Ancient History (MA)

Deadline for submitting applications: August 1 - November 30

Who the programme is intended for: The programme is intended for graduates of any Bachelor’s degree programme.

Subject matter of the entrance examination: Assignment on predetermined topics.

Waiver of the entrance examination: The entrance examination can be waived for applicants who have passed the Bachelor’s examination in the field/programme of Ancient History at the Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University with an excellent (A), very good (B), or good (C) result. The entrance examination may also be waived for applicants whose overall result of the Bachelor's State Examination in programme of Ancient History at the MU Faculty of Arts was assessed as “passed with excellent results”. Applicants can ask for a waiver for the entrance examination via the e-application form, section "Application for waiver of the entrance examination".

Website Department of Classical Studies.

General information on the course of the admission procedure to the follow-up Master’s degree programmes at FA MU can be found here. Documents for the current admission procedure are kept in Materials for Applicants.

Pass/fail line of the entrance examination: 40 points (out of 60).

The Master’s degree study programme in Ancient History offers a deepening study of the history of the ancient world, namely of the area of the Near East, India, China, ancient Greece and Rome. It enlarges the student’s capacity to understand different developmental stages of the oldest history of humankind and its characteristics, to seek out analogies and differences between individual civilization areas and draw general conclusions on ancient development from them. Greater attention is paid to the methodology of research of ancient history and to the work with historical sources in the original, if possible. Besides further linguistic training (Latin, ancient Greek, Akkadian, Sumerian), the widening study of selected auxiliary disciplines of ancient history (papyrology, epigraphy, numismatics) and the methodological introduction coupled with the basics of textual criticism help students in advanced reading of sources. The emphasis is put on practicing the student's skills of interpreting various kinds of ancient sources.

Some courses are conceived as cross-sectional thematic units in order to allow orientation across history (e. g. sacral kingship, position of the ruler in ancient states generally, ethics of ancient civilizations, comparing ancient legal systems etc.).

The students are trained to understand broader context of historical processes, to formulate independently issues pertaining to ancient history and to make independent methodological approaches in solving the issues; courses with interactive form of teaching (e. g. the students specify or define various terms of ancient history in discussion with the teacher) serve that purpose; they are trained to be capable of professional work in their field and of conducting a scientific debate.

The Master's degree programme presents also a possible entry to doctoral studies of Ancient History.

After successfully completing his/her studies the graduate is able to:

• elucidate the specifics of the ancient development of humanity in Europe, and both Near and Far East
• evaluate correctly and describe the input of Antiquity to the foundations of contemporary society and to the ethical standards of humankind; compare private and public life in Antiquity and today, the role of gender differences, social structure
• work with sources of a given period at a high professional level, prove an appropriate level of knowledge of selected source languages, apply a critical approach while reading sources
• work with foreign scholarly literature, electronic databases and various sources of information independently
• write scientific papers in the field of ancient history
• take part in public debates on topics to which an ancient historian's opinion is relevant (e. g. the issues of democracy, civil society, the sense of state and law, migrations or the role of religion in history)
• consult translations and other works concerning ancient history and write reviews of them
• provide an expert commentary for visitors of ancient monuments
• deal correctly with methodology of selected periods of ancient history and selected groups of sources

The graduates of Master's degree programme in Ancient History can find jobs in education, including the further education of teachers; in public and state service; in diplomatic service; in the cultural sphere (museums, galleries, libraries, archives, and the education of young people in various interest groups); in tourism; in publishing houses of books and scholarly journals; as consultants for films and other artistic works with ancient history as the theme, as translation consultants on ancient historical works or as translators and commentators of ancient literary works.

A standard scope of a Master’s thesis is 140,000 characters including footnotes, content, index, list of literature, and annotations. Student chooses the subject of the thesis according to his/her own preferences, either from the set of subjects already available in the Information system or in discussion with the potential supervisor. The Master's thesis demonstrates a good ability of the student to orientate himself/herself in the scholarly literature written on the subject both domestic and in particular foreign and evaluate critically specialized texts. They should apply the relevant theories and methods and apply them on their own work. They should be capable to work with Latin or Greek or eventually ancient Oriental primary sources, and to formulate and defend their own conclusions.

After completion of the Master's studies of Ancient History the graduate can continue in a doctoral degree programme (after satisfying the admission requirements), e. g. History, Archaeology etc. Preferably there is the possibility of the ensuing doctoral degree programme in Ancient History.