FAYETTEVILLE, Ark.—There are shelves of notes and photos from excavations alongside maps of churches and tombs in Professor Jerome Rose’s office.

Books line the walls, and several carts carry a few 4-inch binders stuffed with notes. There is no Holy Grail or Ark of the Covenant to be seen. In fact, there is not a single artifact in the office. Yet Rose, chairman of the Anthropology Department at the University of Arkansas, is definitely an archaeologist.

He’s a real version of Indiana Jones, the fictional archaeologist who dodges bullets, arrows and booby traps in search of powerful artifacts, featured in director Steven Spielberg’s four-part series. But the only thing Rose said he has in common with the dashing Jones is that he owns a bullwhip and fedora.

“Really, that’s too bad because then (archaeologists) could always get the girl,” he said with a laugh.

Rose runs excavations with colleagues and students in places like Egypt and Jordan. He collects data through those projects and puts information together to tell stories about ancient peoples and civilizations. Indiana Jones’ work is not even close to what real archaeologists do, he said.

“The movies portray treasure hunting, and it did actually exist like that in the first decades of the 20th century, but treasure hunters were never the good guys,” Rose said.

As Spielberg’s newest installment, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” makes its theatrical debut, Rose and his colleagues at the university say Jones’ adventures are fun and romantic, but they are pretty far from the true practice of archaeology.

“In all honesty, I always thought of Indiana Jones as a relic hunter or a thief,” Dabbs said.

Rose said that doesn’t mean the study of ancient cultures is by any means boring. He has spent time excavating tombs of ancient Egyptian pharaohs and nobles, and he even did a study of modern-day grave robbers in which he talked with the actual robbers and discussed why they did what they did and how much money they make off the trade.

“We give students a chance to see some really great stuff,” he said.

There are some less glamorous sides to the profession, though. Rose said archaeologists must take extensive notes during excavations and at the end of each one they must turn those notes into a story documenting their findings.

Unlike Jones, who gets a tip or has a parent kidnapped to start an adventure, real archaeologists plan a dig by coming up with questions they want to answer throughout the excavation, Rose said.

George Sabo, a UA professor of anthropology and a member of the Arkansas Archaeological Survey, said archaeologists spend about three days in a lab analyzing data for every one day in the field.

“Archaeology is a process, and it has a lot of steps,” he said. “The acquisition of artifacts is only one element of many.”

The rugged Jones—as well as Harrison Ford, the man who plays him in the movies—does help the profession sometimes. According to the Archaeological Institute of America Web site, Ford was elected to the national group’s board of directors this month, and he regularly supports the real-life study of archaeology.

The university faculty members say they encounter students majoring in archaeology because the hero’s adventures inspired them.

“Every semester I have at least one student who said they wanted to do what Indiana Jones does,” said Gretchen Dabbs, a UA anthropology graduate student.

She said she tries to let them down gently with the truth.

Sabo said he thinks it’s great when students join the major to be like Indiana Jones. He also thinks it’s a matter of days before those students figure out that Jones probably wouldn’t be able to pass a freshman-level course in anthropology because his profession is so different from the real deal, he said, but he thinks that, by that time, the students will already be hooked.

“It attracts more people to look deeper into the subject,” Sabo said.

Rose said the department’s yearly class on ancient Egypt is always full, and it’s usually not just archaeology or anthropology students.

He said he hopes the movies do not inspire people to run out and dig up artifacts on their own. Trained professionals are the best-equipped to excavate historical sites and artifacts, he said.