Is the Dial of Destiny real?

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is set to take us along for the ride as Harrison Ford's adventurer comes out of retirement for one last quest. 

All the Indy films have had some sort of powerful artifact at their core, be it the Ark of the Covenant from Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom's Sankara Stones, Last Crusade's Holy Grail and the Crystal Skull from the fourth film, and Indiana Jones 5 is no different. 

This time around, he's setting off on a new adventure with his goddaughter, Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) to retrieve the titular Dial of Destiny, a device that is said to have the power to change history. But is the Dial of Destiny real, and if not, what is the Dial of Destiny based on? Find out below. 

Is the Dial of Destiny real?

The short answer is no. The Dial of Destiny is a fictional device that the film says was built by Archimedes in 213 BC (hence its nickname, the Archimedes Dial), and it's said to be capable of finding fissures in time itself.

Even though the Dial of Destiny may not be a real artifact itself, it is still based on a real device known as the Antikythera mechanism, the remains of which were recovered by sponge divers over a hundred years ago from a shipwreck near the Greek island of Antikythera. 

As explained by Live Science, the mechanism has sometimes been called the world's oldest computer for its ability to perform astronomical calculations and help track the movements of astral bodies like the sun and some of the planets; it was even capable of telling when the Olympics were set to take place!

Scholars have been trying to get to the bottom of the mechanism's exact purpose, though many questions remain unanswered to this day.

In production notes for the film, director James Mangold explained: "The moment I knew the movie was about time, opportunities missed, opportunities lost, choices made, irrevocable mistakes, then the question [became], What would be the only thing that would allow me to fix time itself?

"The research that I found about the Antikythera, rumored to be an invention by Archimedes, has been speculated to be a kind of time compass.” In the same set of notes, Harrison Ford said the device was 'a genius choice' for the movie's MacGuffin, adding: "Archimedes Dial, big bold, concept. I think it was a genius choice. Other items that we've used in the other films always had a religious aspect to them—Sankara Stones, Holy Grail, Ark of the Covenant. But this was fooling with the nature of science."

Naturally, all this makes the Dial of Destiny sound more powerful than the device that inspired it. Let's hope Indy doesn't let it fall into the wrong hands!

Who was Archimedes?

Archimedes is touted as the inventor who built the Dial of Destiny (and it's been speculated that he created the Antikythera mechanism, too). 

He is a famous ancient Greek mathematician, astronomer, scientist and inventor who lived in Syracuse (then a Greek city-state on the island of Sicily). Among his discoveries was Archimedes' principle, a law of buoyancy, and he is cited as the inventor of the Archimedes screw, a device used to this day to raise or move water.

Judging by one of the clips from Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Archimedes' work with fluid mechanics is set to factor into Indy's latest adventure.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny hits theaters on June 30 and will release in the UK on June 28, 2023. Tickets for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny are on sale now.