- "A find of this magnitude required delicate excavation; we need to get an entire team in here for years of searching and meticulous documentation."
- ―Dr. Lawrence[src]
Doctor Theresa Lawrence was a British archaeologist who worked for the British Museum.
Biography[]
Theresa Lawrence was Oxbridge educated, studying at Pembroke College. She disliked the grave-robber approach to archaeology that was frequently employed by Indiana Jones and René Emile Belloq, though she had her own adventure in Assiut, climbing out of a pit of mummified wolves with a rope made of her own knickers.
In the winter of 1930, she comprised the British Museum expedition to search for the Temple of Old Uppsala in Sweden. Well-stocked, she managed to find the cave entrance to the temple before some of the competing archaeology teams, such as Forrestal, and Indiana Jones and Marcus Brody. However, one night during the blizzard, she got stuck in a pit in the cave alone. Jones discovered her, and climbed down to her. After introductions, she maligned his style of "smash and grab" archaeology. When Jones proposed to do his style of archaeology that evening, she resisted, but eventually followed him through the temple's rooms.
In a room devoted to the Alfir portion of Norse mythology, Lawrence was spooked by a skeleton made into a marionette, and punched it. In a chamber with giant-sized rock faces, Lawrence used her torch to light a brazier, which triggered a machine trap that caused part of the room to collapse under rock and machine gears. Not sure how to proceed, she related her adventures in Assiut to Jones, who had found another passage through the temple, finding an ancient scroll that helped guide them to the main chamber. When they reached the Chamber of Baldur, Lawrence spied Baldur's Ring on the tip of the statue's sword. When she reached to take it, Jones dove for cover, fearing a trap. While Jones was down on the ground, Lawrence took the ring and left, promising to send help for Jones and then sealed him in the room. Outside the temple, she was accosted by a pistol-toting Frenchman, who wanted the scroll and not the ring.
Returning the ring to the British Museum, she entered her office one night to find Jones attempting to steal the ring back. She told him of her encounter with the Frenchman, whom Jones recognized as Rene Belloq. When Jones realized the value of the scroll, they hurried back to Jones' apartment, where Brody had just been attacked and robbed of the scroll - which held many ancient Norse secrets. Lawrence feared that Belloq would give the scroll to the Louvre but Jones and Brody filled her in on Belloq's current employers - the Nazi party, which she was not aware of. Lacking funds of their own to retrieve the scroll, Jones turned to Lawrence for help in traveling to Morocco.
Lawrence and Jones flew to Marrakesh, where they donned disguises to tail Belloq as he met with Krause. After Jones managed to steal the scroll from Belloq and Krause, he ran into a street with belly dancers and bumped into one of them - actually Lawrence in disguise, and swapped the scroll with a scroll of the Torah that she carried. By the time Belloq and Krause caught Jones and discovered the switch, Lawrence was at the airport, ready to return to London.
On her flight to London, she met several Swedes who claimed to be from the Swedish National Museum, and she gave the scroll to them. Back at her office at the British Museum, she waited for Jones to arrive - bruised and sore from his handling by the Nazis. She recounted the scroll's whereabouts to Jones, who bid her farewell, and slipped out with Baldur's ring.[2]
Personality and traits[]
Dr. Lawrence had blonde hair and green eyes. Interested in academia, she was not always aware of the larger world picture, and sometimes doubted her own abilities as a field archaeologist.
Appearances[]
- Indiana Jones Adventures: Volume 1 (First appearance)
Sources[]
Indiana Jones Masterpieces (Card: They'll Take Sweden)
Notes and references[]
- ↑
Indiana Jones Masterpieces (Card: They'll Take Sweden)
- ↑ Indiana Jones Adventures: Volume 1