The Raiders Of The Lost Ark Plot Hole That No One Ever Notices

Indiana Jones’ first on-screen adventure in Raiders of the Lost Ark actually contains a major plot hole that’s all too easy to miss. Widely regarded as one of the greatest movies of all time, Raiders of the Lost Ark has served as the crowning jewel of the action-adventure genre since its release in 1981. Its story concerns the iconic archaeologist as he races a team of Nazis across the world to find the location of the Ark of the Covenant, a powerful biblical artifact rumored to grant supernatural powers to those who possess it.

However, the Ark isn’t the only important artifact that Indiana Jones encounters during Raiders of the Lost Ark. Along the way, Jones also makes use of the Staff of Ra, the key to discovering the Well of Souls, the supposed resting place of the Ark. Though the Nazis possess an imprint of one side of the Staff’s headpiece, Jones has the real thing, which offers initial insight into the intended length of the Staff – five kadams, or roughly five feet – information which the Nazis were not privy to. This allows Jones to discover the true location of the Ark while the Nazi team digs in the wrong location.

The Staff of Ra and its appearance actually present multiple issues, which leads to a subtle Raiders of the Lost Ark plot hole. One of these is as simple as a visual oversight, but the other stems from a gap in logic that’s not easy to reconcile. Not only is the Staff of Ra far too tall, but it also relies on light refracting through the headpiece to show the location of the Ark – something which simply wouldn’t work in real life due to the basic nature of the sun.

Indiana Jones’ Staff Of Ra Doesn’t Make Any Sense

The biggest of the two plot holes is the length of the Staff itself. Indy and Sallah read the inscription on the headpiece and learn that the Staff should be “six kadams high“, which is identified as roughly 72 inches. This means that one kadam is approximately one foot, and when one kadam is then subtracted “to honor the Hebrew god“, the Staff should stand at roughly five feet high. However, Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones is around six feet tall, meaning that the Staff should be considerably smaller than he is. In spite of the facts (as presented by Raiders of the Lost Ark itself), the Staff is clearly taller than Indy – something which presents a minor but nagging inconsistency.

The more pressing plot hole revolves around how the light would react with the headpiece. For the light to hit the Staff of Ra in just the right way, it would be necessary to hit it at the perfect angle, meaning that there is only one very specific time of day that it will reveal the location of the Well of Souls. This isn’t addressed at all in Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Indiana Jones simply drops into the map room and immediately learns the location. As the sun moves across the sky throughout the day and the only hole into the map room is decidedly small, it’s more than a little far-fetched to imply that Indiana Jones just happened to drop in at the exact right time by chance.

Though there are ways to work around the Staff of Ra plot hole, Raiders of the Lost Ark doesn’t use any of them. Something as minor but irrefutable as the angle of the sun and the refraction of light might seem like a detail that’s better left out of a fast-paced adventure movie like Raiders of the Lost Ark, but even something as simple as a throwaway line would have prevented the plot hole. As many other Raiders of the Lost Ark plot holes have since been debunked – like the “Indy did nothing” criticism – this one going largely unnoticed is somewhat baffling.