Steven Spielberg's 1981 adventure film "Raiders of the Lost Ark" opens in "South America" in 1936, actually Peru. The Peruvian jungle sequences were shot in Hawaii, while the stone temples were constructed on a soundstage at Elstree Studios in England. The film's famed opening sequence sees Professor Henry "Indiana" Jones (Harrison Ford) trekking into said Peruvian temple -- a temple lousy with spiders and booby traps -- to retrieve a golden Idol left standing on a stone alter in a long-hidden antechamber. This near-mythic object was clearly well-protected by the long-dead tribes that put it there, as still-functioning traps fired spears or darts into any potential interlopers. Once Indy retrieves the idol, it is promptly stolen by a rival archaeologist named Belloq (Paul Freeman). 

The idol doesn't play a role in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" beyond that opening sequence, and the film never stops to explain exactly what it is...