While we’re stuck at home and away from the Disney Parks, we found it to be a good time to go through the terabytes of photos we have from around the parks and organize a bit. To that end, we found that we took a lot of photos of Dok-Ondar’s Den of Antiquities that we never really got around to posting. As a matter of fact, we have a lot of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge photos that we need to find a home for, but that’s another story.
Today, we wanted to kick off a series of an unknown number of posts called Dok’s Den. In Dok’s Den, we’ll go through as many relics as we have photos of from Dok-Ondar’s Den of Antiquities and do a write up on their backstory. We’ll typically have a few different relics in each post, but for our first post we wanted to focus on one item in particular – the wooden bas-relief that each and every guest walks by when entering the Den.
Who is Dok-Ondar?
We’ll start with perhaps the first question that most guests ask: Who is Dok-Ondar? Put simply, Dok-Ondar is a collector. Dok-Ondar has traversed the galaxy in search of rare and valuable treasures to turn a profit. Of course, that makes him the perfect Ithorian to set up shop in Black Spire Outpost. Dok-Ondar has hired everyone from Hondo Ohnaka to Han Solo to retrieve rare goods, and has set up shop right in the middle of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge to separate you from a few credits (dollars) during your visit.
Instead of focusing on what’s for sale in Dok-Ondar’s shop, we’re going to focus on those items that are too rare to have a price tag…yet.
Emperor Palpatine’s Bas-Relief
We’ll start at the entrance to the store, and perhaps a piece that is often looked at, but often overlooked. Right when you walk through the circular entrance, you’ll find a bas-relief of an ancient space battle.
This unique piece has quite the backstory, depending on who tells it. From Disney’s perspective, it is simply an “ancient battle” as the Star Wars Legends (or Expanded Universe) and the battle that it depicts didn’t really happen as we know it. Legends is separate from Canon, so a lot of the backstory isn’t really official since Disney purchased Lucasfilm and discarded a lot of content. From the other point of view that takes Legends into account, it depicts The Great Hyperspace War.
As legend has it, The Great Hyperspace War was a war fought between the Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire. The conflict encompassed the entire Galactic Republic and the bas-relief depicts a battle between light side and the dark side, along with a variety of beasts. The details are impressive and we’d highly recommend taking some time to appreciate them if the store entrance isn’t too busy.
Because the piece showcases both the light side and the dark side, visitors to Emperor Palpatine’s office interpreted the art differently. Many Jedi saw the piece as a nod to the ultimate victors in the battle, the light side. It is said that the artwork is actually a statement of Palpatine’s belief in Sith superiority.
One unanswered question in all of this is: How did the piece come into the collection of Dok-Ondar?
While comics and books alike have given a backstory to how some items were collected, this impressive piece has yet to have an official story created for it. If capturing a baby Sarlacc can earn a comic, we definitely think that obtaining artwork from Emperor Palpatine deserves a story.
To end this post, here’s a look at the bas-relief as installed in Emperor Palpatine’s Suite from Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith.
Check back with us for another installment in Dok’s Den soon!
As always, keep checking back with us here at BlogMickey.com for the latest Disney Parks news and photos. We’ll continue to bring you news and photos, where possible, through the Disney Parks closure due to Coronavirus (COVID-19) and will resume our normal coverage once the parks reopen to guests on July 11th!