MUNCIE — Just because she is an archeologist does not mean she carries a whip and fights Nazis like Indiana Jones.

She’s never seen a cultist tear the heart from a man’s chest.

Nor has she witnessed a Biblical ark unleash spirits of death against any who looked upon them.

And no, she has not found the Holy Grail.

Being an archeologist is not as glamorous as Hollywood hypes it up to be, said Beth McCord, acting director of archaeology at Ball State University.

Archaeology is the central theme of the Indiana Jones movies, the newest of which, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” opens today. This is the first movie to feature the whip-cracking, snake-fearing archeologist since “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” in 1989.

The films depict Jones, played by Harrison Ford, traveling around the world and undertaking exciting adventures.

But true archaeology is not the kind of thing one will find on film, McCord said, unless it is a documentary.

For instance, her work involves surveying the sites of state and federal construction projects in Indiana. She is responsible for making sure those projects do not disturb any areas of archaeological or environmental significance. She recovers data from the construction sites and compiles that data in reports.

True archaeology is much more scholarly than it is depicted in the movies, she said. An archaeologist’s time is mostly consumed with research.

“It’s not very ‘Hollywood,’” she said. “I don’t go around shooting guns.”

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Background for the title ‘Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’:

A legend says that the ancient Mayans possessed 13 crystal skulls that, when united, could summon the power to save the world.

Experts dismiss the hundreds of existing crystal skulls as fakes made by antique traders. Few of today’s skulls can be documented any further back than the 1860s.