Indiana Jones and the Great Circle: A Guide to Solving the puzzle of the 50 relics in Iraq

If you've made it all the way to the Ziggurat of Ur in Iraq, you're about to see the end of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, followed by its first credits scene. By now you know what the story is about, and along the way you've picked up a few ancient relics (or all of them, if we've accompanied you with Gamereactor's guides).

Little to no spoilers left at this point: These artefacts are millennia old, predating all the civilisations in the game, apparently created by the Nephilim and related to the Great Circle and the 17 stones sought by Sturmbannführer Emmerick Voss.

If you got all the relics in Egypt, you will also know that these gadgets actually function as keys. They can be inserted into a kind of set of rows and columns arranged in panels on the wall, which in turn serve as keys to open large stone doors.

With all this in mind, you are now ready to tackle the ultimate puzzle of ancient relics, the one you find on the right hand side as soon as you reach the bottom of the Mesopotamian ruins. But before you can complete the puzzle, you need to have all 50 relics...

How to get the first 49 relics in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

As mentioned above, in our dedicated guides, we have collected how to get all the relics in the game, adding tips and tricks for each area. If you reach Iraq with fewer than 49 relics, you must first use the Travels option in the menu to go back to previous chapters/locations and get them all.

1. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle: Guide to Finding the 10 Vatican Relics


2. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle: Guide to Finding the 15 Gizeh Relics


3. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle: Guide to Finding the 24 Sukhothai Relics

Where is the 50th relic in the Ziggurat of Ur in Iraq?

The 50th relic in the game is a bit special because, although you might see its location clearly, it won't let you grab it on the first try. It will put the honey on your lips for you to come back later to get your hands on it.

Why do we say this? If you look at the map inside the ziggurat, the last relic in the game is in the top right corner of the map, at the northeast end of the excavation. This involves going around Noah's Ark on the right (yes, by now you've seen this impressive finding) and sneaking unseen, or shooting your way, into Voss' tent:

The small problem is that, as soon as you set foot inside the tent, you'll trigger a crucial cutscene that will lead you irrevocably to the game's final scenario, the ensuing final battle, and the first credits roll. And to make you even more uneasy, during the discussion between Indy and Voss in the tent, the ancient 50th relic is blatantly displayed on the table, just to make your mouth water:

"You found the ark of the covenant but I have found Noah's ark" - Voss.

But don't worry. Finish the game, finish Voss, enjoy the spectacular denouement at the Ark's helm, in Lake Hammar and watch the first credits scene, an homage to Spielberg and company.

When you finish or skip the credits, you will appear back where we started this guide: just down the ziggurat's lift shaft. Now you can go to the far end of the map (and all the defeated Nazis will still be down) and get what you're missing: a document listing the minerals in the 16+1 stones and your coveted final relic. Take it and return to the puzzle wall, in the secret chamber east of the lift.

How to solve the 50 relics puzzle and unlock Indiana Jones and the Great Circle's secret ending

With the 50 ancient relics finally under your belt, you can tackle the great puzzle-key for which they were conceived thousands of years ago. Don't try to get cocky, as Han Solo would say, by trying to solve it with fewer than 50 because, as far as we know, it's just impossible.

First, let's review the rules of this fill-in-the-blanks game we wrote down in Gizeh:

1. You don't have to follow any specific layout or reference, so don't look around or consult your diary. The only thing you have to do is to make sure that all the holes in the panel are occupied by a protruding stone.


2. The second thing you need to know is how these Ventolin-like devices work. If you turn them to the right, they fill their entire row and column, but if they find a gap in the grid, they will stop their task. If you turn them to the left, they will make a square or circle around it, even if there is a gap.


3. Last but not least: you can place relics where a bump has already emerged! Indy will push it in and the new one in its place will do its job.

The difference between this large puzzle and the one in Giza is that it is itself made up of four more complex panels. The golden rule you need to know is how many relics you need per panel, and in our experience, you will need 11, 12, 13 and 14 relics respectively. We had estimated that we should use about 12 per panel, but the difficulty is increasing from left to right and we find it impossible without saving a relic in the first panel.

Now you can spend some time solving all four panels with these tips. If you get stuck or desperate (we understand, it's one of the hardest puzzles in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle), here are our solutions:

Panel 1: 11 ancient relics

The easiest of the four. It only has three relics to the left. Our solution:

Panel 2: 12 ancient relics

Things are starting to get complicated. We came out with 13 relics at the first attempt, but then we managed to get it down to 12:

Panel 3: 13 ancient relics

This one is hard enough and we were not able to get below 14-15. The key is in the circles, so to speak. Our solution:

Panel 4: 14 ancient relics

The most complicated of all, you can easily spend an hour solving it. You have to calculate the circles very well. Our solution:

Congratulations! With this puzzle completed, you have solved The Riddles of the Ancients, arguably the most extensive quest in all of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. And now the door opens...

What does the second ending of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle mean?

Completing the 50 relics puzzle is the way to unlock the game's bonus post-credits scene. It's actually a single shot in which you see that, after the final showdown, Noah's Ark has actually ended up on some snowy peak lost to the world, perhaps in the Himalayas like the Nazi warship?

The footprints in the snowy ground suggest, however, something else: did the giant Locus survive the divine blast and the magical teleportation? It would seem so. After all, in the final scene Indy makes it clear to Voss that he was not chosen by God for the pre-flood Ark assignment. The Nephilim, who survived the flood and apparently made it to the present day, were destined to handle the stones and take the helm of destiny...