Top 10 Christmas Gift Ideas For Mini Indiana Joneses

Hark! As you’ll have spotted from the preponderance of tacky lights in your local high street and abundance of dodgy perfume adverts on your TV screens, Christmas is approaching. Deck the whatchmacallit with that stuff, and tra la la la la etc.

You may be wracking your brains trying to come up with suitable stocking fillers for youngsters right now. Forget X-Boxes, selection boxes and, um, other types of boxes – here at Heritage Key, we would naturally recommend presents of an ancient world or archaeological theme – there are plenty of great ones out there, from Lego Indiana Jones, to Valley of the Kings board games, beginners metal detectors and dig-your-own-dinosaur kits.

Here’s our top ten, a few of which, judging by the enthusiasm at Heritage Key for Playmobil Egypt, might do as prezzies for young-at-heart adults too.

1. Lego Indiana Jones

It’s a dream crossover capable of provoking frankly irresponsible levels of excitement in a child: one of the big screen’s greatest adventurers – and fiction’s most famous archaeologist – represented in the form of Lego, probably the greatest toy brand of all time. There are sets based on many of the best scenes from across the three original films, and also that rubbish new one – including the fight on the flying wing, and the classic mine cart escape from the Temple of Doom. Whoop!

2. Playmobil Egypt

Playmobil is the classic kid’s toy brand that just keeps on giving. One of their latest new ranges is the Playmobil Egypt collection, which includes all from a jumbo Great Pyramid to a Nile boat and a dinky Sphinx with a hidden compartment in its chest.

Dr Hawass might have a thing or two to say about their archeological accuracy, but even he’d surely be beaming if he unwrapped one of these in his jim-jams on Christmas morning.

3. National Geographic Great Pyramid of Giza Building Kit

Fear not if you’ve no idea how the most famous and enduring of the Seven Wonders of the World was built – the answers are all contained in the handy instruction manual that comes with National Geographic’s Great Pyramid of Giza Building Kit. Use real kiln fired bricks and soluble mortar to construct Khufu’s iconic tomb, without a slave labourer, bucket of super-cement or contentious ramp in sight.

4. Playmobil Romans

Bored with your Playmobil Egypt set by Boxing Day? Then subject them to a bloody historical conquering with the Playmobil Romans. Legionnaires, centurions, battle chariots, warriors ships, battle towers – all the necessary components for a brutal invasion, Roman-style, are available.

There’s even a horse drawn cart with a prisoner cage, on which you can transport enslaved Egyptians to an arena and toss them to the lions. They think of everything do Playmobil.

5. University of Cambridge Metal Detector

A beginners metal detector may be just about the most valuable Christmas present you could give a loved one this Christmas: as the examples of the Staffordshire and Stirling hoards proved in 2009 – metal detecting can pay, in spades (you’ll need one of them too by the way).

This one can extend to a length of between 60 and 100 centimetres, and claims to be “highly sensitive with electronic audible and visual signals”.

6. National Geographic Egyptian Archaeology Kit

So your youngster wants to be the new Zahi Hawass (and let's face it, few wouldn’t)? Here’s a good starter kit for getting them on the road to Egyptian archaeological glory. Included are such vital and thrilling tools for a young budding treasure hunter as: a sponge! Sand paper! A measuring spoon! A paint brush! And – best of all – that all important “wooden strip”! Warning: blue denim shirt and fedora not included.

7. Realm of the Viking Bounty Dig and Discover Kit

This kit might be even more exciting than the Egyptian archaeology set, were than possible. Kids can dig up treasures of the ancient Vikings with real tools, then clean them with real chemicals (fear not, parents, goggles are included). There’s all the necessaries too to “recreate mystical Viking treasures.” Perfect for aspiring little Bjorn Ironsides.

8. Kidz Labs Dig A Wooly Mammoth Skeleton

The perfect present for an aspiring Paleontologist, this set allows you to excavate the skeleton of a “mysterious prehistoric animal” (it’s not that mysterious – it says Wooly Mammoth on the box) from a plaster block then put it together to form a dinosaur model.

In the same range are a T-Rex and a Velociraptor – build the whole bunch and start your own museum.

9. Dig and Play Egyptian Tombs

Part digging-up-mysterious-treasure-style educational toy, part board game, Dig and Play Egyptian Tombs (kind of a cross between entries 7 and 10) is all about going in search of the undiscovered burial chambers of the pharaohs in the Valley of the Kings. First you scrape some buried

treasure out of a plaster block with a digging tool and brush. Then you use your Egyptian Tomb map, counters and dice

to compete with mates to find the graves of King Tut and co.

10. Valley of the Pharaohs Board Game

Board games – remember them? Here’s one with an Egyptology theme.

The Scepter of Amun-Ra is the prize at stake, as contestants play as archaeologists, battling it out in face of blinding sandstorms, desert bandits and blocked passages (hey, we all get them from time to time) to see who can locate the ancient treasure hidden somewhere in the desert.

Watch out – there’s a rampaging mummy on the loose (and we don’t mean the one telling you it’s past bed time).

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