But say Indy wants to prevent just one thing from happening, rewrite just that one piece of his personal history - that could be compelling. Of course, then you get into a tricky conversation about paring down just what the artifact can do. A bit of a monkey's paw device, to some extent, but with the explicit past-based element.
 

Montana Smith

Active member
Attila the Professor said:
I agree with this, generally speaking, which is why I like the idea of it just being able to reverse actions, or something of that nature. Not a full-on traveling to another time thing, which could get pretty ugly, pretty fast. But say Indy wants to prevent just one thing from happening, rewrite just that one piece of his personal history - that could be compelling. Of course, then you get into a tricky conversation about paring down just what the artifact can do. A bit of a monkey's paw device, to some extent, but with the explicit past-based element.

Yeah, they'd have to apply a strict law to the use of the time travelling. Even so, the keepers of the chronology may have to do some re-editing! (Especially if Indy went back to the night Mutt was conceived, and told Marion he had a headache!)
 

Indy's brother

New member
Attila the Professor said:
I agree with this, generally speaking, which is why I like the idea of it just being able to reverse actions, or something of that nature. Not a full-on traveling to another time thing, which could get pretty ugly, pretty fast. But say Indy wants to prevent just one thing from happening, rewrite just that one piece of his personal history - that could be compelling. Of course, then you get into a tricky conversation about paring down just what the artifact can do. A bit of a monkey's paw device, to some extent, but with the explicit past-based element.

Oh yeah, I agree about the possibility of it getting ugly fast, and that's the beauty of this. You can only go back 40 minutes, max. The idea of going back to right one wrong is exactly what I had in mind with this, like to prevent someone's death, or for Indy to find his car keys.... I say that it would just drop the user back to wherever and whatever they were doing 40 minutes earlier. I.e., where things really started to go south for Indy in this adventure. Pretty simple really. And exactly the kind of deus ex machina we've come to expect from Indy's macguffins.
 
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Yure

Well-known member
Very interesting MacGuffin(s)!
But it's probably too specific, the Ark, the Grail, a little less the Skull, and to a lesser degree the Stones, are highly recognizable artifacts, there's a common knowledge about them and they have strong roots in popular culture too. That's why Atlantis was so great (sigh!), for a new MacGuffin I'd go for something more widespread (Noah's Ark, Longino' spear, Alexandria's library, the Zed, etc.).
 

Indy's brother

New member
Admittedly, you have a good point, and honestly one I hadn't considered. Perhaps this is the sort of hang up that GL has in getting Indy 5 off the ground.
 

jeshopk

Member
Yure said:
Very interesting MacGuffin(s)!
But it's probably too specific, the Ark, the Grail, a little less the Skull, and to a lesser degree the Stones, are highly recognizable artifacts, there's a common knowledge about them and they have strong roots in popular culture too. That's why Atlantis was so great (sigh!), for a new MacGuffin I'd go for something more widespread (Noah's Ark, Longino' spear, Alexandria's library, the Zed, etc.).

I've only heard of Noah's Ark. I'd be happier if they never went back to Abrahamic religious myths. Plus, Noah's Ark has no myth about it's power, does it? Other than holding a lot more things than it should and being stormworthy. China has a lot of good myths, and there's a lot more plausible mystery there that would resonate with a more skeptical audience, with Qi and all that. Time travel is intriguing, though, and that would be a way to do it.
 

Montana Smith

Active member
jeshopk said:
I've only heard of Noah's Ark. I'd be happier if they never went back to Abrahamic religious myths. Plus, Noah's Ark has no myth about it's power, does it? Other than holding a lot more things than it should and being stormworthy. China has a lot of good myths, and there's a lot more plausible mystery there that would resonate with a more skeptical audience, with Qi and all that. Time travel is intriguing, though, and that would be a way to do it.

China even has it's own Noah myth. Suggesting that this is a world-myth relating to the end of an ice-age.

If there has to be an Indy V, I too hope that they don't return to the Bible, but instead go for some other inspiration.

I don't like time travel for Indy, as this could end up becoming very cheesey, not to mention throwing the complicated (and already contradictory) expannded chronology into disarray.
 

Indy's brother

New member
bergstrom said:
Great thread. So what would the bad guys be doing with the dial?

Thanks Bergstrom, I'm rather proud of it myself! Do you mean why would a villain want it? I suppose any villain would want to get their hands on a device that allows them to travel back through time. For any number of reasons, really. Imagine if an assassination attempt went wrong, or a robbery, or any other villainous deed. Turn back time and correct the misstep....get away scott-free! I hadn't really thought out anything particular. As I said in the thread starter, I was just

Going with the sci-fi angle, and how some fans would like another biblical artifact

Actually it was that easy to come up with this Macguffin. I had the idea of a judeo-christian artifact and time travel, and half an hour of googling later I had this thing hammered down.
 

kongisking

Active member
Montana Smith said:
Another Hitchcock reference. If only they could actually get away with a Hitchcock-inspired Indy, as in North By Northwest.

I think Frank Darabont was going for a Hitchcock-style Indiana Jones thriller with the first act of his City of the Gods script. It actually works much better than you'd expect.

As for this MacGuffin, why oh why isn't Lucas on this site? This would be fantastic for an Indy movie, and fits in with Lucas's sci-fi fetish.
 

Montana Smith

Active member
kongisking said:
why oh why isn't Lucas on this site?

Because his ears would be constantly burning and his blood constantly boiling. He'd be a physical and emotional wreck!

(In reality I don't think he really cares what fans think. He just does what makes himself happy!)
 
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