Ancient Religions (MA)

This unique multidisciplinary Ancient Religions (MA) programme provides a comparative analysis of different religious traditions across the ancient world, beyond Greece and Rome as far afield as ancient Egypt, Celtic Britain and ancient China.

You will have the opportunity to debate the origins of organised religious practices and explore the earliest temples in southwest Asia, engage with the religions of the Bronze Age Mediterranean, meet the gods and goddesses of ancient Egypt, and explore the sacred landscapes of north west Europe. Other modules will introduce you to the myths of ancient Greece and Rome, cosmology, magic and divination in the classical world and the texts of the Old Testament.

The programme is very flexible to suit your research interests.

What you will learn

The Ancient Religions (MA) offers students whose interests centre on this field the opportunity to take a specialist higher degree tailored to investigating evidence for religious practices and beliefs in diverse cultural contexts: Neolithic southwest Asia, Bronze Age Mediterranean, Celtic, Egyptian, Jewish, Graeco-Roman, and ancient China.

The programme enables students to gain a clearer understanding of the interrelations of religion and society in a cross-cultural perspective and so better enables them to understand multi-religious worlds. Moreover, students will gain a wider understanding of the cultural economic and social forces underpinning the ancient world and these ancient ideas and practices in particular. It draws upon a variety of methodologies and theoretical perspectives taken from Archaeology and Anthropology as well as from the textual traditions of ancient China, the Classical world and Old Testament studies.

The scheme allows you to study a wide range of modules covering a wide range of ancient religions, giving you a choice to shape the programme to your interests.

The traditional requirement for entry onto a Level 7 programme is a 2.1 or 1st class undergraduate degree. In addition, the Faculty encourages students with an equivalent and appropriate professional qualification or significant and relevant professional experience to apply.