Indiana Jones Secret of the Queen Mother elevator and animal stone puzzles

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Secret of the Queen Mother yellow generator for elevator with note attached to it
(Image credit: Bethesda)

The Indiana Jones Secret of the Queen Mother fieldwork tests you with powering up an elevator and unlocking a tomb with some stone discs at a Nazi dig site. They’re not especially complicated puzzles but do require a lot of walking around. This quest from Omar is also a lot less clear if you don’t have the easy-to-miss dig site map – in fact, even Omar is easy to miss, and you can complete the entire quest before even talking to him. Regardless, here’s how you use the elevator and complete the Secret of the Queen Mother in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.

Indiana Jones Secret of the Queen Mother map location

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Secret of the Queen Mother Indy holding map near Omar's tent showing where the dig site map is

(Image credit: Bethesda)

While not critical to completing Secret of the Queen Mother, grabbing the Khetkawes Dig Map will help you get your bearings in this complicated area of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. You’ll find it on the desk with three canopic jars under Omar’s tent. If you’ve not found Omar, he’s just outside the northwest corner of the red restricted area on the map covering the Funerary Temple of Khentkawes I – almost directly south of the meteorological station where the Indiana Jones Cloud Atlas code puzzle is.

Since this is a restricted area, I highly recommend progressing the main Idol of Ra quest enough to the point where you can access the Indiana Jones Wehrmacht key and uniform as this’ll let you act like you belong.

How to turn on the elevator in Indiana Jones Secret of the Queen Mother

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Secret of the Queen Mother yellow generator for elevator with red and blue cables coming out of it

(Image credit: Bethesda)

The first major puzzle to solve is powering up the elevator that leads down into the tomb. Head to the elevator in the middle of the dig site and you’ll notice a yellow generator next to it with a red cable and a blue cable attached but going off in different directions. All you need to do is follow each cable until they reach a switch, then pull the lever on the switch to reactivate the power to that cable:

Indiana Jones Secret of the Queen Mother red cable

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Secret of the Queen Mother switch at the end of the red cable

(Image credit: Bethesda)

When following the red cable in Indiana Jones, you’ll eventually end up in a large room with lots of wooden scaffolding:

  1. Follow the cable all the way across this room and then up some steps.
  2. At this point it’ll dip under a hole in a wall, so you need to walk around the upper level to join up with it again in a landing area, which is where you’ll find the switch.
  3. Finally, continue following the cable across the scaffolding to reach the exit gate.

Indiana Jones Secret of the Queen Mother blue cable

Keep following the blue cable in Indiana Jones until you reach a flooded room with no clear way to reach where the cable goes on the other side:

  1. Get in the water and swim through the hole in the wall, then carry on into the next room to rejoin the blue cable.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Secret of the Queen Mother flooded room with exit circled while following blue cable

(Image credit: Bethesda)
  1. Climb up the scaffolding on the right side of the room and you’ll find the switch.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Secret of the Queen Mother switch at the end of the blue cable route

(Image credit: Bethesda)
  1. To leave, head out the gate at the far-left corner.

Once you’ve switched on both cables, you can power up the elevator by throwing the switch on the yellow generator. Once the lift arrives, hop on and select -1 to descend into the tomb of Khentkawes I and find the final pieces of this fieldwork puzzle.

Indiana Jones Secret of the Queen Mother animal stone puzzle explained

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Secret of the Queen Mother stone glyphs with animals on them set into ancient Egyptian mural

(Image credit: Bethesda)

Wander through the tomb and you’ll emerge into a large room with an ancient Egyptian mural on the back wall with three holes cut out. These slots are for three disc-like Stone Glyphs with animals on them, so your first job is finding all three discs:

  • Snake stone: On the desk to the left as you enter this room. It also has the Dig Report note on it.
  • Fish stone: On the table against to the right, almost directly opposite the snake stone.
  • Falcon stone: Right in front of the mural on the floor.

Now you need to place them in the correct slots. The falcon goes in the top slot, the snake goes in the middle slot, and the fish goes in the bottom slot to match the air, land, and sea pattern on the mural.

Once you’ve done that, the eye at the top of the mural will shine a light at a fragile wall. Grab one of the sledgehammers lying around and smash the wall, then crawl through the gap to reach a hidden chamber containing the Light Stele.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Secret of the Queen Mother light stele reward in the hidden chamber

(Image credit: Bethesda)

After that, use the elevator to get back up to the surface, then return to Omar and tell him about your findings. He’ll say you should give the Stele to Nawal (or the delivery boy for the “Belongs in a Museum” side quest) and that concludes the Secret of the Queen Mother, netting you 375 Adventure Points.

Delving into tombs and solving puzzles is what makes Indiana Jones and the Great Circle one of the best adventure games you can play right now.

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Leon Hurley
Managing editor for guides

I'm GamesRadar's Managing Editor for guides, which means I run GamesRadar's guides and tips content. I also write reviews, previews and features, largely about horror, action adventure, FPS and open world games. I previously worked on Kotaku, and the Official PlayStation Magazine and website.