The year is 1936. Archeology professor Indiana Jones narrowly escapes death in a South American temple with a gold idol - by poison dart, fall, and finally a giant boulder that chases him out the front. An old enemy, Rene Belloq, steals the idol and then orders Hovito indians after Indy. Indy, however, escapes back to the USA, where Army Intelligence officers are waiting for him at his university. They tell him about a flurry of Nazi archaeological activity near Cairo, which Indy determines to be the possible resting place of the Ark of the Covenant - the chest that carried the 10 Commandments. The Ark is believed to carry an incredibly powerful energy that must not fall into Nazi hands. Indiana is immediately sent overseas, stopping in Nepal to pick up an old girlfriend (his old professors daughter) and then meeting up in Cairo with his friend Sallah. But danger lurks everywhere in the form of Nazi thugs, and poisonous snakes in the Arks resting place. After Belloq, hired by the Nazis, makes off again with the Ark, Indy & Marion are determined to get it back, and they overpower the pilot of a German plane. But Indy finds himself confronted with a giant German thug, and after a frightening hand-to-hand fight Indy & Marion blow up the plane. Now the Nazis must drive the Ark to Cairo, but Indy regains control of the Ark after running the convoy off the road, one vehicle at a time. Once again the Nazis recapture the Ark...and Marion, heading for a Nazi-controlled island. There, Belloq will open the Ark...to demonstrate the horrific power it can unleash upon the world!