'Raiders of the Lost Ark' Package No Longer a Mystery

A mystery involving a replica from the classic Indiana Jones film has finally been solved.

After receiving a journal addressed to Henry Walton Jones Jr.--the name of the lead character in the adventure flicks played by Harrison Ford--several weeks ago, students at the University of Chicago realized that the mailing mishap was actually an international mystery. The smaller package containing the journal was sent from Guam to Italy, where someone had copped it on eBay. It had fallen out and a U.S. postal worker saw it was addressed to a Jones at the U of C, added the zip code then sent it on its merry way, the Rockford Register Star reports.

The "Indiana Jones" star is loosely based off two U of C professors including Abneer Ravenwood--an Egyptologist and archeologist at the school about a century ago--who serves as Jones' mentor in the movie where the journal is his. But after careful thumbing through its contents including maps and old photos, clues indicated the journal was not Ravenwood's. "The photos were of Harrison Ford during filming," admissions office spokesman Garrett Brinker said.

The school discovered the journal was the work of a Guam man whom Garrett called a "prop replicator."

"Apparently, it takes him two weeks to make one of these replicas and then he sells them to people all over the world," Brinker said. "He says they usually go for about $200. I believe this one went for $177."

Brinker said that the Oriental Institute, the university's famed museum and organization devoted to the ancient Near East, asked to put the journal on display it in its main lobby.

"They asked for it and now it is in their possession," he said.

Mystery solved.