Ancient Legacies

While appointed at Brandeis University in the Department of Philosophy and the History of Ideas, and jointly at Harvard University in the Division of Continuing Education, Professor Hahn brought the two paths together to create the unique, interdisciplinary, team-taught travel abroad program Ancient Legacies, based on the inquiry “what does the ancient world still have to teach us?” The Ancient Legacies program that began at Brandeis/Harvard continued for 40 years at Southern Illinois University and enrolled more than 1,200 participants. When Hahn brought the program to an end in June 2023, he had personally led 67 different 1/2 month programs to Greece, Greece & Turkey, and to Egypt.

In Greece, participants discussed the Olympic Games and ran a short Olympic footrace in an ancient stadium; they studied vases and votives in the museums and then had an exercise at a local pottery workshop to try to produce similar forms; in an ancient bouleuterion they recreated the trial of Socrates from a translation of Plato’s Apology that Hahn and his staff produced; they learned to make seasonal sundials on the beach as part of an introduction to ancient astronomy; and they performed an ancient play in an ancient theater with costumes and masks they made themselves.

In Egypt, participants reconstructed models of the Great Pyramid out of sugar cubes to test three theories of pyramid construction; they erected a breakable obelisk to explore whether the ancient Egyptians made scale models; they learned how to produce tomb paintings using the red-grid techniques; and every year they recreated a mummification ritual thanks to the cooperation of one of the students in the group.

Ancient Legacies Travel Program Videos