Sphinx helps children get '40 Winks'

On Friday night, a group of girls, ages 6 to 12, spent the night among the ancient artifacts in the University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

The girls were participating in “40 Winks with the Sphinx,” a sleepover program that introduces children to the more fun aspects of the University Museum. The program occurs sporadically throughout the year.

Participating campers go on an expedition around the Museum in the evening until it’s time for bed — when they get to sleep next to the sphinx.

Campers first played a game called “What in the World,” according to Assistant Director of Special Events Tena Thomason. Different cultural artifacts like Eskimo snow glasses were shown, and the children had to guess what it was used for and where it was from.

Following that orientation to the program, campers could choose from four activities, like an Egyptian hieroglyphs workshop, scavenger hunt or yoga class, Thomason explained. The night concluded with a flashlight tour, when participants explored the exhibits in the dark.

Although the program doesn’t occur every week, Thomason explained that families often request to use “40 Winks” for birthday parties.

The program “introduces kids to the Museum as less of a stuffy building full of old things that nobody cares about,” explained College senior Samantha Cox, who runs a station with human bones and a Peruvian mummy.

She said her favorite part of “40 Winks” is seeing everyone in their sleeping bags in the Museum’s Lower Egyptian Gallery.

“Everyone is really tired by that point, but you can tell that everyone had a good time,” she said. “I’m just jealous that I don’t get to sleep next to the sphinx.”

Thomason said the idea for the program developed a while back, and it was launched when the movie Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian was released last spring.

The mission of the program is to “give our public another way to experience the museum,” she added. “Just how do you often do you get to sleep in front of a sphinx?”

Leslie Anne Warden, a graduate student of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, has been involved with the Museum for her entire Penn career because of the close linkage that it has with her studies in Egyptology. Now she teaches the Egyptian Hieroglyphs workshop and helps with various aspects of the program.

“It’s so much fun to take the kids through the mummy room at night,” she said. “I love showing the kids and their parents the objects and the space in ways they never would have thought of seeing them.”

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