Antiquity – (M.A.)

Contents

The six pathways share a common core: a research skills module, training you to a professional level in bibliographic research, project development, information management and retrieval, oral presentation, active listening, and a range of subject-specific skills tailored to each pathway (eg, numismatics; introduction to critical theory; ancient document handling; textual criticism; working with antiquities).

Partnering this module is a seminar course, which engages academic staff and students collaboratively in discussion and analysis of key interdisciplinary research themes, linked to participation in our international seminar series. All students also undertake a 12,000-word dissertation, with expert supervision. Each pathway focuses on one key aspect of the subject, in small group seminar classes.

In addition, all students choose three optional modules from the full cross-pathway suite available (offering the opportunity for interdisciplinary study). Examples include Myth and Text, Age and Gender in Roman Culture, ‘he Ancient City: texts and Imagination, The Material Culture of Greece, and ancient language study (eg, Greek, Latin, Egyptian, Akkadian, Sumerian).

Pathways
* Ancient History This is the study of the concept of the individual in history, exploring what personality and individual consciousness might have represented though the study a range of literary and historical texts: primarily focusing on the first century BCE onwards.

* Classics This takes Herodotus’s extraordinary travelogue/history of the interaction between Greeks and Persians as a way of exploring Mediterranean identity, and assessing the literary and stylistic features of one of the most influential and controversial Classical authors.

* Classical Archaeology Studying approaches to the archaeology of Greece from prehistory to the Roman period will open up contemporary developments in the theory and practice of archaeology.

* Egyptology We tackle the key period from 1100–200 BCE, covering the dramatic shifts in power and ideology as Pharaonic Egypt clashed with Persia, with Alexander the Great, and finally came into contact with the new superpower: Rome.

* European Archaeology The emphasis is on using contemporary developments in the theory and practice of archaeology to tease out how and why Europe generated complex societies from 1000 BCE onwards, and to interpret what remains.

* Roman History and Archaeology The cities of the Roman world provide a touchstone for tackling the material cultural and historical traces of one of the world’s greatest empires. Case studies focus on interdisciplinary study of textual and archaeological evidence.