- Omphale: "I am one tough cracker!"
- Jones: "You mean tough cookie! Yes, Omphale, you are..."
- ―Omphale Kiapos and Indiana Jones[src]
Omphale Kiapos was a Greek woman who became involved in Indiana Jones's attempt to find the Golden Fleece.
Biography[]
Omphale Kiapos was the daughter of a Greek cargo plane pilot. Due to having no sons, the man often took her in his plane on his trips to other countries, teaching her to fly and providing her the opportunity to pick up many languages, including English. When she grew up, Kiapos married and became pregnant. However, her husband deserted both the Greek army and his wife, leaving the expectant mother to fend for herself when Nazis invaded in 1941.[1]
On April 26, 1941, the archaeologist Indiana Jones hid from pursuing Nazis in one of her vats of olive oil. Kiapos kept him hidden, and, fearing to give birth in a land occupied by Nazis, chose to accompany him in his attempt to leave the country. At the town's docks, she rescued Jones from cultists, who stole the previously acquired Knife of Atreus before being driven off. She accompanied Jones, despite his explicit instruction, when he attempted to steal a German airplane to pursue the cultists' seaplane, saving him again. When they got aboard the German fighter, she took the controls. Pursuing the seaplane while being pursued themselves by German Messerschmitts, she engaged in a number of daring maneuvers before combat damage and fire forced them down into the Hellespont.[1]
Fortunately for the duo, Kiapos maneuvered the plane in such a manner that she avoided the treacherous cliffs and rocks, and doused the engine fire with a light touchdown at sea. Kiapos nursed the barely-functioning plane to Istanbul, where it finally succumbed to the damage and crashed into the sea. There, she and Indy sought Daan van Rooijen, an antiquities dealer and expert on the Golden Fleece. They found the current owner of the Fleece, Mehmed Sarper. Sarper refused to give up the Fleece, instead giving Jones and Kiapos paralytic drinks. When Kiapos and Jones woke up, they found Daan had been strangled. The travel to Colchis where they find the Cult reconsecrating the Fleece in the snowy Valley of Hecate. Kiapos started giving birth and Jones stopped fighting the Cultists to help her. A large snake rose from the ground, and Jones held up the baby to summon Hecate, who destroyed her Cult and restored the Fleece into a golden ram. After Hecate took her ram back with her, yet feeling still that "Indy" was a stupid name, Omphale decided to name her child Nikos.[1]
Behind the scenes[]
Pat McGreal and Dave Rawson, the authors behind Indiana Jones and the Golden Fleece, conceived the character of Omphale Kiapos as a reference to a mother's love being a central concept in the Golden Fleece's myth. They expanded that notion into the Indiana Jones mythos by trying and giving the title character one of his sturdiest and strongest female partners at the time and named the character after the Queen of Lydia.[1]
Her name in proper Greek would be Omphali Kiapou (Ομφάλη Κιάπου). However, the name does not exist as a modern personal name.