2011-2012 Academic Year

Ancient History (20009)

Degree/study: Degree in Humanities
Year: 1^st
Term: 3^rd
Number of ECTS credits: 4
Hours of student dedication: 100
Teaching language or languages: Spanish
Teaching Staff: Marina Picazo, Meritxell Ferrer

1. Presentation of the subject

Ancient History is a first year subject, mandatory to all students. It is given during the third term and lasts for 10 weeks.

Ancient History is an introduction to the study of the past in the cultures that developed in the Ancient Mediterranean Sea during the first and second millenniums BC. It focuses mainly on the historical processes that took place in the city-states appeared in the Mediterranean, from the basin of the Aegean Sea (the polis and the Greek colonies) and from the city of Rome. As for the latter, the focus of interest is the formation and development of the Roman Empire that, eventually, occupied the whole of the Mediterranean basin. Given the expansionist nature of both the Greek and the Roman cultures throughout the first millennium BC, a central issue in this course are the colonial meetings between the colonial powers and the native populations from the rest of the Mediterranean. This issue holds an interest, not only to the study of Ancient History, but also as a comparative reference of the colonial systems developed in other historical periods and up to nowadays.

From a methodological point of view, this subject introduces students to knowledge methods that depend on written and archaeological resources. Furthermore, the study of Ancient History creates links with other disciplines of the Humanities, such as Geography (the knowledge of the landscapes and the uses given to land in the Ancient World being essential), Art History (with the analysis of forms of representation and images), and, of course, Literature.

2. Competences to be attained

General competences

Specific competences

1.      Information analysis and synthesis skills. 2.      Analytical reasoning skills. 3.      Reflexion and argumentation skills. 4.      Group working. 5.      Sensibility towards social and gender issues. 6.      Written and oral skills in one's own language. 7.      Recognition of the social and cultural diversity of human beings in the past and in the present. 8.      Sensibility towards environmental issues. 9.      Sensibility towards patrimonial conservation and diffusion.

1.      Showing knowledge of the work methodologies characteristic to History. 2.      Showing skills in the management, interpretation and processing of information from written sources. 3.      Showing skills in the management, interpretation and processing of information from archaeological sources. 4.      Showing knowledge of the technical historical and archaeological vocabulary, as well as ability in using it. 5.      Developing an analytical and independent mind towards the issues, debates and problems posed by Ancient History. 6.      Acquiring an analytical awareness of the relation between past and present. 7.      Acquiring an analytical awareness of the diversity of history. 8.      Understanding and rigorously arguing the emergence of the city-state in the Mediterranean. 9.      Understanding and rigorously arguing the Greek and Roman expansion around the Mediterranean.

 

3. Contents

Content block 1: First complex societies of the Aegean Sea

·         Unit 1: From myth to history: Knossos Labyrinth

·         Unit 2: Schliemann and Mycenae

·         Unit 3: The collapse of the Minoan and Mycenaean palaces   

Content block 2: The Dark Ages and the beginning of the polis

·         Unit 1: After the palaces: the Greek settlements in the Dark Ages

·         Unit 2: The 8^th century BC revolution

·         Unit 3: The Greek colonisation

Content block 3: The Greek cities from the archaic period

·         Unit 1: The Spartan polis

·         Unit 2: The conflicts between social classes in the archaic polis

·         Unit 3: Cleisthenes' reforms and the beginnings of the Athenian democracy

Content block 4: Rome from its beginnings to the Ancient Republic

·         Unit 1: The origins of Rome

·         Unit 2: The social structure of archaic Rome

·         Unit 3: The republican political constitution

Content block 5: The construction of the Roman Empire

·         Unit 1: Rome and the Mediterranean in the last centuries of the first millennium BC

·         Unit 2: Army and Romanisation

·         Unit 3: The final conflicts of the Republic and the beginnings of the Roman Empire

  

*The full version with the sections 4. Assessment, 5. Bibliography and teaching resources, 6. Methodology, and 7. Planning of activities is available in the original version.