Schuyler Jones, the traveling archaeologist who has been likened to Indiana Jones, has died at the age of 94

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Schuyler Jones, the American traveler whose exploits earned him comparisons to the iconic movie character Indiana Jones, has died at age 94.

Jones’ stepdaughter, Cassandra Daluz Vieira Manion, posted on her Facebook page that Jones died on May 17. She added that she had been taking care of him for the past six years and “really believed he would live forever.”

“He was a wonderful man who lived so much life all over the world,” he wrote.

Daluz Vieira-Manion did not immediately respond to messages from The Associated Press seeking comment.

Jones grew up near Wichita, Kansas. His younger sister, Sharon Jones LaFerentz, told the Wichita Eagle that her brother visited every state in the country before entering first grade thanks to their father’s business, which supplied shoes to Army bases.

Jones wrote in his autobiography published on the University of Edinburgh website that he moved to Paris before World War II, where he worked as a photographer. He also spent four years in Africa as a freelance photographer. In his 1956 book, “Under the African Sun,” he recounted how he survived a helicopter crash in a market in In Salah, Algeria, the Wichita Eagle reported. After the helicopter crashes, he realizes it is on fire. Hurricane winds reignited the ashes of his pipe.

“The camels roared and ran, scattering piles of firewood in all directions,” Jones wrote. “Children, Arabs, and veiled women ran away or fell into the dust. The goats and donkeys went crazy as the circling, roaring beast descended in their mist… The pilot and I sat weak and relaxed on the ruins of the Ain Salah market and laughed out loud.

He later moved to Greece, where he earned a living translating books from German and French into English. He decided to drive through India and Nepal in 1958. He said he fell in love with Afghanistan during the trip and then enrolled at Edinburgh to study anthropology.

“He was more interested in the people and cultures he discovered than in photographing and selling it,” his son, archaeologist Peter Jones, told the Wichita Eagle.

The similarities between Jones’ character and George Lucas’ character Henry “Indiana” Jones Jr. are striking. In addition to their family name and work — Indy’s father, Henry Sr., was an archaeologist, as was Schuyler Jones’ son Peter — they were both language experts and wore brown fedora hats.