Ancient History and History

Ancient history and history is a combination that extends the study of the past from the earliest civilisations of the Mediterranean world through to the modern era, giving you both the specialist skills needed to engage with antiquity and the broader historical sensibility to understand how ancient societies have shaped and inspired later periods. Ancient history draws on a distinctive range of evidence, including inscriptions, papyri, material culture and literary texts, requiring methodological skills that complement and enrich those of the modern historian. The combination allows you to see how ancient civilisations provided models, myths and precedents that have been interpreted and reinterpreted across centuries.

At the University of Southampton you will study this three-year full-time programme, engaging with global views on ancient, medieval and modern history within a research-active department. You will examine historical empires and cultures, study literary transformations, and develop an understanding of past societies across very different periods and geographical contexts. Southampton's teaching draws on faculty expertise across ancient, medieval and modern history, and the combination of ancient and modern allows you to develop a genuinely wide historical range.

The typical entry tariff for this programme is around 136 UCAS points.

You will develop skills in archival and primary source research, historical argument, reading ancient languages in translation and engaging with archaeological evidence, alongside the broader research and writing skills central to historical study. The combination of classical and modern historical methods gives you an unusually flexible intellectual toolkit.

Graduates of ancient history and history programmes enter a wide range of careers. Museums and heritage organisations, teaching, the civil service, journalism, law, publishing, the third sector and management are all common destinations. The research, analytical and communication skills the combination develops are valued across many professional contexts.

Postgraduate study in ancient history, classical archaeology, history or museum studies is a natural progression for those who wish to specialise.