page_title: The Red Sea Sharks
section_title: Background and publication
hierarchical_section_title: The Red Sea Sharks / History / Background and publication
caption_attribution_description: Al Khazneh is one of the most elaborate temples in the ancient Jordanian city of Petra. As with most of the other buildings in this ancient town -including the Monastery- this structure was carved out of a sandstone rock face. It has classical Greek-influenced architecture, and is a popular tourist attraction. History Al Khazneh was originally built as a mausoleum and crypt at the beginning of the 1st Century AD during the reign of Aretas IV Philopatris. Its Arabic name Treasury derives from one legend that bandits or pirates hid their loot in a stone urn high on the second level. Significant damage from bullets can be seen on the urn. Local lore attributes this to Bedouins, who are said to have shot at the urn in hopes of breaking it open and spilling out the "treasure"—but the decorative urn is in fact solid sandstone). Another legend is that it functioned as a treasury of the Egyptian Pharaoh at the time of Moses (Khaznet Far'oun). Many of the building's architectural details have eroded away during the two thousand years since it was carved and sculpted from the cliff. The sculptures are thought to be those of various mythological figures associated with the afterlife. On top are figures of four eagles that would carry away the souls. The figures on the upper level are dancing Amazons with double-axes. The entrance is flanked by statues of the twins Castor and Pollux who lived partly on Olympus and partly in the underworld. In popular culture The Treasury has appeared in many Hollywood movies, gaining particular fame after being featured in climactic scenes in the popular 1989 film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, in which it is represented as the entrance to the final resting place of the Holy Grail near Hatay. More recently, the Monastery (Arabic: Ad Deir), which is also located within Petra and often confused with The Treasury, appears in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) as the hidden Tomb of the Primes. In the film, the location of the structure was originally thought to have been in Egypt, but dialogue within the movie suggests it to be in modern-day Jordan. Ancient Megastructures: Petra, a television series from National Geographic Channel, is dedicated to the Khazneh, explaining how it was created through human resourcefulness and courageous endeavour. The Treasury is also depicted in Hergé's The Red Sea Sharks, one of the Adventures of Tintin, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, Sky 1 travel series An Idiot Abroad, and the history series The Naked Archeologist. In Ubisoft's 2007 videogame Assassins Creed, the relief where Altaïr confronts the Templar Grandmaster Robert de Sable in Solomon's Temple appears remarkably similar to, and is modeled after, the Al Khazneh Treasury [Wikipedoa.org]
context_page_description: The Red Sea Sharks is the nineteenth volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comic series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. The story was initially serialised weekly in Belgium's Tintin magazine from October 1956 to January 1958 before being published in a collected volume by Casterman in 1958. The narrative follows the young reporter Tintin, his dog Snowy, and his friend Captain Haddock as they travel to the fictional Middle Eastern kingdom of Khemed with the intention of aiding the Emir Ben Kalish Ezab in regaining control after a coup d'état by his enemies, who are financed by slave traders, whose leader is Tintin's old nemesis Rastapopoulos.
  Following on from the previous volume in the series, The Calculus Affair, The Red Sea Sharks was created with the aid of Hergé's team of artists at Studios Hergé. Influenced by Honoré de Balzac's The Human Comedy, Hergé used the story as a vehicle in which to reintroduce a wide range of characters who had first appeared in earlier instalments of the series. The story dealt with the ongoing trade in enslaved Africans across the Arab world.
context_section_description: Hergé was inspired to develop the plot for The Red Sea Sharks after reading a magazine article detailing the continued existence of the slave trade within the Arab world, in which it was claimed that African pilgrims headed to Mecca were being enslaved during the journey. Hergé included a reference to this slave trade in the story's original French title, Coke en Stock ("Coke on Board"), which referred to the slave smuggler's use of "coke" as a codeword for the enslaved people.
  Prior to writing the story, Hergé had read Balzac et son monde ("Balzac and His World"), a 1955 book written by his friend Félicien Marceau. Intrigued by the work of Honoré de Balzac, Hergé was inspired by the way in which Balzac kept reusing characters from his previous stories and he subsequently adopted this trait for The Red Sea Sharks, in which a wide range of characters from The Adventures of Tintin make a reappearance. Hergé also introduced a new character, the Estonian pilot Piotr Skut, who would later reappear in Flight 714 to Sydney.
  To produce accurate illustrations for the Ramona, Hergé and his assistant Bob de Moor traveled aboard a Swedish cargo vessel, the MS Reine Astrid, from Antwerp to Gothenburg and back, during which they took photographs and drew sketches. Hergé had also collected press clippings depicting the Christina, a motor yacht owned by the Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, and used them as the basis for his depiction of Rastapopoulos' ship, the Sheherezade.
  The aircraft, cars, and machinery that appear in the story were drawn by Roger Leloup, one of the members of the Studios Hergé. In one scene in the latter part of the story, Hergé included a 
  frogman, whose depiction was drawn from a press clipping of Lionel Crabb. His depiction of the Emir's hideaway palace cut from the rock was based on the Al Khazneh in Petra, Jordan, which he had seen in an issue of National Geographic.
  Hergé's growing interest in art was reflected in the story, as he included a copy of Alfred Sisley's Le Canal du Loing at Marlinspike Hall. He also included paintings by Pablo Picasso and Joan Miró aboard Rastapopolous' Scheherazade. Muller's pseudonym in the story, Mull Pasha, was based upon the British soldier Glubb Pasha. In the final scene, Hergé included cameos of both himself and his friend and colleague Edgar P. Jacobs.
  The story began serialisation in Belgium's Tintin magazine in October 1956, before being serialised in the French edition of the magazine from December 1956. It was then published in book form by Casterman in 1958. Upon the story's British publication in 1960, Coke en Stock was renamed The Red Sea Sharks.
caption: The Treasury (Al Khazneh) in Petra depicted in the book
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