Goofs

The Erma/Volmer machine pistol - the submachine gun used in several places in the film - is the MP-40 (Machine Pistol, model of 1940); the handguns used by the Germans are the P-38 (Pistol, model of 1938), neither of which was in use in 1936.
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There is a globe on the desk in the classroom. The globe depicts various countries of Africa that didn't exist in 1936.
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The Afrika Korps didn't exist until 1941.
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Indy is traveling to Asia on board a Short Solent 3 flying boat, introduced in the mid 1940's. This aircraft was once owned by 'Howard Hughes' and is now in the Oakland Aviation Museum (CA)
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When Indy and Marion travel from Nepal to Egypt, super-imposed over the map showing their route, is a Douglas DC-3. The DC-3 first flew on 17 December, 1935. The first aircraft of this type were delivered to American Airline during 1936. KLM Royal Dutch Airline also received their first DC-3 in that year, and from August 1937 used it on their Amsterdam-Batavia (now Jakarta)-Sydney route, replacing earlier Fokker aircraft. The majority of all the 300 to 400 DC-3 airframes built before World War II were in fact flying for American, Eastern, United, and TWA airlines within the U.S., and it would have been very unlikely to find one flying between Nepal and Egypt in late 1936.
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When Indy ambushes Nazis in the mountain pass on the island, he is uses what it is a modified Chinese Type 56 copy of the RPG-2 - Soviet-made shoulder-fired rocket launcher. Anti-tank rocket launchers weren't even being developed at the story's time line of 1936.
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Indy's secondary pistol, a Browning Hi-Power, is a model made by Inglis of Canada. While the Hi-Power was designed in 1925 and began production in 1935, Inglis did not begin production of the Hi-Power until 1944.
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In the car chase scene, when Indiana pushes a car off the road into the trees, the driver curses in German. However, his mouth forms the English form of the word.
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After Indy and Sallah have discovered the Ark within the Well of the Souls, they pack it in a crate and it is hauled out by the workers. As it is being lifted up, Indy says, "Alright, take it up. Easy!" yet his lips don't move, and, anyway, he's looks down, away from the crate and therefore can't critique the job of the workers.
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While discussing the history of the Ark, Indy refers to Mount Horeb as "Herob."
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If the idol is made of pure gold, and the bag (which is to be a substitute) contains sand, it is way too light. Gold is about 10 times heavier than sand, thus the bag had to have 10 times more volume than the idol. Thus, Indy's trick doesn't work and the boulder falls down.
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Position of medallion's chain when Marion pulls it out of her blouse.
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The staff is supposed to be 60 inches tall (6 kadams = 72 inches, minus 1 kadam). The pole that Indy inserts into the hole in the map room towers over his head, indicating (incorrectly) that Indy is less than five feet tall. The laserdisc edition disproves any claim that he's standing on a lower step.
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During the basket sequence, the sweat marks on Indy's back shrink and grow from shot to shot.
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Blood on the truck windshield when Indy is shot in the shoulder.
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Luggage rack detaches itself from the truck when Indy collides with the water trough, but it's fixed in subsequent shots.
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The water on the driver's-side window during the truck chase scene comes and goes between shots.
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When the slab is removed from the roof of the Well of Souls, we can see that it fits into a network of supports. When the ceiling is shown from below we should see a cross pattern of supports as well as the slabs, however we only see the slabs. There is no interior support for the slabs.
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During the scene where Indy shoots the large swordsman, he arrives with his right shoulder facing the swordsman, but immediately in the next shot, his left side is facing the swordsman.
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When Indy is at home, preparing to leave to search for the Ark, he unrolls a handgun from a cloth. The handgun is poised to fall into one hand but the next second it's in the other.
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During the "Desert Chase" when the chase moves out into the open desert, a shot of the front of the vehicles shows the reflection of trees in the windshield.
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The students in Indy's lecture hall change positions in various shots. The student with the apple, seen coming down the far aisle when the lecture ends, is clearly sitting in the middle of the front row earlier in the scene. The girl who has written on her eyelids is in the middle of the room when Indy first sees her but in the row by the windows later.
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When Indy is at home packing his suitcase, he is wearing a robe with a dark red collar and cuffs with some sort of stitched pattern. In the shot from above his shoulder where he pulls the gun out of the cloth, the collar and cuffs of the robe are quite different. They are a brighter red and they seem to be smooth with no stitched pattern. In the following shot where he throws the gun, he is back in the original robe.
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When the Flying Wing begins to turn in a circle, Marion shoots the Germans arriving by truck. Then the Flying Wing clips off the top of one of the gas truck's tanks spilling gasoline toward the aforementioned, eliminated Germans. We then cut to Indy struggling with the muscle-bound German, and then to Marion shooting at some other gas tanks causing them to explode. In the wide shot that immediately follows, the gas truck's tank has not yet been clipped by the Flying Wing.
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During the classroom scene, the globe on the desk is centered on the Europe and Africa regions of the Earth regardless from which angle it is viewed from.
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When Indiana is in the map room he takes out his journal when looking at the symbols on the ground. When he takes the journal out there is a pencil in the binding, but when he closes it, the pencil is gone.
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During the "basket chase", Marion climbs into a basket and pulls the lid partially closed. However, the next cut shows the lid fully closed.
