Tomb Raider (2013): real archaeological questions and a virtual game

13:13:00

“Games around the world” is a series of articles, where we take a famous adventure game and find all the real places and personalities it mentions. Today we will tell you about all the interesting spots we found in Tomb Raider (2013).

Tomb Raider is a computer game in the genre action adventure. Young Lara, who is a twenty-one years old archeologist, will get on a mysterious island of the era of Yayoi, where she lands after a shipwreck caused by a mysterious storm. From this moment on, Lara has to fight for her life against bandits, wild animals and mystical "guardians of the storm", which are related to the ancient mystery of the island.

Devil's Sea

Game: Lara Croft embarks on an expedition to the Islands off the coast of Japan in the Dragon's Triangle. Three days later, the ship gets caught in a storm, and the storm breaks the ship into two halves, separating Lara from the rest of the team.

Reality: The Dragon’s Tiangle or, more common, the Devil’s Sea actually exists and is considered to be the opposite of Bermuda triangle.

The Devil's sea is a large anomalous zone, located near the coast of Japan. Japanese authorities have recognized the Devil's Sea area dangerous in 1955 after a series of mysterious disappearances.

When for a few years in the Devil's Sea disappeared nine large vessels, among which were modern cargo ships with a powerful reliable engine and radio stations, military destroyer, equipped with the latest high-quality electronic equipment capable of detecting objects moving at a distance of 200 kilometers, the authorities considered this place anomalous and strongly recommended to avoid it. Complete loss of the destroyer, was just incredible. The search continued for more than a month of a warship, and was used the most modern means, but no trace of the ship and failed to find.

Pimiko/Himiko

Game: Dr. Whitman examines ruins with Lara. He would study some of the figures, suggests that the locals once worshipped the Japanese deified the Queen of Pimiko having control over the forces of nature.

Reality: Pimiko really existed and was a shaman queen of Yamataikoku. However, in the game she was created in the style of Amaterasu – the goodness of the Sun.

Himiko or Pimiko lived in secret sacred place on the territory of ancient Yamato. She was a witchcraft and knew how to fascinate a crowd. She worked as a "state shaman", influencing natural phenomena to ensure the welfare of her country. She communicated only with women, and all her life she stayed unmarried. The people immensely honored her, and after the death of Himiko they fiercely fought for the honor to take her place, while after 30 years after a new ruler not change Himiko. Himiko’s life is shrouded in mystery - some sources claim that the reason is a magical manipulation she often used to change the course of history. Even today the Imperial family of Japan does not give a license to a number of researches and it means a lot.

Lost Kingdom of Yamatai

Game: People trapped on Yamatai and no one has ever managed to escape outside, any supernatural storm breaks the ship and down to the ground any aircraft.

Reality: The location of Yamatai-koku is one of the most contentious topics in Japanese history. Generations of historians have debated "the Yamatai controversy" and have hypothesized numerous localities, some of which are fanciful like Okinawa.

The 1960s through the early 1970s witnessed what the media proclaimed as a "Yamatai boom" as the debate became a national obsession Suddenly everyone was clamoring to claim Himiko.