Ancient explorers

ALTON, Ill. -- Pam Elie entered the temple at Luxor in Egypt at the full moon, a rare event that placed the moonlight directly above her.

"When you walk into the temple of Luxor, there are two great walls you walk through," Elie said. "At certain times, the full moon will come up and be directly above the doorway. It was supposed to be a special thing they built for it. It doesn't happen every year."

But it happened in 2000, when Elie and hundreds of fellow students, professors and community members went to Egypt and Greece on an educational trip to study the ancient world.

Southern Illinois University-Carbondale professor Robert Hahn has been running the Ancient World Experience trips for 23 years. Open to the public as well as students and teachers, the SIU trips go to Egypt or Greece for two weeks of immersion into ancient cultures.

For Elie, it helped guide her career. The Alton resident had graduated from SIU-Edwardsville two years before with a degree in art history, and was working at the Humane Society. Now, she works at the St. Louis Art Museum and is pursuing a master's degree in ancient history at SIUE.

"One of the first things we did was go into the Great Pyramid," she said. "It was magnificent, the size of the bricks in comparison to your body."

The difference between the SIU trips and an ordinary tourist trip is the company, she said.

"You have a variety of people with different areas of expertise, and it makes it a lot more interesting than just one tour guide," Elie said. "It's a lot more fun than sitting in class talking about it."

Hahn said the accompanying professors come from a variety of specialties: art, architecture, archaeology, sociology, philosophy and others. Each professor directs a hands-on activity: recreating an ancient trial at the site of an Egyptian court, looking at Greek vases and practicing making one themselves in a potter's shop.

"In Egypt, we even recreate a mummification ritual," Hahn said.

Hahn calls it a "philosopher's program."

"We're dealing with the big ideas -- ideal forms of government, what constitutes the good life, what happens after death," he said. "You can't really have a debate about what happens after we die without drawing on people who have a variety of experiences."

That's why the trips are open to the public, he said. They usually run about 60 percent students to 40 percent residents of all ages, including schoolteachers.

Nancy Ruff, an English professor at SIUE who coordinates the Edwardsville campus' participation, called it an "intensely educational experience."

"Every year is just as wonderful as the year before," Ruff said. "The fact that we have a broad range of people is another really nice feature, like traveling with an extended family. We learn from one another."

The trips cost $4,380 to $4,480 per person, all-inclusive. That price puts it out of the reach of many students, though there is some scholarship money available, Hahn said.

"I'm still looking for a patron to fund the 10 best students," he said.