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After Marion talks to Indy at the bar, she is seen drinking and looking at medallion. The chain goes from around her neck in one shot to dangling onto the table in the next shot without her removing it.
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When Sallah and Indi are having the headpiece translated, the telescope on the balcony switches from pointing right to left between shots.
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When Indy is fighting the giant Sherpa by the airplane and gets a punch to the face, the impact of the punch makes him spin in the wrong direction.
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In the classroom, the male student who gives Indy the apple is clearly seated in the front row. As class is dismissed, he is in the third row, by the windows, wearing a suit jacket. And when he gives the apple to Indy, the jacket is now draped over his arm.
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(at around 58 mins) At the beginning of the market/fight scene in Cairo, Indiana is clean-shaven. Toward the end of the scene, he has about two days' worth of stubble.
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When Indy is pointing a bazooka at the ark, Belloq grabs a machine gun from one of the German soldiers, with his left hand on the trigger. In the next shot, it is his right hand on the trigger, before immediately switching back to the trigger being in his left hand again.
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During the truck chase, you can see a camera on the windshield inside of the convertible.
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When Indy and Marion leave the Well of the Souls, a person is clearly seen lying next to where they exited. He's lying very still - looks like a corpse (another rival of Indy's?) - but he's missing a few moments later during a medium shot that show the same exit (the wheels of the "Flying Wing" are in the foreground).
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Several of the snakes used in the Well of the Souls scene are Burmese pythons and Reticulated pythons - neither of which are native to any part of Africa.
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There are many flaws with the U-boat sequence. The class of boat is wrong - U-26 was a Type IA, but that shown is a Type VIIC (this is because the film reused the replica of U-96 from Das Boot). Neither the Type IA nor VIIC - nor any of the principal classes - would have been capable of carrying the Ark, due to limited storage space and access hatches that were too small. The Captain clearly orders the U-boat to dive ("Tauchen"); however, a lack of a constant air supply, much reduced speed and limited capacity for the electric motor batteries meant that U-boats only submerged for defense, attack or in heavy weather - none of these apply here. Nor did U-boats sound a 'diving' klaxon. A cut scene shows Indy hiding aboard the boat by clinging to the periscope. However, as explained the boat would not in reality have dived, and even when it did it would not have run at a sufficiently shallow 'periscope depth' the whole time. On the surface, at least four men would have been on watch at all times. Even if he could have remained hidden while the submarine remained above water he would have died from exposure. The trip would have taken many days to reach its target and he would have died of thirst long before then. Thus, however Indy tried to smuggle himself aboard the boat, he would have either been spotted or drowned.
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Indy flies from Nepal to Cairo on-board a Douglas DC-3 which makes stopovers at Karachi (Pakistan - part of India in 1936), Baghdad (Iraq) and finally arriving in Cairo. With the exception of the Baghdad-Cairo stretch (about 800 miles), all of these flight stretches (which range from 1200-1500 miles) are way too long for the DC-3's maximum range of approximately 1000 miles.
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During the fight at Marion's bar in Nepal, Toht is seen to spill a bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey on the bar and ignite it. The alcohol content in Jack Daniels is too low to ignite.
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While tradition has it that only ritually pure members of Jewish priestly families were able to even touch the Ark, let alone carry it, nobody is seen touching it directly (except when it's opened); it's either carried on poles while covered with cloth or inside a packing crate.
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The flying wing aircraft is more akin to the Junkers G 38 that came out in the late 1920's till WWII. Especially look at the landing gear, general shape and appearance. It was a flying wing based on Prof. Junkers own patent that predate Jack Northrup's theories that the Horton Brothers used for their Ho 229.
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Toht would need more than the imprint in his hand to replicate an approximate of the amulet. He would need to know the dimensions and properties of the crystal, including the cuttings on the surface, otherwise it would not refract and focus a beam of sunlight on exactly the right place (assuming he had the correct length of the staff). Since they were digging in the wrong spot anyway, having an incorrect approximate of the amulet would further give them an incorrect location.
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Glass wall between Indy & Marion and the snakes. Some, but not all examples have been erased in the 2003 DVD edition.
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When Indy is sliding underneath the truck, the trench that was made to prevent the stunt actor from striking the vehicle can be seen.
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As the entrance to the Well of Souls is being sealed, you can see Marion's lips count down before she screams.
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When Marion is shooting at the German soldiers from the gunner's seat in the German plane, the bullets clearly hit the ground at the soldiers' feet, yet they react as if they have sustained hits above the waist.
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Immediately after the truck chase, Indy pulls into a market square and the peasants help him thwart the Nazis. In this scene, the character of Toht, sitting in the passenger seat of a Mercedes, can be seen in the wide shot played by the actor, Ronald Lacey. But in close-up, it appears as if his hat is just propped up on top of his coat as though the actor was not available, and no stand-in could be found; so they just propped his costume up in the seat and hoped nobody would notice.
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When Toht is menacing Marion with the hot poker from the fire, one of the Sherpa henchmen is clearly wearing prosthetic makeup around his eyes, presumably to make the Western actor's rounded eyes look more Asian in appearance.
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When Indy jams the whip handle into the German truck's frame, the paint is worn off from previous takes.
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